T E N E B R A E
On my body, the grace of shadows
and in my heart: all Hells
and in my heart: all Hells
Tenebrae sees the way Azrael shudders, the way the mention of death brings those bones to life. He remembers how the island rose up to swallow down all those who had visited it.
Still Tenebrae can feel the way his heart beat as he fled. It has never known flight like it. Everything was strange and wrong that day. The screams of the now dead feel like only a sigh away. The dead are close, so terribly, tremblingly close.
The stranger asks is he was there and for a long moment Tenebrae is only silent. Yet within the confines of his mind the island is sinking again. It is a python swallowing itself down, down, down. “Yes,” the Disciple answers bleakly. Suddenly the waterfall has lost its beauty, the stars in the sky are no longer bright suns burning but fireflies, barely able to keep themselves alive. The air is chill with sober memories. There are horses screaming as they fall only to never rise again.
The shadows turn to ghosts, faces of those he knows are dead. They wander aimlessly, stuck in this island, this liminal space between the living and the dead.
Even knowing it’s not real, it feels real. Tenebrae turns to look at the man, the way he spoke was reverential. This island deserves no reverence, no matter its beauty. “How do you know it’s not real?” the monk returns, speaking of the island, of the ghosts. It all looks so very real indeed.
Taking a breath, Tenebrae turns from the silver, glittering waterfall, rich with fantasy. “You seem new here. Where are you from?’ Slowly he looks over the galaxy coat of the other stallion. It mirrors the stars above them, the galaxies that reach out their tendrils to one another.
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