teach me to grieve and conspire with my age.

I haven't been able to sleep the times that I should. Haven't been able to write the way I think I can. Instead I've left all those images inside my head to creep back to darkness, and what do I have now?

We are on the top floor of an abandoned building. This could be a hotel, or some old apartments, but the lights don't work and we don't want them to. I know we didn't start here, but I've gone too far to recall. I'm holding a bloody towel. Axes go into heads. It's just an artifact the demon leaves behind. And you and I, we're stuck here in this musty building along with it, with the empty rooms and cobwebs. I drift out of myself and I see them again, these two people killing without reason and as I drift back in, I see one of them in the corner, but just a silhouette. Light from the window highlights his stillness. I turn to you, and whisper, "run."

Like moths burned in light, we rush down flights and flights of these old wooden stairs, a rickety spiral turning dizzily until I'm panicking - he might catch up with us, but finally I think we're at the bottom and it is two sets of foyers we have to go through before we even reach the exit. When the door finally flings open I'm relieved but also amazed at how real the cold night feels - this is lucid dreaming at its worst, knowing that the oily darkness that twists around you is your own wicked sickness, but fearing your monsters anyway. When we've started the car I see the demon standing on the steps.

And where do we go from here? These roads are littered with travelers long since homeless and wild with doom. Even if we ride, the demons will catch up soon enough, dressed in lost children's mobiles and toys - scratching against our doorways no matter how tight we lock them, lusting hard and screaming for our mortality.