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The sickening sound of Annabel’s bones cracking as her body hit the cold hard floor of the arboretum shook Lenore to her very core.
Annabel’s lifeless body is broken in an unnatural position, with her blood splattered across the ground and even getting on some of the plants and flowers.
The world around Lenore starts to fade away as she fills with a new hollow feeling. This was her fault. She didn’t get to her on time. She let her fall. She was too late.
Memories start to flash in her mind. Of a wedding. A betrayal. Annabel shot dead, right in the heart.
Lenore stares as she hangs from the railings. Looking at the face of her once beloved. Despite the circumstances being different Annabel, or well Annabel’s corpse, is making the same face, lifeless yet shocked, hurt even. Lenore doesn’t know if she should cry or throw up.
Eventually she is hoisted back up by Duke and Pluto, Annabel Lee's murderers and her friends. Duke yells to her about something, why the hell would she try to save the life of their number one enemy. But Lenore isn’t able to fully process the words coming out of his mouth, her mind is preoccupied trying to process everything.
Memories of the past keep on repeating in Lenore’s head, taunting her like demons. Duke and Pluto try their best to get through with her but she just stands there silent and shaking uncontrollably as she is stuck reliving both times she watched Annabel die. Both times she failed her.
In a misguided attempt at comforting his friend, Duke places his hand on Lenore’s shoulder and starts to speak. Most of what he says is lost on Lenore, that is until he utters “-we don’t have to deal with Annabel Lee’s little schemes ever again” that made her lose control and snap.
Without thinking she shoves Duke into the stone wall behind them. Pluto quickly leapt to his aid, helping him off the ground. However Duke is quickly knocked back down by Lenore giving him a hard and fast punch in the jaw. it didn’t matter that deep down she didn’t want to do this to Duke, Lenore was acting purely based on her emotional turmoil right now.
Duke rubs his bruised jaw and looks up at her in a mix of shock and anger. He jumps off of the floor and heads towards Lenore, yelling at her for acting like a mad woman. Pluto senses the physical altercation that is about to take place and quickly puts himself in between his two friends and pushes them away from each other. He scolds them both in a thick accent, and begs Lenore to explain herself.
Lenore's chest moves in and out with heavy breaths as her anger slowly starts to subside. She looks upon Pluto and Duke and hot tears fall from her eyes when the weight of everything finally hits her. She opens her mouth,preparing to spill everything she wanted to ever spill. But she is interrupted by a sudden sharp pain in her skull. Like she's been shot and falls to the ground. Duke and Pluto forget the heated argument they were just having and rush to Lenore’s side to make sure she’s okay.
But she wasn’t okay, she was reliving a new memory. Her final memory. Her death. Duke and Pluto watch on as Lenore finally begins to manifest…