How she found herself staring at the abandoned cabin, now merely a crumbling shell of wooden bones she once called home, was a complete mystery to her. The journey was a blur. She stood there, ruefully fixated on it, and figured, if you’re going to die, there’s no better place than where it all began. This place was the very reason living was no longer an option, so she drew her shoulders back and braced herself, knowing that the moment she set foot inside its decaying skeleton, the memories would come flooding back in and surely seal the deal. There was no turning back; her mind had been made…
The effort it took to trudge up the half-fallen porch, in and of itself, should have had her turning back and rethinking this entire travesty, but she had always been determined…the only decent trait she seemed to have left. She huffed a frustrated breath and drew her knife, the only possession she managed to keep from this Gods-awful place, to hack away the bare, mangled wisteria that now blocked the entryway. It must look beautiful in the spring, a pointless thought, because she couldn’t remember anything about it being beautiful when she was young. Her eyes pressed shut as she embraced the crumbling oak door, and with barely a nudge, it slowly creaked open, as if this dreadful place was welcoming her back home. Her lids pressed down tighter. She could make her way around this cabin with her eyes closed if she had to, Gods knew, she spent the last twenty years stuck within these withering walls, inside her head…
Torture. This place was torture.
…And that was precisely why she chose to come back here to finally end it.