For the longest time, there was silence, darkness and a feeling like falling.
Then there was pain.
Something felt hot against her chest. And it crept across her skin and tore through her body like a cold malevolent force bent on killing her. Darkness swept the sky from every direction; black pools of ink bleeding into one another. Like a judgemental eye in the sky, the moon appeared content amongst the stars - it's silver rays tearing through the shadows, exposing the secrets hidden within the forest.
Blood, warm and wet, stained her colourless fingers and slithered in swollen torrents down her body. Her body hurt; the sizzling gore on her chest roared and swelled like a horrific tide and the aching wound on her left temple oozed a warm liquid down her face. Swivelling patterns of red and black filled her vision, the gentle madness of colours pulling the world out of focus and into a swirling dynamic of chaos and confusion. It was a drunken spinning illusion, one that unravelled memories in the spaces between. It was beautiful, but she knew that pretty things could be deadly.
And it was in this blurry disarray that her beloved ebbed into existence; a flickering image, a distant memory of Aerrow.
Aerrow.
She tried to say his name but the vowels and consonants wouldn't form. And all she could do was breathe. One long, low exhale that brushed her lips like a wordless whisper.
She wondered if he'd miss her. If he'd ache for her long after she was gone. If he'd search the depths of heaven and hell to reunite with her broken soul - her dark, poisoned soul hidden beneath the disguise of a dark empress. But the thoughts gently dissolved into idealistic daydreams of her future - naive fantasies of an Empress and her beloved Sky Knight, reigning over a kingdom that was destined to collapse.
They came at her in wisps and slender ribbons, smudged and surreal snapshots scattered in the air, ascending into silhouettes tainted gold. Silhouettes that we're just beginning to fade. Creating a world etched in charcoal.
