I can't believe I've finally managed to bring myself to come here. For years I avoided this place like it was a plague just waiting to engulf me in sickening despair. To be honest I don't know what brought me here today. I just decided to go for a walk on this clear autumn night. I've always loved the feeling of the stars watching over me as I walk to some unknown destination.

But I never would have thought  I would end up back here.  I never  allowed myself to believe that I would see this graveyard again. It's been so long...but I can still remember their faces, their movements, their voices, their smiles, their tears, I remember it all as if these past few years had never passed. But they did, and  I'm now much older, but no less grief stricken.

Silently, and without any hesitation, I walk down a narrow path that most people don't even look twice at. I can't help but wonder if there is some magic or some presence that protects this path from those not worthy, not ready to see what lay beyond.

Reaching the end of the path, I see what I have feared all these years. What I have dreaded ever seeing again. Ten graves, all in a circle, all calling out to me in anguish. Determined now, I walk into the center of them, and slowly look at each of them. With each name I read a new tear falls. I haven't cried in years. Not since...

I fall to my knees, sobbing, shaking, wishing for an absolution that will only come with my own death. But fate it seems has a great sense of irony. It left me here alone, dying each day, but living to see every dawn, when it was I who failed, it was I who deserved to die the most.

"I'm so sorry..." I try to tell them. I know they're listening, I know they're watching. Like the stars watch me from above, so they watch me from below.

I can't concentrate, I can't think. I don't know what i'm doing. I think i'm beating the ground, but that is all I can register. My mind feels clouded. Who am I? What am I? Is it not enough that I have lost those I love the most in this world, but I must also lose myself?

Pain. Searing pain rushing through my hand. It brings me back to reality. Looking down, I realize I had cut myself on a sharp rock that lay hidden in the grass. My hand is bleeding profusely. It seems to be flowing to each of the graves, as if there were a vein in the earth suckling my life force and feeding it to the dead.

"Is this what I have to do? Is this my path to absolution? Is this how I can mend the whole that loss has brought to my heart? Then so be it!!!"

I took the thin, sharp rock and sliced my wrist. The blood flowed even more freely, my life force feeding the hungry dead.The dizziness is starting to take me. Darkness swept over me and it became all I knew. The last thing I remember is someone standing over me, their hand held out to me, and a smile on their face. Then all was gone.

In the years to come, no one else would ever find the cluster of graves. For perhaps the path was protected by some form of magic. Or perhaps fate has its own way of apology.

But if someone had found the path, and followed it, they would have found ten graves in a circle. And in the center of that circle, they would see a skeleton overgrown by grass and moss, resting peacefully. For she was no longer alone.