Prompt: wrong emotion

Theme: creep and horror

Words: 144

She was laughing. She was almost, almost happy. This was wrong.

How many thousands of lives had been lost? How many sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, lay cold and rotting outside her door? How many lamps would never be lit again, how many more would die of hunger and grief because mum and dad didn't, couldn't, wouldn't ever come back? How many had she done this to?

And here she was laughing. Laughing at their expense.

The merriment died in her throat and she shrank back, terrified by the sudden, awful quiet of her companions.

Maybe she would be repaid in a cruel twist of fate, driven to sobs by what should bring joy — birth, but only to death; marriage, tied to a man she hated; Home, with her own mum and dad gone.

Mirth didn't come freely; her laughter was poison.