I. Icy death wraps its cloak around me as my heart grows faint and my steps grow weary. A man bound to darkness, I despair of seeing the dawn, a promise reserved for those claimed by the man from Galilee.
Please do not misunderstand me, Father. A professor of English literature teaching in a small university in the upper Midwest, I have had a good life. With my companion of the past thirty years, I had led a safe life, out of the public eye and committed to scholarship and pedagogy. In the eyes of this small community, I have been exemplary. Yet, all that glitters is not gold. Beneath the glory lies the blackest heart.
Sitting now in my study on the second floor of my house, watching snow blanket the ground, I recall St. Peter's words: "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." Raised in central Oregon, exposed early to Pentecostals and pagans, I leaned to recognize the pull of evil before I left grade school. Yet, rejecting the faith of my father and uncle shortly after graduating high school, I spiraled out of control until one night I bound myself to darkness. My apprenticeship to darkness started as a love affair.
II. It began as a camping trip. Overworked English graduate students, Angie, Stephanie, and I had long anticipated escaping the university and spending the weekend at a place I considered paradise.
Late Friday afternoon in June of '73, we spotted the redwood sign announcing Limberlost campground. At 8,000 feet, Limberlost sat off the narrow two-line road in the Cascade Mountain Range and was surrounded by towering Ponderosa pines. I had camped there often with my father and uncle and remembered the air was clean and fresh, the sky so blue that it hurt my eyes.
I turned my battered, maroon Ford station wagon onto the rutted road leading through the campground and scanned the place, seeking familiar redwood picnic tables and the small city of tents, trailers, and recreational vehicles. Unaccountably, the area was empty.
I slowly drove on, my girlfriend Angie slumped next to me in the front seat and Stephanie in the back. It was a cool day, temperatures in the sixties and patches of snow on the ground. It would get down to freezing that night. Flowing next to the road was the meandering river, which looked too low to fish. As we turned over the one-lane planked bridge, my eyes were drawn downstream. Under a small pine tree, several feet from the water lay the corpse of a large black dog, large chunks bitten out of it.
"Jesus, Rocky," Stephanie barked. "What the hell is that?" Throughout the trip, her glasses halfway down her nose, she had been buried in Goethe's Faust. A gorgeous blonde, Stephanie was the most studious person in graduate school. Her question, and its wording, surprised me.
"What the hell is what?" Angie asked, sitting upright and looking out all the windows.
"We passed it," I said. I'd grown up around animals; seeing one dead didn't strike me as significant at the time.
"What was it?" Angie asked again. A medium sized, stocky brunette, Angie had long raven hair. Small things upset this sweet young woman easily.
"Nothing worth getting excited over," I assured her.
"Tell you later," snapped Stephanie. I thought this an odd response and glanced at Stephanie through the rear view mirror. Grinning, she watched me like a hawk, and catching her intense blue eyes, even then, I felt a sudden flicker of arousal.
Forcing my eyes onto the road, I drove to the far end of the campground where we stopped and piled from my car. While I felt subdued, the girls seemed in wonderful spirits, and after we stretched our bones and muscles, Stephanie sang something from Three-Dog Night as she and Angie walked arm-in-arm towards the wooden outhouse down the road. Alone, relieved to be in the mountains, I took a deep breath, expecting a rush pine-scented mountain air but feeling instead a dull suffocating sting.
This may have been an anxiety attack; I'd experienced one when my sister had been killed in a tractor accident years before. But at that moment I could feel evil: like a great bat, it hung over the campground, tangible as smoke, real as blood, sticky as oatmeal. This unmistakably sickly, tingly sensation signaled something wickedly grotesque hidden in the trees, hanging in the wind, hungry for flesh. Closing my eyes to repel the sensation, I actually envisioned the darkness wrapping itself around me, sticking to my skin, caressing my throat, and crawling inside. I felt myself falling, spiraling.
And then, just as suddenly, I heard the Angie and Stephanie returning, laughing and singing together. My icy apprehension shrank, the light of day returned, and I felt almost myself again. Feeling that I had just been pulled from a cold dark swamp, I sauntered toward the girls, wondering if I should suggest moving to another campground.
"Sorry about the dog," I began. I wanted to appear in control. "Just one of those freak things."
Her smile fading a bit, Angie shrugged. "Things die in the woods, Rock. It's not a big deal."
