The darkness was thicker, heavier. Still velvet and soft and soothing, but also dense and clinging. I was cocooned in it, unable to move even if I’d wanted to.
Why would I want to leave it?
There is only pain for you up there, it told me. Pain and loss and guilt. Terrible guilt, for you did a terrible thing.
The tug was softer now, barely even noticeable unless I focused.
Blue-fire eyes.
Hands that had held mine.
Lips that had spoken stories that softened panic into sleep.
But the darkness pressed me down; it suffocated the fire that scorched if I tried to fight my way back above it.
So I succumbed, sinking deeper and deeper into its embrace.
And the blue-fire eyes grew dimmer and dimmer, until they were barely even a flicker of memory.
The musical voice that had once spoken the words that comforted me so often faded until it was a mere echo, distant and growing weaker every minute.
But the darkness was there to fill the void, to soothe away any memory of pain.