I only answer to myself. Tell it to think for itself. Tell a lie, spread a rumor, tell me why did I die? I don't remember crying, I don't know the details, only your intricate fingers weaving their spiderwebs across my chest my arms my belly, raking my exposed flesh in anticipation. The feel of thin phalanges is music to my ears, teaming up with each other, sending pools of thrilled energy through marble skin. Cinnamon kisses and the spicy taste of your lips, so different from mortal women. We murmur softly into each other's necks, shedding our clothes to make love. I want it to never end, this joy and wholeness in sleepless starlight.

Clothes of all kinds facinated her. She spent hours in the boutiques of Pickadilly Circus, choosing among the luxurious and the unhip and spending the coins with reckless abandon. Now she wears naught but my hands, our bodies a dirty magazine. Cyanotic flesh ripples with desire, enfolding me in threads of blue. She is buried up to her chin in crushed marble, wisps of sunlit dust choking those glazed lips, those eyes holding me in check, completing my betrayal as I crawl into bed and pull the musty sheets about my arms. Free me, pray to Faith in the darkness that is the homeland of my world. Hushed tones whisper and steal the conversation, the Voices that speak to me. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. It's just another wasted breath, please, please continue.

Darkness nibbled away at my vision. Don't let me drain away, don't let me lose my child, my world, my Sanctuary. The waters of the river Styx is precious and perlious, the ferryman's eyes stony betwixt his brows. His knobby hands are brought forth and he speaks in a fel voice, the sonic vibrations lashing my soul.

"Faith is something that thou hast put into your companions. Is that all that thou doeth have? What have thy done? Doest thou not know why you have died? A blind eye I will turn upon thy tears, and thou shalt not remember it. Death is staring at thee in the face for the first time in thy existence, She has outplayed thee at every turn. There will be no blocks, no spells, nothing to defend against this pain that will rack thee. Thy teachings have taught thyself to divert the pain into places where it will not darken the soul." He laughs, a cold and harsh gutteral laugh. "Thou art a foul. Death too, knows of those places. She knows how to muddle the link between mind and body, preventing thyself from severing the cord that binds thee to the mortal realm. And I too."

With a strength that bellies the image of a frail old man, he drags me to the River. Cold is its waters, chilling as Winter's first kiss of snow upon the plains of the living. Cold is my naked body, cold as I have never felt. Shackled are my wrists to the belly of the boat that connects the planes of existence, of life and of death. Thus began my punishment, my punishment for my sins, for my failure, for love. Through fetit Styx, condoning Lethe, burning Pyriphlegethon, woeful Acheron, and lamenting Cocytus I would be dragged. It would never end.

Only afterwards did I see it as a mystery. Only after my pain has ended, did I remember the person in the shadows. Only after, would I watch you go. And it would never end.