The night was cold... The heavy rain from the storm pattered against the windows furiously, dismissively..
There she lay, lifeless and inanimate, her body dragged helplessly to the dark corner of the destroyed room, her head hanging down, and her pale and distorted features half covered by her tangled hair. Everywhere I turn I see the same image -- her bloodless arms and relaxed form flung by the murderer. Could I behold this and live? Alas! life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated. For a moment only did I lose recollection; I fell senceless to the ground, this has never happened before, seeing a lifeless body, though seeing this particular girl.... changed everything.
When I recovered, I found myself just outside the open door... laying on the steps of my once warm, cosy....happy house. Surrounded by a few people of Bree; their countenances expressed a breathless terror: but the horror of others appeared only as a mockery, a shadow of the feelings that oppressed me. I escaped from them to the room where lay the body of Lieve, my sister, my gem, so innocent, so dear, so worthy. She had been moved from the posture in which I had first beheld her; and now, as she lay, her head upon her arm, and a handkerchief thrown across her face and neck, I might have supposed her asleep. I rushed towards her, and embraced her with ardour; but the deadly languor and coldness of the limbs told me that what I now held in my arms had ceased to be the Lieve whom I had loved and cherished. The murderous mark of the fiend's grasp was on her neck, and the breath had ceased to issue from her lips.
For then I departed, holding her tight in my arms... Taking my gem... To where.... She will be.... at Peace...
