"I will remain forever..."

(mid-2002; don't make promises you can't keep, since girls have eerie powers!)

It is intensely dark - that shadowy shade of ink overlaid with the deepest of crimsons in a faint wash, like spilled blood beneath the new moon. He floats alone and yet with far too many others, trying to get his bearings. Pressure assaults his form from all sides, all but forcing him in upon himself, as the walls of his prison pulsate and thrum with energy. Liquid churns about him, wrapping him in blistering heat and the noisiest of tearing, battering agonies.

His eyes cannot adjust; there is no light for even the most dilated of pupils. Yet realization slowly dawns as his imagination creates, unbidden, ring upon ring of curving bone, layer upon layer of unseen flesh. Forcing himself upright - or upright as he envisions it, for there is no sense of balance available to him - he begins to scream:

Dammit! I was speaking figuratively, figuratively!

He cannot hear anything over the dim of the pumping blood and contracting muscle, but can feel her shake as she laughs, somewhere above.