Serial Experiment Part 3

This is section 3 of the Serial Experiment I've been doing with Ash Lomen. For info on the experiment and the first two sections, click the links below:

Serial Experiment Part 1

Factory Boys Serial Experiment Part 2

Part 3

Beloved Elsie, child of moonglow
Softer than fresh snow
If only you could know
The warmth that you've brought

Beloved Elsie, fire of destiny
Right hand of insanity
If only you could know the
Disaster you have wrought

Earthlight was singing. Name almost familiar. The voice was Summer rain. Not too heavy to make trouble. No hurry to get home. She would not catch cold. Second verse hurt, but it was strangely nonjudgmental. Simply what she was, whatever that was. She remembered a crowd gathered to watch a frightful looking man, a giant with a heavily scarred face. He was at a podium speaking. Looked scary, but nobody was afraid. In fact, they felt good being near him. They loved him. Without question, without hesitation, with the purest of intentions, they loved him. She felt like crying at the thought that somebody so frightful was so loved. She wondered if anyone had loved her so much as this man who loved and was loved as the Earthlight loved.

Beloved Elsie, brought forth in starshine
You'll understand in time
All of the things that you forget
You could live without regret...

The man who loved and was loved so much shakes, twists, contorts in pain. She hurts too, looking at it. The crowd hurts. Please, he is big, he is old, he is powerful, he will live...someone would have to listen to that prayer, someone would have to know how much everybody needs this man to survive. He gives one last pained look, asking why and knowing that the only one who could answer it would never tell him. Somewhere among the crowd, a bad man smiles. He must have been a part of it. It looks like he really wanted it. Somebody do something. Somebody save him, somebody do something about that man! Either man. The man everyone loves dies and the man who had to be the only one who did not love him flees the scene.

If this mistake has to be made
If this justice is delayed
Open your eyes, don't be afraid...

She opens her eyes. The face she sees is full of fear, full of misery, afraid of the dark, afraid of the light.

"I'm sorry," he says, not knowing what he has to apologize about.