...

My life flows on in eternal darkness. I am alone, surrounded by shadows, black and red in the velvet night. Darker than the night, the mist, smelling like fresh-dug earth, like the parchment pages of long-closed books, the wind before a storm, the taint of old blood, creeps down upon me, enclosing me in its icy fingers. It probes, entering through my nostrils, my mouth. I breathe it in, letting it become part of me. It swells inside my body, expanding to fit underneath my skin, a curtain of darkness. The mist has won. Nothing can make me lift my head.