The fields are dead and brown, the forests reduced the to blackened sculptures of ash, the ruins of the city worn down to nothing but the foundations. The world here is dying, my dreams are dying.

She didn’t come for me tonight. She’s not holding my hand anymore, not smiling.

I came for her, tonight, and… she’s running from me, crying and screaming. She’s afraid of me. That’s the way it has to be.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

If they can’t learn to fear me, learn to hate me, they’ll never be able to survive the horrors that trail behind. They are the prey, now. To save them, I must make sure they know it.

“The world is darker than you know.”

I awake, crying, but with no understanding of why.