The Spoiled Girl

No matter how loudly Tina screamed, Mark did not react. Her big brother, who had always obeyed whatever she said, and resolved whatever trouble she stirred, didn't listen to her now.

Looking at his pale face, she lowered her head to his firm yet cold chest. Desperately she listened for a heartbeat, but there was nothing except the echoes of silence.

There was not a sound to be heard.

His body had already begun to stiffen as rigor mortise set in.

This completely frightened Tina. She drew his corpse into her arms at once to try to warm him but in vain. She trembled as her skin touched his cold form, but she still would not let him go.

"Mark, you can not die. No!

I will save you! I will!

You can't be dead! Do you hear me?"

The salty sea breeze blew over her, and her cries were echoed by the mournful squall of the seagulls that drifted in the gray sky.

Holding him tightly she shivered almost convulsively. Over and over she muttered, "Mark, I'm so cold! Why won't you hold me? Say something! Please say something!"

Choking on her sobs, all of her arrogance, selfishness and malice disappeared. Her voice filled instead with deep sorrow and confusion, which was previously only felt by her victims.

She had always known that in the event that she should die, he would surely follow her into death.

But she had never even considered what she should do if he were to die before her.

Tina had always believed that Mark didn't matter to her. Mistakenly she had thought that he wasn't important.

But now she felt it so painfully.

Her heart was experiencing an agony which she had never known, as if it were being carved up as a piece of venison.

Emily and Jacob's happiness and misery suddenly seemed so insignificant to her now. Too late she realized that all that mattered to her was now lying at her feet, a cold corpse.

"Mark, please get up! I promise you I will never look for Emily. I know that you are jealous. I know how you hate her. We'll go somewhere where no-one knows us. We can live there forever. Just you and me! Can you hear me?"

Now, upon his death, Tina promised him what he had wanted most in life, but he would never hear it.

Regret always came too late, and she now rued asking his help to kidnap Emily. If she hadn't involved him, he would be alive still. If not for his indulgence of her whims, they would be together, living in a

wondered.

'Why did Mark turn into ashes?

Why was this?'

"You promised me you would protect me forever. You promised me you would love me forever. Why didn't you keep your promise? Why!" she shrieked.

When he was still corporeal and there in her arms, she could continue to deceive herself into believing that he was alive. Now faced with his ashes, she tried but failed.

Mark had died

He didn't even leave any last words.

He left the world in a rush. And there hadn't even been a decent funeral for him.

Suddenly the wind picked up and began blowing over the island, scattering the ashes across the ground. It drew up great billows of dust and Mark's remains which were puffed away.

Instantly Tina's raw instinct took over and she tried desperately to grab his ashes into her arms. Instead she only managed to rub it all over her grieving face.

"No! No! Don't take him away! Please don't take him away!"

Although she tried her utmost, she only gathered a few handfuls. The most of the ashes were blown away by the wind, and disappeared into the ether.

"It's incomplete! No! No!"

Tears raged from her eyes until they were so swollen with grief that she couldn't even see through them. She carefully wrapped the measly remains in her clothes and held it tightly, as if fearing someone would want to rob her of it.

She stopped crying for a moment, but then began laughing crazily.

Her sick laughter terrified the locals and they thought that the strange woman had lost her mind. Surely she had become a demon with her gray face, covered in the dead man's remains.