Too many doors, drab and identical, adorn the twisted corridors. They hang tauntingly ajar, hints of light and sound tumbling out, fragments of scattered memories. Urgently I rush past them, looking for you but fearing to find you lest you be exposed to the thing that chases me, a monster whose beauty is a lie and a curse. It lurks, it stalks, it waits to brush me aside, to crush you in its clawed grasp, to dangle you screaming out of my reach and laugh with morbid satisfaction, to enjoy its fascination with our torment.
It breathes in the acrid scent of my terror and presses closer to break my resolve and force me to reach for the fullness of the comfort of your memory, but my fear for you is greater than the fear for myself and with reckless rage I turn to face the monster. I scream in defiance at the blur and white hot pain stabbing at my eye.
The blinding light fades into fire-lit smoke drifting around the space where your shape should be, an empty silhouette peering about for me. I sit shivering before the fire and through chattering teeth I beg you to see me, but you dissolve into an eagle's screech. Invisible hands lift me to a winged horse that carries me through disconnected moments of night to warm blankets and the scent of tanned hides stretched over tent poles and familiar voices murmuring me to a deeper sleep.
