I see them in my dreams. Every night, it’s the same. I’m running through some sort of maze, old forgotten hedgerows and dying bramble on lifted beds of brickwork. They are thick and overgrown with weedy thorns, all black and wilted for a dry winter. No snow nor sleet nor hail nor rain nor anything is released from that quiet vault; just a monotonous white above. There’s no heat from that sun; no stars to comfort you in the night. Greyness above and lifeless below.
They are coming. It’s always the same. There are others, others like me in some sense, lost, trapped here with me, but they are searching for me. They have been here longer, and they know the twisted paths of the dead garden. I can leave when I wake, but I do not think these will ever leave again. They hunger for the fading life I still cling to, these shadows of my dreams, and I find no prayers nor charms can keep them back; my only recourse is to run.
I am learning of the garden, mapping out its eccentricities. I’m trying to make a map, but it can’t be put on flat paper. You have to fold the paper, but here I fear I’ve grown mad. I cannot explain what I know.
Tale Told 