Chapter 29The universe shattered into a thousand tiny fragments. Pieces swirled through the chaos like oak leaves in a tempest.
Demon claws rummaged through his soul, crawling over him like ticks burrowing into his flesh. Outcries and birth cries and death cries. Broken, distorted. Wailing, pleading for him to know their names. Sobbing Grief and Despair. Disease and Hunger wheedling. Poverty calling in a high, thin voice. The oily slickness of Perversion. And War’s dread clamour loudest of all.
He wanted to answer. Couldn’t. No lungs to fill, no voice to call his own. Weightless. Empty. How long he had been here, he could not say. Now, once, soon after. All connected, all the same. Nothing ahead, nothing behind. Nothing but the dark and the cold and the voices, the voices, the voices …
