I drift in and out of a waking delirium for an indeterminable stretch, clinging to Ava's rapidly cooling corpse as though it were the sole anchor still tethering me to any semblance of reality. Periodic paroxysms of keening, animalistic grief claw their way free from the ragged pit that was once my spirit, echoing off the cramped stone walls in haunting waves.
At some point, I become vaguely aware of harsh voices reverberating through the chamber outside, carried on eddies of stale, sulfurous air gusting down the shadowed corridor beyond our minuscule shelter. They seem to be calling out in mocking, taunting cadences, perhaps trying to lure us...me...out with some fresh torment devised.
But I simply withdraw inward further, bundling what scant remains of my fractured psyche around the hu
