"I've never seen him this way."
For the first time, I saw Raye with a morbid look on her face. She was always happy, bright, and cheerful.
But tonight, with Jeron lying unconscious in front of us with too many wounds on his body, the emptiness in her eyes made a cold pit open in my stomach.
I barely knew Jeron, but seeing him like that struck me hard. Maybe it was also because I'd seen the brutal deaths of my loved ones right in front of me. Raye knew Jeron far longer, and I knew they'd been real friends to each other, so this must be even more shocking for her.
I didn't know how to comfort her at all.
Jeron lay on a low bed draped with clean linen. Clean, but it was already blooming with russet stains where the wounds seeped through, spreading in irregular shapes like some cruel artist's brushstrokes.
