PREFACE
. . . (Zombie)'s Point Of View
Hanna...
Hanna, do you remember that one time when we were talking about the paper cranes? You had one, folded, in your hand, and you held it up, saying that if I didn't remember what kind of significance paper cranes had during the time I was alive, then we would make it mean something once more..
Remember? You said that it is believed that a thousand paper cranes can grant a wish. You had number one in your hand, right there. It starts today.
One of a thousand.
You left it on your nightstand. Still there was one, and only one. I don't think you remembered the night we had that conversation about the cranes. I don't think you ever noticed that sometimes I would take crane number one in my fingers, and I would remember.
I was usually pretty good at grasping perception of where I was and what was happening. Even when I was trapped in my own thoughts, I was able to hang in there until you sent that little crane... My guide...
But now, my grip has trembled and slipped. It's just like the time I was in my own thoughts, but I don't know what's happened. It feels the same, I'm still running in circles in some sort of maze, waiting for that crane to come, sometimes even trying to conjure up the guide once more, on my own... Am I dead?
I mean, I know I was dead before, but is this what Lee Falun felt like as a ghost? Is it like literally being trapped inside your head, a place you wish you knew better but you don't? I can't get out of here without you, Hanna. I really can't.
Where are you? Where is that little paper crane, leading me on, beckoning me to follow it? Are you dead too, Hanna?
I need you, Hanna Falk Cross. I miss you. Get me out of here, please. I can't stand being here, in the dark like this. I'm afraid I'm going to go insane like Ples Tibenoch, alone, in his big, tick ticking palace of the damned. That house with the oily blood everywhere. I can't bear to even picture it...
"This is what solitude can do to a man..."