Mason used to have a Midas touch.

Whenever Alaska was around him, she noticed how each thing his fingertips traced was left golden. He constructed this beautiful world around himself, twisting the darkness into shimmering specks of dazzling wealth. He had this way about him, a generosity of spirit. He had a soul emblazoned with enough light to share to all those in a starless haze.

"He made the world a better place." The generic words came from Alaska's cracked lips, split apart with torn skin. Her voice was flat, lifeless as the stagnant hum of Mason's heart monitor the second his battle ended. Eyes of glass searched the crowd before her, observing the people who wept in full altars. Her mother wasn't among them. In fact, Alaska had left the house as quietly as possible this morning to avoid the woman asking where she was heading.

There was his family though, of course. All dressed in black; Mason hated the color black. Sat in the pews with their hands folded together listlessly. Alaska interlocked hallow stares with his mother, and was sure she was peering into a shattered mirror. Fracture lines made both their eyes fragile, and tears threatened to pour through each tiny crack. Maroon and ebony mingled, black for the lack of sleep, and red for the strain crying carried.

Alaska's pain snuck in again, for the tenth time that morning. It was poison injected into her veins, leeching through her blood until there was nothing untainted in her body. Her fingers twitched, threatening to reach up to her heart and attempt to soothe the ricocheting gnawing in her chest. Instead, she traced circles on the back of her own hand as she stood behind the podium, alone.

She glanced at the notecards in her hands, writing which would have looked like scribbles to anyone besides herself. Alaska had stalled on creating the eulogy as long as time would allow. Every time she picked up a pen, her hands shook and words evaded her as the situation was too esoteric for them to describe.

She paused, staring passively downwards at the speech she'd created only a few hours ago. She slid her thumb over the top card, however she didn't know what to say, despite having written it down. Alaska cleared her throat, and tilted her head back up so her mouth was before the microphone again.

As she did so, she flipped over the stack of cards so she saw the blank side.

"It's funny, um-" Alaska cleared her throat, stumbling over her words like a schoolchild stumbled over their own feet. "I was asked to speak at Mason's funeral about a week ago, but I didn't finish my prepared speech until this morning," she said. The church's draft floated through the air like a ghost, and forced a shiver up her spine. Her mouth was dry, and her tongue was clumsy as she forced herself to talk.

Alaska was weighed down by the merciless eyes clinging onto her. Too many thoughts made a labyrinth of her mind, and behind every turn was a pair of prying eyes waiting for her to say something wrong. There were too many things she longed to speak.

Mason's story had ended early. He had pages and pages of unfinished sentences, and jaggedly cut off paragraphs. And that's why Alaska struggled to find something to say- because there were far too many questions she wished to answer for him. And people were staring, forming new questions as she prattled on without a plan.

Among them there was his father.

Keeping up a facade of strength for his family, even the member who was no longer with him. In all the time she'd known the Edison's, they'd never brought up God or spent Sunday in a church until today. But, Alaska had seen him wiping tears off his cheeks as the pastor prayed. And as he asked God to accept Mason's soul into heaven, and keep his memory alive even though he'd never met the boy.

Because when someone you love dies, you forget all of your convictions. That's what Alaska learned the night he died, when she closed her eyes and prayed there really was a heaven. It was the only consolation to such a terrible tragedy. That you were left in sorrow, while the dead ascended to a place better than anything the world could have offered.

"You think you can show up to a funeral, and wear black and it'll be enough to get closure and honor the person you lost," Alaska continued, abruptly diverging from her former string of words. She internally cursed herself as her lip twitched, betraying her and quivering. She pressed her mouth into a line, with the edges tugged downwards.

Her eyes were sullied by a myriad of tears, similar to intricate leaves that were home to dew drops in the early morning. "But it isn't," Alaska murmured, only heard because of the microphone. Each time she spoke she wasn't sure if any sound left her mouth at all. It all was so very foreign. The words, the message, it made her body feel distant. Her teeth wanted to bear down, and prevent the eulogy from coming to fruition as if it wasn't real until it was verbalized.

"It isn't, because a beautiful boy died." Her sojourning vibrance escaped her, and watching the scene was like watching her colors fade. And she was sure that when the coffin was lowered, the last shades she could clutch would drain. "And there's no closure to a life that ended before it could truly start," she said, sucking on the inside of her cheek to quell the flames fervently blistering her face.

"And there will never be enough light in this world to replicate his kind soul," she shakily said in a deep breath. Her shoulder heaved gently, ebbing softly unlike the tide of spiraling grief consuming her. Alaska's callused fingers fell into grooves of her knuckles, cracking them absentmindedly to gain some control over herself. "Or the warmth of spirit," she added, voice tight and ready to break again.

She wanted to believe in a deity that could be more splendorous than the vividness of every person on earth, combined. Alaska longed to have faith ardent enough to entrust to something she couldn't touch. Yet, even a week before his death when Mason asked if she believed in God, she hadn't been able to say yes.

"And no words will ever be enough to honor how deeply admirable his goal were."

Mason's talks about wanting to help others built back in Alaska's head, and she wanted to scream. Or rip out her throat, or anything to soothe the unforgiving sickness of this purgatory she languished in. "Nor will they ever be able to articulate just how generous he was and the happiness he exuded." This was enough to finally draw a tear from her eye, and down her cheek. Alaska attempted to hide her tear by hastily wiping it away, and pretending to move a piece of hair behind her ear.

"And he hated the color black anyway," she said in a hitched breath, that was caught between a laugh a cry. This earned a similarly labored chuckle from some of those in tears across from her. Her trembling hand traipsed across the collar of her dress, over her neck and to her mouth briefly. Alaska was never able to sit still during moments of intense grief, and today was no exception.

"At the end of the day, all we can hope to take from this day is the memory of someone we should have seen graduate, help others, get a family..." she trailed off, smiling in spite of herself. "And in general grow into the person he should have been allowed to become."

Perhaps one day the light of Mason Edison would return to them. In the form of the sunlight warming them in the shadows, or the tune the songbirds sang in trees. Or even manifested in the glower of fireflies at the end of summer.

"And finally, we can promise to remember him, and remain in touch with the beauty he left us before he passed."

~I've never written a funeral scene before, how was it?~

Hello lovely readers! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I know it was sad- I was sad when I wrote it and I think it may have seeped into the atmosphere more than I intended. Anyways, if you did enjoy, please let me know in the comments and leave a vote if you're inclined! I'm sorry it was a shorter chapter, but I felt like it was one of those 'less is more situations'! And with that, thank you so so much for reading and have a wonderful day/night!