>>6339095<span class="mu-r">Cross the hallway towards the sunset’s light to your right.</span>
The darkness to your left feels inviting.
It reminds you of that mask, the conversation you shared with it before entering the Well.
The Night would be a most comfortable lodging.
You could let go of all your cares and drift into a comforting sleep beyond all comforts. No more worries, no more pain, and no more joy, either.
Just the oblivion of welcoming blackness.
A seagull’s high cry pulls you away from that reverie.
You turn your back away from the dark archway and walk towards the light.
The sunset curtain shimmers. It waves back and forth like silk, golden and white and rosy, a thin gossamer layer of mother-of-pearl.
The scent of the sea hits you.
You pass under the archway, your healed hand still covering your eyes.
Beyond, a white balcony gives on to a grassy slope and then a cliff leading to the calm sea. The Moon—Earth’s Moon—glows above, a circle of off-white like a wandering eye.
Rows of cypresses and white marble columns, empty terraces surround this balcony, this home, this resting place. No glasshouse here.
And to your right—there is the bed. Wide and soft, and twice as long as any bed you have ever seen. It is surrounded by thin hollow tubes, syringes like those you have seen use in your homeland, needles and pliers, and other medical equipment which looks just as pointless as it is decorative, and tinged with an aura of nostalgia you cannot place.
On the bed rests a figure of onyx.
Her six arms rest at different angles on her chest, catching the sunset light in Her sharp angles and carved corners. Bandages run all over Her, seeping golden blood. It raises in the air in six tall arches, glistening and liquid without heat. They surround her like a chorus surrounds the main singer.
<span class="mu-s">Child.</span>
[cont.]
