In a realm where light abounds, yet shadows fall, can darkness reign amidst the brightened hall? Where decorations gleam in festive display, can a single blemish lead the mind away? A tiny smear of blood, so stark, so small, amidst the brilliance, does it defeat it all? This query stirred within at dawn’s first light, but now, along the morning it vanished from my sight. The light: granted, then gone.

If only such an artefact existed, one that could save me from an existence worthy of a romantic poet. An effect that could remove the romantic part, provide me with a life of uninterrupted pain-free creation, one free from past phantoms and scars. However, it does not exist. Thus, here I am, an anguish artist. With the power of creation, I teeter on the brink, as though I might become a minor deity of despair, a lesser god of sorts. It is a might, a curse for which I never asked, for which I have done no wrong. An unwanted burden, imposed by the world.

And born of my powers, there, in the dimly lit confines of my room, a figure looms before the window. Towering tall, its gaunt form casts a shadow, engulfing the meagre vestiges of evening light. The silhouette, a hollow imitation of life, breathes in suffocating style. It gasps for air but it will continue to suffocate as it is devoid of heart. The monster’s chest, split by a chasm, serves as the telltale sign of this lack. I can’t be distracted from the fact: the figure is my child. Not of flesh, but conjured from the whispers of my thoughts. As such, I know it well.

How I yearn for it to be an angel, a seraphic presence pure and bright, to bestow long-overdue light upon this weary world. Yet it stands contrary, the creature born of twilight, with no eyes to adorn its grey, flat, featureless mask.

Time and time again, I have tried, but the oppressive shadow tethered to my pen poisons every attempt. There lingers a suspicion within me that umbra, not blood, courses through my veins. How else to explain good intentions, over and again turned to waste?

Thus, I fill my pen with my curse-contaminated blood, awaiting the internal darkness to ebb. But it feels endless and yet, despite it all, I breathe too. Desperately clinging to life, as we all do. We strive, we falter; each step is a surrender to the encroaching dusk. Aren’t all our good efforts inevitably averted by the incomprehensible nature of things?—light granted, then gone.

The beasts come every night, each time a new, a worse one. Yet none dare lay their crooked hands on me. They never punch, do not crush, and never bite. No; they seek no physical harm for me. I know for a fact that they have no desires of their own, none but one: their wicked hunger, and in it lies my suffering—a pain exceeding my ability to explain. Nevertheless, let me try, for tonight I seek refuge in being understood.

For such a beast, creature of rotten flesh, matters of pain and evil are beyond its comprehension. With little doubt, the creatures’ evil particles, their dark instinct, are in fact, unintentionally, mine. They must arise from a deep dark wilderness of my unconscious self. Otherwise, how would one explain? As opposed to the child, the darkness is surely mine. What child? The child that the beast is going to devour for its gory meal. The little child of my dear friend—a companion tried and loved. The massacre of the pure cannot be stopped—and this is only one example of my excruciating pain on an ever-growing scale.

The procedure cannot be stopped because this is how the world is, because I do not know how, or perhaps because I just might not want to take off my coat.

Pray, that could help, that could save! Let’s pray! I pray to myself—the lesser deity of despair to be, I do not ask for much but for a muse of good hunt that later I can describe.

The light was granted to us, then it was gone.