Excerpt: How far the ashes are scattered...

Jacob woke to an unknown sensation, like a frozen disease, quiet, out of the way. Something which could have gone unobserved indefinately, and wouldn't have been able to hurt anyone. A feeling of decay surrounded him, but it wasn't only decay; truth permeated the air, if he would have dared to use those terms. It seemed, in a sense, unreal, but tangible. Unspeakable, but ever present. He told himself, he reasoned, that he had come upon a hidden place, a secluded realm. He wasn't sure if he was right in his regard of things. He couldn't trust it, trust something so different from anything he had ever seen, but he had to acknowledge these inner judgements, intuitions that couldn't be avoided.

He lay there for a while, unmoving, eyes lidded solidly. He considered what he might see if he were to open them; he was already losing the battle of not considering what he was feeling right now. Not the emotions, not the intuitions, but the cool stickiness against his cheek, the worn, in some places splintered, wood surface he was draped over. He had already placed the smell, but he didn't want to tell himself, in whatever level of consciousness this was, what he detected. It seemed all wrong, but all honest. And that worried him to no end.

He lost track of moment upon moment that he lay there, motionless. He wished it would go away, but at the same time, he didn't in a way. He was scared, but he was curious. Jacob almost felt dutiful about it, like he was being blessed in a way that most had never even imagined, enabled to see a mechanism that lay underneath the workings of the world, but in this he was afraid. Yes, somehow he knew this was real, this was serious. He couldn't get it to leave his head. And it wouldn't leave him on it's own, persistant to a fault.

With nothing else to do but perform his only actions, his obvious preset, he pushed himself off of the surface, opening his eyes to look at it from arm's length. And what he saw was simple confirmation, making his stomache turn at the sight of a wide dark red, almost black pool directly beneath him. Idley smudging at the red on his cheek, where his head had rested on the floor, he thought about where all this blood could have come from. Quickly checking himself over, the thought dawning on him belatedly that it could have been his, he realized that it couldn't have been; aside from the fact that he had no wounds, whatsoever, he couldn't have lost that much and still managed to live. Calming himself down and looking around, Jacob tried to level his head and take a thorough inventory of the room. A bookshelf overturned, books scattered violently across the floor, into the blood, onto other pieces of furniture present, such as the desk. A high bed, right in the middle, that appeared to be unmade. The covers soaked. Slowly rising to see the horror he suspected, he only made it to his knees, just catching view of the body when a masculine, but unexpectedly high pitched voice melodiously joined in the moment.

"I don't know what happened to him. He's been here for a very long time." Attention effectively drawn away from the bed, Jacob panicked, jumping clumsily to his feet and stumbling as he simultaneously whirled he see the source of the voice. The creature, who had been seated on top of a table opposite the bed, captivated him immediately. Clad in a simple, form fitting black jumper, it had a hard face, head shaved almost entirely, but for a large patch at the back of the head, silky white, nearly translucent hair trailing a way down it's back before looping back up and over it's shoulder, wrapping very loosely around it's neck, and from there, around it's arm before ending just over the edge of the table. A lanky figure, it had abnormally long limbs, and folded at it's back were a pair of wings, feathers black and white, but damaged so badly it wouldn't have been able to fly. Jacob stared, transfixed. It was indeed like nothing he had ever seen before.

"Wha...?" Jacob was unable to find any words that might help him. There was a long pause, his eyes never leaving the thing. It just sat motionless, looking at, or possibly through, the mess in the bed. If it hadn't already spoken, as if it had been expressing itself to him, he would have thought it hadn't noticed him at all, it was so intent. He tried again. "W-who...?" was all he could get out. He hoped it would be enough, but they sat through another eternity of stillness. Perhaps the creature hadn't been talking to him, after all.

Turning back around, he examined the body, sickness filling his throat. A knot formed in the pit of his stomache, and he fought desperately to keep himself from wretching. And still, he drank in the sight, as if it were somehow incredibly significant, in some way he couldn't be sure of. He traced it, the details burning themselves in his mind; the smell was fresh and coppery, which struck him as odd when he thought about it, and about what the creature had said. How long had the boy been here? Was time confused in this place? Was the thing lying to him, or itself mistaken? Fragments of the collapsed skull lay scattered about, a mess of jelly like material, grey matter, hidden among it in the thick soup. The face was it three torn pieces, a broken flesh mask, each portion twisted in an unfathomable state between excruciating sorrow, and complete unawareness and calm. The body was twisted about, perhaps had been wrenched sideways in the act of it's own death throws. A mess of an empty shoulder socket connected in his mind with the observation of a disembodied arm on the floor a few feet to his right. Like the creature, he was caught motionless, trying to come to terms with what was before him. Trying to understand.

"Haunting." That same voice, quietly commenting to itself, turned his head. It hadn't moved at all, still as a statue. He watched it carefully for a long moment, the sickness seeping into his chest, mixing with the unease welling it's way up his spine. He stood there, afraid to speak, afraid to break something, like something here was precious, or necessary, or simply meant to be. Fragile balance. He began to weep in it, overwhelmed by it's cruelty.

"Who the fuck are you?" Jacob bellowed, trying and failing to sound strong, to keep his voice steady. He desperately cast his gaze about, looking at the books, the pages wet with the deep crimson, the table, the unmoving son of a bitch just sitting there. "What the hell is going on?!" he couldn't grasp it anymore. His gut churned, he doubled over in a sudden jolt of agony, and he lost anything he might have had to say. It wouldn't have helped him.

"It's too late. I'm sorry." It still didn't stir as Jacob looked up, shivering, fighting convulsions as the pain grew and spread, bringing him to his knees. "I wish it could be easier on you," it said, finally turning it's head to stare at him, and through him. Eyes glazing over, it continued on vaguely, beginning to reminisce. "I can't remember different," it spoke softly. "There was nothing for it. I would sit here forever..." Out of the corner of his eye, Jacob saw one of the books, open upright, a few pages torn clean out, start to catch fire, although there seemed to be no source for the flame. "I was to count the seconds passing into forever, waiting for her to come back for me." And then, in a hypnotic droning, it started chanting. Jacob's eyes narrowed to slits, struggling to watch.