Chapter 1

Ten: Dead Home

She's calling me

That shaky whisper overcome by her heavier breath

Weight in her shakes, tightened chest

In my open ear, feeling, almost moving

“They took what's mine.”

That night has faded, where the abyss revealed

Mercilessly

Turning over their heads, all of the spirits we trusted

“It's not safe here.”

They want me to explain

I made my own flood, they told me

Though who gave me the breath?

That outer darkness, drunk on bridling poisons

Torturing who I am with stirnament

Eternal

The leviathan told me,

“I need something made of you.”

“Don't… No– Please– Don't…”

Pulled into a blackened heat, fed ignorance

Those invisible warnings

“You're in a dead home, a dead curtain, go back.”