The Least Common Denominator

XVII.III Cartesian Plane

My knees buckled as I found myself kneeling in front of what I now knew to be my parents' graves. Undeserved relief flooded throughout my body as I realized that I didn't have to face my parents' corpses anymore. But the short-lived relief was quickly surpassed by the growing confusion that was building up in my head. I couldn't even fathom how this had been erected, and when. And the most important question was still left unanswered:

Who did this, and why?

There was just no way that the nearest town could have even managed to see what had happened. While our family frequented the markets as both our source of food and income, we hadn't really made enough of a connection to the point that someone other than ourselves even knew where our house was located. As far as I was concerned, there were only three people that knew this place even existed.

"Wh