I glanced at Stephanie and wondered how squeamish she was.
She wasn't.
"Dead dogs are everywhere, Rocky," Stephanie replied, grinning. "Forget about that shit, I told Angie. Hell, I killed dogs before. Let's unpack the goddamned car and get this fucking horror show on the road."
"Okay?" I asked Angie.
"Limberlost is beautiful, Rocky" said Angie, nodding. "I'll be fine." Angie did not seem visibly upset by Stephanie's sudden vulgarity.
Encouraged by their enthusiasm, I walked over to the car and unlocked the back.
III. The Stephanie emerging on the camping trip was not the person I knew in graduate school. So, as we unpacked, I considered what I knew about the girls.
We had just finished our second-year as graduate students at the university one hundred miles west. I had met both girls during winter term the year before as we had struggled through a seminar on King Lear. Angie and I had hit it off immediately, and within two weeks were having sex three times a night, while Stephanie had remained distant, even brooding at first. I had even wondered if Stephanie, who never took her eyes off me during the seminar, hated me for she never returned my calls.
But as we moved into spring, Stephanie began joining Angie and me for Saturday morning breakfasts at the Pancake House across from the University. Several weeks before the trip to Limberlost, over breakfast, I had suggested celebrating the end of the year by going to the coast. Coldly, Stephanie commented that she liked the idea but preferred Limberlost. When I asked her how she knew about this place, Stephanie replied that I had told her. "It was a night we were at a bar and you'd had a lot to drink," Stephanie said. Though I didn't recall getting drunk with Stephanie, I did not question her.
During the past few weeks, I had found myself tiring of Angie, who at times could be annoying, shallow, and neurotic. Although she had grown up on the coast, twenty-two year old Agnie Carstons had been camping only once in her life, and that was during her senior year in high school. She'd gone with three boys from the baseball team and remembered little apart from taking them all on at once. Like me, she found Stephanie attractive in "a dark sort of way" and, that morning as we had driven to Stephanie's trailer north of Eugene, had suggested that we do a sexy threesome on the trip.
I knew less about Stephanie Stokes, who was gorgeous even with her wire-rimmed glasses. Tall and shapely Stephanie was regarded as the top graduate student and had a passion for early Nineteenth Century English gothic prose. A brooding, silent sort, she claimed to love the outdoors. Several days after suggesting the Limberlost trip, Stephanie mentioned to us over coffee and donuts that, growing up in central Idaho, she had been camping, hunting, and fishing many times. I could help noticing that Stephanie had a mysterious side, which fascinated me. In the privacy of our bed several nights before we went on the camping trip, Angie had confided that Stephanie had boasted about stalking a man, killing him, and eating his flesh. I didn't buy the story then because, as I lay next to Angie, I couldn't make match the beauty I knew in graduate school with the image of a predatory cannibal.
IV. Now, in the cool mountain air, I saw nothing deadly about Stephanie as I watched her unload the car. For the trip, she had worn a baggy gray sweater with "Orygun" boldly stenciled in gold on the front and thin, skin-tight white shorts that rode charmingly up her ass. Looking fit for the mountains, she had on brown hiking boots and gray socks. She waited until we began setting up the tent before complaining.
"Nobody up here, Rocky," Stephanie said in a grating tone I had never heard before. She was kneeling on the canvas and smoothing out the folds so we' d have an easier time putting up the tent. "Where's all the fuckin' people?" I rarely used profanity, and Stephanie knew this.
"Dunno," I remarked, pounding large nails through the iron loops at each corner of the canvas. The nails would anchor the eight-foot-high tent.
"Well, consider it, stud, just consider it: d'ya think it's a good idea to camp up here alone, just the three of us. Hell, me, I always feel more comfortable with a few other campers around to keep me company," she said, standing, stepping back, putting her hands on her hips, and looking down at me and then over at Angie. "I mean, who knows who's in those fuckin' woods that could eat your insides out?"
Her voice slightly mocking, I stopped pounding and studied the ground.
Angie had been listening while unloading the cooler, food basket, lamp and heater. "That's right," she joined in nervously. "Where is everybody, Rocky? Thought you knew this place. Said there'd be lots of folks up here. Seems spooky."
"It's a cold June in hell, girls," I attempted a joke. "It'll get pretty cold tonight. Maybe too cold for anyone but the heartiest camper."
