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Three nights I've stayed in this wretched town. Three nights of the tormented cries of the gal sat outside the house not one building farther than the tavern in which I write now.
She has all my sympathies.
She had been evicted by her parents the day after I arrived:
"You get the fuck out! You hear? You get the fuck out, now!"
"Dad! Dad! No! Wait!"
Those, plus the odd sentence, were the only words I heard for the next hour after I retreated to the shelter of my room. It is not within my culture to help others, regardless of how I feel. I have my own safety to consider, after all. These were things I thought about as I shuffled papers and paced my room.
A day passed and I saw her laying on the porch. Her tears coaxed despite her now hoarse voice. Our eyes met for the briefest of seconds as I walked towards the horse assigned to take me to the next town over. As I donned my overcoat, I saw more than pain in her eyes. She had been rejected by who mattered most to her yet my gaze could not yield the answer she wanted.
"Why?"
First, she had screamed with her voice. When this failed her, she screamed internally. How long would it be until her mind failed her, too? She hadn't eaten. It was not my job to help.
The third day - just a few hours before now - I spent walking to nowhere in particular. My rationale stands but could never fill the void in my heart. My mother raised me. She didn't raise me well, but she raised me and, sometimes, she taught me to do the right thing. My mother never suggested I be selfless, though. I will help her, but only as long as it doesn't harm my reputation.
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With his pen now laid gently upon his diary, our Hero stands and exits the room. Despite the horror of the Now and Future; everything seems as it would. There are no eerily creaking floorboards, nor has the town been enveloped by impenetrable fog.
So, the Hero leaves the tavern to find the Maiden, who unsurprisingly has vacated her position on the step of her father's house. Baffled, the Hero spins and wrestles with his conscience once more:
"I cannot warn her father. It is not my place to. But where is she? Was she taken? I fear that, if this were my daughter, I would be distraught."
Should he look for her? Shouldn't he? Would you, reader?
With fragile and shaking resolve, he decides and walks down the road he thinks she would most likely have traveled.