CHAPTER 20
White. Everything white, even the little boy. So pale he was hard to make out in a world of ice and snow. Only when he moved did his form become distinguishable from the landscape, but his movements were not the normal rambunctious gyrations of a child; they were rather the spasmodic writhing of a wounded animal in the throes of agony.
If I listened carefully, even at such a distance, I could hear his cries and sobs and occasional wails over the sound of the cold winter wind. Other sounds of the forest had gone quiet, but for a strangely agitating buzzing.
A peculiar black cloud hovered over the little boy’s body, a living shadow that descended, engulfed him, then retreated. The process repeated again and again, and with each attack the boy cried out, until eventually the clo