"Hell's bells, Rock Man, you're probably right," Stephanie teased, looking at Angie and nodding her head in an exaggerated fashion. "You always are."
Slightly annoyed, I stood and walked to the cooler to get a beer. Then, Angie brought up something else.
"Rocky," she whined, "isn't Limberlost the area where those horrible, grisly murders occurred? You remember: the ones we all talked about over breakfast that one morning at the Pancake House? One story of the women getting diced into small, edible pieces--you remember that, right?"
"Not sure," I said, then put the can to my mouth.
"'Course, you do," Angie insisted. "Steph and I were talking about it when we went pee."
"Jesus, I don't think I remember reading anything substantial about murders," I mumbled. I remembered the murders had been discussed in an article about urban legends, but that's all there was to it.
"Now wait one fuckin' minute, bud. You were the one that brought it up in the restaurant," Stephanie burst in, suppressing a smile that I'm sure Angie missed. "We're sitting in that booth in the back of the Pancake House and, for hell's sake, bub, you're reading us the story right out of the paper. Shook the shit outa me. Hadn't thought of it until we drove in here and saw the dog."
"The stories were legends, girls, legends. Nothing more. That was the point of the article," I said, shrugging my shoulders and popping the top off another beer can. "Let's all have some beer."
Stephanie stood firm.
"Not so fast, Rock old boy, not so fucking fast. Story said something about a series of murders up here stretching back ten years or so," Stephanie insisted. "Not fuckin' with us, are you, stud?" Deep, pearly blue, Stephanie's gorgeous laughing eyes fixed on me. At that instant, I knew two things: Stephanie was playing some kind of diabolical game that Angie likely did not even begin to comprehend, and before the day was through I'd have sex with this Idaho beauty.
I put the beer can to my mouth, finished it, reached into the cooler, pulled out and popped another. The girls watched me, and then Stephanie swaggered over, flipped open the cooler, and took out two more cans. Slowly shaking her head, she turned, tossed a beer to Angie and popped the top on the one she was holding.
We stood, the breeze picking up in the trees. I could hear the slow swirl of the river.
"Yes, I do remember," Angie said. I looked hard at Angie and seemed to see her for the first time that day: she was wearing a green windbreaker, black soccer shorts, and tennis shoes. "You read it to us, Rocky, you know you did. Mutilation murders, with dismemberment and decapitations and all that stuff. Why did you bring us here?"
"It was an article about urban legends," I commented impatiently, gulping my third can.
Though the sun still hung in the sky, the air seemed to darken slightly. I could feel my veins starting to freeze.
"Rocky, please, please, I think we should go to one of those campgrounds back down the road. We saw campers in those places. It's only twenty or thirty minutes back," Angie pleaded. "We can still have fun, drink, fuck around like we'd planned." I knew then she'd told Stephanie about the threesome we had planned.
I looked to the ground and then at Steph, who was studying me with a wry smile. "It's alright, Angie," she said, her voice firm. "It's gonna be all fucking right. Nothing's gonna happen to you or to me--or to Rocky Fuckhead here. Right, Rocky?"
Perturbed, even a bit shaken, I looked at Steph. "Right, Steph," I said. "Nothing's gonna happen. I've been here dozens of times."
Stephanie stared at me. Then, she laughed, shook her head, the smile returning. After taking a long drink, she looked at Angie, then me. "Let's stay the night, maybe two," she conceded. "And fuck the mutilation murderer. But," she added, turning and pointing at me, "you keep your fucking hands off me, Rocky Boy."
I wondered where this threat was going.
Steph nodded slowly, her crooked smile and raised eyebrow suggesting that she could see through me. Tiring of the game, I looked to Angie.
"Hey, Steph, " Angie weakly commented, "Rocky's cool. We just thought…."
Steph stepped closer to me. "Shut the fuck up, Angie. Listen," she said to me, her eyes dancing (she was enjoying this), "you touch me, you motherfucking son of a bitch, and I'll cut your nuts off and shove 'em down your throat." Reaching into her backpack, she drew forth a huge, silver knife. Grinning sardonically, she positioned the tip of the blade inches from my nose, and, in a flick, pricked my nose and drew blood. Then, leaning forward, she licked the blood dripping from me. I was somewhat amused and taken aback, and I wondered how much crazier Stephanie could become, when she lowered the weapon, stepped back, giggled, and said, "Only kidding, Rocky. Only fucking with you. Relax. I do this with all my men. You get to fuck us both tonight. And then," she added, "I get to fuck you both." She put the knife back into her pack, turned, and gave me the studious, meek look of an English graduate student.
