[thisislife]

Still, something stirred. Its path was one of quiet ash. Its footsteps were of fading. The floorboards groaned into a hush with each hoof-trod, splintering silently, breaking softly, weeping lacquer in long laments that left half-dwindled sentences still twisting on the tongue – I met him on a rainy day when I knew not his face – and then: silence. It had passed. Yet still streamed a darkness after it, biting at its shag-shanks, closing with a scream and a whisper, echoing, echoing, trembling through its head; the shade itself wreathed toward its form, that flesh-thing, running from its nature — something stirred: a driven thing, whipped at the back, flayed flesh ribboned in bows, shred from the skin, torn at the mind. He seemed soft, like an orange, or as ash in a slight breeze. Silence. But there was something there – no, there was nothing – it was undeniable – nothing, nothing at all. A shadow; a shadow and a shade. It was a whimper and a grimaced smile, nothing more than that.