• The fortress was cold, and unforgiving. The walls were higher than id ever seen in any structure, scalloped and worked to perfection. Walls like gothic paintings seemed to ascend downward on me with little demonic faces. My room was astoundingly arbitrary to me, though the tall ceilings were draped in beautiful lavender and emerald green tabards. Laying in my bed I felt as though I had died, my bodies color had receded to a pale blue. As I stood from my bed, I felt what seemed to be water, trickle down my chest. I reached up and ran my hand through the moisture. In this moment I realized I was bleeding. Slowly I turned and began my decent from the tower down a spiraling red marble stairwell. Coming to the bottom I walked briefly across a hallway into the lavatory, slowly realizing that my love had not been in my quarters when I had awaken. Before I made it completely into the room, I returned to the hallway and walked eastward toward her garden. Extruding from the sunrise down the hallway, rays of light seemed to flow into the castles corridors, gleaming from the smooth red marble walls and floors. Light so radiant that it was nearly blinding. Water flowed down the hall in a small canal that was fed from the river at the foot of my sanctuary. It was like a beautiful caved tunnel filled with fern and an arrays of soft flowers. The scent seemed to had strangely turned grotesque to me, though I normally loved the scent of the day lilies. Mornings bright light seemed to recede as I came to the end of the walkway. Entering the opened ceiling garden, the flowers and pillars seemed to cradle her in the center of the room. Her long blonde hair seemed to flow like a torrent down her back. Contouring to her was a soft white dress exposing her soft shoulders and voluptuous curves, making her seem as a goddess wondering through the glories or nature. Approaching her I began to smell her sweet lavender perfume, almost stopping me with powerful realization of my growing heart. Noticing my presence, she turned to me gasping as she saw my wound still freely bleeding. Standing immediately, her bright green eyes cut through me as she darted to my aid. Silky hands embraced the side of my face "He's come to you in the night, he's taken you" she spoke as her hand fell from my face to my bloody chest. "Your neck, it's bleeding" she spoke softly, her voice seemed a calm wind. Leading me down toward the center of her garden, she sat me in one of a pair of old wooden chairs beside a small table. Kneeling at my side she took her waist wrap and dipped it into the cool stream flowing throughout the garden, winding under a small wooden bridge and returning to the canal. White marble pillars surrounded the outer ceiling of the room. Ivy had grown to the top of the corridor and reached toward the sky, along with the large magnificent oaks and redwoods. Willows wound around the room following the stream, drooping slightly into the water creating cool shade for thick ferns and small delicate flowers. Reaching from the stream to my chest she began to clean my body. "What are we going to do?" she asked as she gazed into my eyes. Shaking my head I replied "there isn't anything we can do, my heart is going to seize." Pulling me to her, she touched her soft lips to mine, "then ill become the same as you" she slowly whispered to me. Once she was done cleaning my wounds. She sat across from me and looked into my eyes. "Ill always love you, even if your heart wont beat." I slowly replied "I don't need a heart to love you, you are my heart"

    Some miles away in a damp wooded hollow, a man walked alone. Adorned with a light blue robe and what seemed an empty sheath, he stepped lightly and cautiously. He seemed to be weary and decrepit as he dragged his body precociously over the overgrowth. Glancing quickly toward a dark thicket, he seemed as though he was familiar with these woods. The morning light began to sneak into the shadows of the trees. Peering out through the canopy, he realized that dawn was approaching and hastened his step. Moments later he came upon a vine ridden tree that seemed to reach vengefully into the sun. Stone hard bark lunged forth like boney necrotic limbs, limbs like arms of titans riddled with branches jutting as if they were lightning. Lowering his hood he reached toward the lazily growing vines. Brushing the vines aside he revealed what seemed to be a keyhole in the base of the augmented tree. His hand slid down his side and into a pouch in the interior of his cloak. Drawing a key he lifted it to the keyhole and forced it carefully inside. With the twist of the key, the tree seemed to growl as if it was made of rusting ironworks. The key slowly vanished into the tree, and then a corridor seemed to appear. Moving into the trees orifice, the man muttered several words "My lord, my master, my deed shall reign, and the man shall be as the dead, to thirst for eternity for the vanity and force of life. He shall be a walker of darkness and divinity, an unholy abomination of humanity."