By now, I was really interested in Stephanie, my mind suddenly flooded with an image of frantic animal sex with her--but I suspect she knew that.
V. It was after six when Stephanie, still wearing her studious persona, suggested fishing. High in the mountains, the air grows dark and cold very quickly, so I agreed, went to the car, and retrieved our fishing equipment. "Fishing might be fun," I said as I handed Stephanie her pole. "Wanna come, Angie?" I asked.
Shaking her head, Angie replied that she would rather stay at the campground and finish reading Clarissa, an Eighteenth Century English novel about a young woman who gets kidnapped and raped. "I'm tired, Rocky," she said, "so leave me to read and don't worry."
"Back in a bit, then," I said as Stephanie and I set off toward the river. Still thinking about my earlier exchange with her, I was now consumed by a fascination for this woman who would threaten me with a knife and then kiss me and lick off the blood. She seemed just my type. Perhaps the madness in my own family drew me to Stephanie.
When we got to the water, I walked the bank, looking for pools to fish. Because the river was low and hard to fish, I threw my line in wherever I could. Stephanie had crossed a small footbridge and fished across from me, never taking her eyes off me, and as I stared back, I felt myself being absorbed into her.
Her beauty bewitched me. Without her glasses, Stephanie looked like a model out of Penthouse or Playboy. She had perfectly tanned skin, and when she removed her sweater, I could not keep my eyes off her full brown breasts. As we watched each other, I knew Stephanie wanted me, and desiring her more than I had ever desired anything, I inwardly consented to let her have her way.
Oddly, as we fished, we did not talk, and when it got too dark, we pulled in our lines, and met back to the bridge. "Hey, big boy," she cooed at the bridge, moving toward me and brushing her nipples against my sweater as I reached out and pulled her against me. She dropped her pole, put one arm around my neck and the other between my legs. Then, kneeling, she unzipped me, reached in and pulled forth my throbbing stick, and took me in her warm, moist mouth.
IV. When we got back to the campground, I noticed a fire burning in the pit but could see Angie nowhere. Walking to the table, we found her novel lying open and face down.
"Probably went to piss or shit," I said. I didn't like the idea of Angie walking through this deserted campground alone.
"Fuckin' ditz. She'll turn up," said Stephanie, setting her fishing equipment on the ground next to the table, opening the cooler, and taking out a bottle of Bordeaux.
The fire blazing and the full moon overhead, we sat at the table, sipping wine. "Just where the fuck could Angie be?" I wondered aloud.
"Dunno," Stephanie said, nonchalant, sipping wine. "Who the hell really cares?"
"I do. I live with the little slut," I responded.
"Then go find the little slut," Stephanie mewed.
Not wanting to leave Stephanie, I stood and began yelling Angie's name. As I bellowed, my voice filled the valley but I heard no answer. "Jesus," I said, "where is she? She playing some kind of fuckin' joke?" It was at this moment that I realized my own use of profanity.
Stephanie looked at me, grinned, and said, "Probably. I sure as hell would." Then, Stephanie began calling. "Hey, Angie!! You fat, fucking pig of a goat!! Get your fine sweet ass back here."
Stephanie continued to shout, piling on so many obscenities that I began to laugh. Then, thinking she was getting a bit carried away, I reached down, put my hand on her shoulder and shouted into her face, "Hey! Steph old girl. Would you stop that shit! Jesus, what the hell does that yelling accomplish?"
Touching Stephanie set something off. She stopped shouting, rose from the table, glared at me, then grinned smugly. My heart skipped a beat, and I got the impression of a panther ready to strike and backed away just as I heard a small voice from the direction of the river: "Here I am, here I am!!!"
I listened, Stephanie's eyes now crawling on me. Walking in the direction of the voice, I shouted: "Angie!! Angie!! Come this way!!"
I heard the small voice again. "Where are you?" it called. "Where are you? It's so dark! Please, Rocky: where are you?"
"Angie!!" I yelled, "Walk toward my voice!"
