When the Sun Sleeps
I cannot rest when the sun sleeps. The moon mocks me with her hallowed glow. I can hear the whispers of the long dead Night, her inky black blood cries out to her brothers and sisters and father. The pale shadow of her memory calls out for vengeance.
Joseph and Tara know, or at least they should. What? You think I haven't told them? Of course I told them.
The sallow faces strained to peer through the darkness like a lost child wandering through the fog. They are hungry, but they lack the power to feed.
Why would they believe me? I'm just an old man, dirty halfbreed who is afraid of the dark.
They don't care that I am older than their families. I fought against the Thule in the last great war. I survived the Black Death. I remember when the covenant was made. I remember the fall of Night. Do they care, of course not.
The old man rambles on. They think I don't hear what they say about me, but I do. It doesn't matter. The shadows are growing darker, the nights have lost their heat, and the faces watch whether we want them to or not.
Their eyes sunk in so far in their heads the abyss itself stares at you. Their skin so tight, thin, and yellow, not because they are sick or hungry, but to catch the eye of their wandering prey. Horrid creatures given tongue by the preachers of death. There are so many of them. They encircle me every night longing to feed, yet they don't.
Maybe the blood that trickles from their mouth is a sign of their weakness, or maybe they are feeding. A school of terribly slow piranha nibbling at the edges of my soul. I have been weak lately. I counted it to my age, but maybe they are causing me to fray around the edges.
They know that I am watching them. Like Cassandra, I sound the alarm, but who is going to listen to the old man. Maybe they don't have the strength to devour me all at once? So every night, they come and wormed their way deeper into my soul.
Why won't Joseph listen? He should know that the minions of Darkness are out there. They have always been out there, biding their time and looking for weakness.
I can hear them coming again. Like rats in the walls, they are scratching, digging, burrowing their way through. I've come to expect them. They crawl in every night. They aren't afraid of my lamps or my candles. My lights just make them harder to see, but I can still hear them gnawing in the shadows.
Their faces twist and distort in the flickering light. What Eikon have I offended for you to torment me like this? I can hear its growl. I've never been able to hear that before.
Rumbling through the floor and reverberating in the walls, the low, gravelly roar of an angry beast. Is that why they are here?
Have you been burrowing a tunnel, so I might fall into the demons throat? Is that the end you have prepared for me? An ignored prophet devoured by the beast, he tried to warn the people was coming.
Come, then! No matter how many of you pale spirits come to torment me, I will cry out. I will warn the people, even if they don't want to hear it.