The year was drawing to a close, days becoming shorter and shorter, nights getting longer and longer... seemingly filled with whispers, that murmured to you from the soft mists along the shore of the black lake, covering the edge of the forbidden forest in tiny sparkling drops.
Sometimes the whispering voices seemd recognizable, reminded the lonely man walking in the shadows of people he had known, people he had lost.
Sometimes they seemed to call him out to the lake, the cold water promising quiet and rest or to the forest, promising forgetfullness under those dark branches.
Sometimes... sometimes seemed to happen more often this time of the year., sometimes seemed to happen more often as the years passed, a seemingly endless string of meaningless, empty days and nightmare filled nights.
People shied away from him, though he was now an official hero of the last war, shied away because he also was the man who had killed his mentor, who had witnessed innumerable unspeakable deeds, the man who had stood at the dark lords right hand.
And they shied away, did not want to get to close, lest the darkness around him should touch them, leave them tainted.
Voices were whispering in the mists and small lights dancing, just out of his reach.
The sallow tired face of his mother, a stunning redhead, smiling and beckoning, disappearing and swirling in the fog, an old man with a silvery beard, nodding benevolently..they all seemd to call for him to follow...he reached for them, but in vain.. just some more steps along the way they seemed to wait vor him... their voices full of hope and laughter, their faces just barely visible, swirling in the everchanging mists like behind a veil.
He did not notice the cold , dark water soaking his feet, slowly rising to his knees, his thighs...while he still followed that voices, tried to get another glimpse at faces long believed lost...and in the morning a black cloak was drifting in the lake, like a giant bat, that had lost its way in the grey mists of samhain night.