Chapter 12Dark, dark and cold. No, dark red, sliced with pain, shards and splinters of white-hot pain shooting through him. He had to escape from it before it consumed him, had to retreat back into the peace of that cold darkness. He reached for it and drew it back around him. It stayed only a moment, and then slid and shifted away again. It washed over him one final time and then faded completely.
He wanted to draw it back, but he could not. He couldn’t even get a thought to move. His leaden body sank down, deeper and deeper into the bottomless red-hot agony. He melted with it. Where was the cold peace? He wanted to become lost in it, to freeze and still the pain.
But no, he couldn’t do that. If he went any farther, there could be no return. Someone called him and someone reached. It wa
