I"d had no intention of ever seeing Alba again until necessity foisted it upon me, but the effects of my visit reverberated through my very being. Eternals had always been soulless, shell-like creatures, but Alba"s belief I would return had proven that, perhaps, there was more to our kind than I"d have credited. My actions had crushed what little remained of the real Alba, my once beloved, yet she"d clung to hope like a leaf to a tree. When that hope was torn from said branch, she"d taken her own existence rather than live a lie. I couldn"t blame her; I wouldn"t want to live with me either.
I woke from the enforced oblivion only the dead knew wishing I hadn"t. I"d never desired to remain within my wooden prison so much in my whole centuries spanning non-life. Somehow, I dragged myself up