I turned and saw Stephanie standing perhaps two feet away. In the moonlight, in the light from the fire, having removed her sweater once again, she looked beautifully, deliciously predatory.
Almost maliciously, Stephanie said. "Angie's dead, or she's going to be, stud bucket, or haven't you figured that out?"
I felt like striking her. Instead, when I backed away several more steps, Stephanie began circling me like a cat, and we went round and round. Then, like a beast that has cornered its prey, she shrieked, sprang with animal grace, grabbing me and forcing me to the ground in an explosion of dust. The impact was crushing, and I lay on the hard ground, the woman on top of me, catching my breath and studying her nipples. My back and ribs aching, I actually enjoyed this mad, brutal woman.
When I smiled, Stephanie slapped me so hard that my eyes watered. "You studly freak," she growled, grabbing my hair with one hand. "I'm gonna rip your throat out."
For an instant, I held my breath. But even then I knew this was foreplay for Stephanie, who snarled, leaned down, bit my neck hard, and kissed me on the mouth. As she kissed, she bit hard, and I bit back. When she sat up, her mouth was stained with blood.
"I like you, Rock Stud, or I like the size of your dick, " she said in a deep low voice, her eyes fixed on mine, "and I want that thing inside of me everyday of my life. I want you to help me with Angie, that tiresome little bitch, and then I want you to fuck me until I tell you to stop."
Intrigued, aroused, I said nothing, hearing at that instant the cracking of dry wood just beyond the campground.
"You do wanna fuck me, Rocky baby, right?" Stephanie began rubbing me gently between my legs. "Wanna shove that huge thing inside me again?" she asked over and over, her voice deep and soft and beautiful.
"Yeah, I do, Steph," I whispered, completely caving in to the desires of this creature, and just as I did I heard Angie's voice.
We both looked in the direction of the river and saw Angie standing not twenty feet away. "What the hell are you two doing?" Angie asked, frantic. "You two fighting? Why are you fighting?"
"Playing around is all, bitch," purred Steph, slowly rising from the ground and gazing at Angie, who stood just inside the glow cast by the fire. "Just playing around with your huge-dick boy friend."
As Steph slowly approached Angie, I had an idea what was going to happen.
Facing each other, the two women said and did nothing at first. Then Angie cowered slightly, terror in her face. When she squealed and turned to run, Stephanie lunged, seizing her from behind, easily pulling her opponent to the ground. Like an animal caught in a trap, Angie screamed and kicked furiously but could not free herself from the hold of the much stronger woman. Fascinated, I stood and walked in their direction.
I watched as Stephanie worked to force the Angie onto her back. Panting, she studied Angie for a moment and then grabbed her hair and, with a closed fist, pounded Angie's face again and again.
I stepped closer.
Angie lay on the ground, stunned, bleeding from the nose and mouth. Glancing at me, Stephanie crouched like an animal over the unresisting Angie, removed the smaller girl's trunks and panties, and then unzipped and removed Angie's windbreaker. Thrilled, I could see that Angie had worn nothing underneath her windbreaker.
When Angie tried to sit upright, Stephanie pushed her down, and so Angie lay on the cold ground bleeding, naked, sobbing. Then, Stephanie rose, walked back towards me, and put an arm around my neck. After kissing me hard on the mouth and drawing blood again, she told me what to do.
"Get the fuckin' knife, Rocky old boy," she said, pointing at the table behind me. In the light provided by the fire and the full moon, I spotted her backpack. Obedient, feeling almost transported out of myself, I walked over, opened the pack, took out the weapon, walked back, and handed it to Stephanie. Stephanie handed the knife back to me.
"You do it, love cock," she said.
As I gazed into Stephanie's eyes, felt our souls join, I knew that the dark thing I had sensed that afternoon had crawled into me like a great black snake, and for the first time in my life I sensed something supernatural filling me. At that instant, I knew I was as strong as Stephanie and wanted to melt with her forever.
Together, we walked over to Angie, who half-sat up moaning and whimpering. Muttering something to herself, dazed and delirious, Angie looked at us with sad, defeated eyes, blood dabbling her breasts and stomach.
"Lie back, Angie," I gently said, holding the knife in my right hand, kneeling next to her, and pushing her down with my left. With my free hand, I stroked her hair. At that moment, beaten, bloodied and naked, Angie looked beautiful and did as she was told. Yet, quietly sobbing, terrified, she looked imploringly at me.
