The blue marble healed all who touched it. All who lived within the walls of the town of Veil. And it was a secret. A deep secret that haunted families because even if they had someone, like a loved one who lived far away, who needed the marble’s healing touch, they could not say a thing.  If they did, it would mean their death. If they did, it would mean their death.

The marble was protected by a council. A council built up over the years in the middle of the clustered town that let people come and live in it for a price.

A price most were not willing to pay.

It was the price of blood. A price of stolen children. A price of imprisonment for the rest of their gods-given lives.

All to keep a secret. A secret that would help them live forever. As long as they didn’t fall to the simple slip of a hushed whisper.

******

George scrambled to look out the window of his house. There had been sudden screaming that made him spill his coffee all over his red shirt he had fallen asleep in the night before. Now, he stared out into a morning of disorder with confusion prickling at his mind and terror tearing at his heart.

The screaming… it was deafening. Souls in peril gushed out of the wooden slabs of gate that hooked tight to a fence surrounding the town he had never been in. The fence was one that had reached high into the sky for as long as George could remember, closing off the town from the world and from anyone’s view.

But today, the town of Veil’s gate was left open wide, expelling people out. People he had never seen before, even though he had lived in the house closest to the overbearing fence his whole life.

A rush of dread climbed into his throat.

When his wife was alive, she always talked about the mysterious secret town inside the fence. It seemed as if now, years after her passing, the secret had finally been let out.

The coffee on his shirt was beginning to grow cold. Although the screaming had died down to a trickle, the panic in his heart still quaked. He could feel his dying wife in his arms and hear his own screams from that night, begging for someone to help.

No one had come to his wife’s aid.

Each scream from outside was filled with dread, fear, and loss. He recognized what escaped a soul when something once held dear was lost and taken away forever.

The people from Veil had no hope.

He didn’t know for certain what had happened, but George could not leave someone alone inside the town if there were anyone left.

******

George didn’t change his shirt. He also didn’t try to crack a smile as a woman with a broken leg tried scooting herself out through the gates while she held on to some kind of wooden plank, digging it into the ground.

He went to help her, but she knocked him away, terror glazing over her eyes like a blinding film.

It caused him to stumble in surprise as he watched her go.

But he made himself continue on. He had to get inside the town where people still continued to flee.

His heart grew heavy when inside, he encountered a beautiful emptiness. It was as if the vacant streets were begging him to turn around.

From what he could see, no one was left.

He forced himself forward with each of his steps.

Homes with brilliant slatted rose-gold roofs, siding in various shades of blue, and golden rose-colored doors with silver handles faced the street he walked. The street that wasn’t paved but instead cobbled with a thin layer of sand dusting its inner cracks.

Why would anyone want to leave here?

Then he saw them.

People.

Not many. But a few.

Each one was dying or nearly close to death on the ground, their necks stretched back so their cheekbones could take in the sun, their skin resting on the cobbled stone.

But there was no blood like crimson paint. No breakage. No violation. No harm.

Just death. Death encircling a miraculous blue sphere set above them like a god. A giant marble breaking as it held in a crack. A crack that continued to grow, pinching away its light as small bits of it, smaller than any amount of gravel or dust, chipped away.

And next to the marble was a boy.

A boy with golden white hair sitting on his knees, staring up at the morning sky. It wasn’t until the boy turned his cold blue eyes to George that he felt as if the boy were something else. Something otherworldly.

“You are not of here,” the boy stated. He could not have been more than ten years old. When he stood, he lifted his chin but would not leave the marble’s side.

“I heard screaming,” George said.

“Why would you come? Why face screaming of the dead and dying?”

Flashes of his dying wife in his arms came to the forefront of his mind, along with the tears he thought would never end that had burned his cheeks raw that night. He could almost feel the roughness of his hoarse voice that had died out before he realized no one was going to come and save her.

“I was screaming once,” George answered. “And no one came.”

The boy’s eyes grew sad.

“What happened?” George asked.

The boy’s throat bobbed, but his face did not fall. “Something has broken.”

“The marble?”

The boy nodded.

“What does it do?”

The boy cracked a smile, but in it, the man saw the boy’s spirit start to break by how it was faltering. “Never enough. Not for most. But it was and always will be enough for me. I will stay.”

George looked around at the dying, at the dead, and then looked back to the boy whose hair strands were becoming brittle at his scalp and whose skin was growing pale. “Is it killing them?”

The boy shrugged. “Maybe. But it has every right to. It saved them for far too long.”

“But… you… you’re so young. Why don’t you leav—”

“Look at it,” the boy screamed, caressing the crack in the marble as a few pieces broke away, dusting the boy’s skin a deep blue. “It’s suffering.”

“It’s just a marble.”

“And you are just an old man,” the boy snapped. “Just because it’s suffering, why would I leave?”

The boy’s eyes were glossing over.

“Because you will die,” George answered.

The boy shook his head. “People only want from those who give. People will only give to those who give. But once someone is suffering, no one cares. Everyone runs and hides… Life should not exist like that. It should not go on like that.”

He wondered who the boy had lost in his past. He saw pain there, mingled with disappointment and betrayal. George understood. When his wife was alive and well, people, his people, his town had wanted him around too. They had wanted him around when he had happiness to give. But when he was suffering, when his wife had died, no one wanted him anymore. No one had cared.

What had this marble given the boy that made the boy not want to walk away? That made the boy willing to give up his life? All so the marble wouldn’t have to be alone.

George stepped forward and carefully placed his hand on the boy’s head.

The boy’s eyes let loose a tear.

“I will stay so it won’t have to be alone,” George whispered.

“But…” The boy’s eyes unglazed for a moment to look directly at him. “You don’t even know the marble. You aren’t from here.”

“Does it matter? Does it truly matter to know someone or not if we don’t want them to be alone?”

The boy choked back tears, and his chin fell as he looked to the death of his people at his feet.

George picked the boy’s chin back up to speak to him. “I am ready to die. I just need you to promise me that if you ever see someone suffering, that if you ever see someone miserable and alone, that you will love them anyway. Even if they don’t have the happiness to give.”

The boy nodded and would not let his gaze leave the man’s eyes even as patches of pink started forming on the boy’s skin near his nose. George rubbed the rough skin on the boy’s cheek, remembering his own tear-salted skin all those years ago. “Now go. Live. And I will stay here.”

He watched the boy then. The boy stumbled at first before he ran. Ran from death grasping at his feet. Ran from the bodies and the marble that was sucking life from him. Ran to live a better life.

A life where he could love someone truly in need.

George sat down next to the marble that he had never known. It was strange, but somehow, he felt as if he had known it all his life. His wife would have been happy to have known its secret. He couldn’t wait to tell her if he could find her in the afterlife.