Slowly, I raised the knife, my eyes on a point just between Angie's navel and vagina. Blade poised over my head, I felt doubts flooding my mind, heard a voice urging me to drop the knife, then heard another encouraging me to do it. At that moment of suspension I felt the ecstasy of dark deliverance and knew that, through Stephanie, I was bound to the Dark Prince.
Poised, I gazed towards Stephanie, who crouched on the other side of the body. Now completely naked, Stephanie had become a great and beautiful beast waiting to devour its prey. Stephanie looked up at me, and I asked, "Are you, then, the devil?"
Stephanie smiled: "What do you think, my love?"
I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, and felt the refreshing, even frigid coolness of the high mountain air. Looking overhead at the full moon, I saw a star shoot across the vast star-filled sky. I could see the swath of the Milky Way and felt, at that moment, joined with the endless, orderly movement of the created universe.
Then, I let the blade fall, felt the blade enter Angie, heard Angie groan, pulled out the blade, and thrust again. The blade entered with a sucking, popping sound. As Angie's blood spurted onto me and Stephanie, I turned the knife so that I could force the blade upward towards her sternum. When I had finished, I withdrew the knife and, glancing down, saw Angie's eyes were still open. A gaping wound running from her pubic bone to her sternum, Angie was barely alive. "Forgive me, Angie," I said, watching her die.
As Stephanie dipped her hands into the wound, then stood and smeared her body with Angie's blood, I realized life would be different from now on. Consumed by evil, I could still think quite clearly, and as Stephanie stood before me, gloriously transformed in the moonlight, I knew that I had flown swiftly into another dimension.
"Now fuck me, Rocky," she said, her voice sweet.
Removing my clothes, under the full moon in the chilly night air, I made furious love to the one who had become the woman of my dreams.
After dismembering and disemboweling the corpse, we buried it, scattered the parts, and bathed in the ice-cold river. Contrary to rumors you may have heard--and I think you wouldn't be here if you hadn't heard something--neither Stephanie nor I ate Angie's flesh. The ritual took all night, and when morning came, we walked to the tent where Stephanie and I, now very much in love, fucked each other nearly unconscious. Later that evening, when we came out of the tent, we noticed another camper across the campground. They had a dog, but we didn't care. Somehow, we knew we would never get caught.
A day later, after butchering the man, his wife, their three children, and the dog, we returned to the university, took summer classes, and completed our doctorates a few years later. I would never separate from Stephanie, and she would never leave me. After all, love is a wonderful thing. In 1978, we moved to the small quiet university in the upper Midwest. Last year, Stephanie died, and the entire community mourned the passing of a "grand lady who taught in the tradition of the classics."
While a search was conducted throughout Oregon and into parts of Washington and Idaho, Angela's body and the remains of the camper family were never found. While Stephanie and I were questioned by the police one year after the Limberlost trip, no one suspected two meek and studious graduate students to be capable of anything worse than stealing a loaf of bread. No one traced us to the murders. After all, no one had even known that the three of us were going to the mountains.
VI. So there you have it: the confession of the blackest heart. If the doctor's prognosis is correct, Father, I shall be dead within six months. Pancreatic cancer provides, I think, a fitting end to my life.
Yes, a fitting end. Listen: Stephanie and I committed devilish acts, even to the point of pledging our souls to the underworld for safety and a good life. And while we lived the good, safe, even respectable life as husband and wife for thirty years, a stabbing emptiness has filled me like a dark cloud, and now, in my final days, I have become despair.
What little hope I have is this: that Stephanie and I may live and burn forever in a sloping, treeless land of unending and impenetrable darkness. Dying horribly, painfully last year, Stephanie was taken from me, never feeling a grain of remorse. I suspect she awaits my arrival. As for me: while I may nurse some regrets, the man from Galilee will bar me from Heaven, for there is no forgiveness for willfully savage deeds, nor do I expect such.
And so, devoured by St. Peter's prowling darkness, I accept this end. There will be no last rights, no reconciliation with God. In fact, to accept reconciliation, Father, to beg and then receive forgiveness, means eternal separation from the one I bound myself to years ago.
And now, please, please, leave me. Allow me, in my final months, to melt into darkness.
