Chapter Text
I gasp for air.
As air surges into my lungs, I hear a noise coming to me, like a call on the wind that turns into a cry.
“ — Rook! ”
My eyes shoot open, and when they do, the cry fades into the breeze blowing across my tender skin. I feel my whole body desperately heaving for oxygen around what had previously been bedsheets to slick, pulsating blight tendrils. As my chest rises and falls, the air coursing through my body and heaving me back into consciousness, my head spins. There, I witness the whole world heave up in front of me in swaths of color. My head falls back, heavy, then rolls along my left shoulder. As my lungs struggle to find a rhythm in the oxygen surrounding me, I recognize the location I am…floating above.
The Throne Room.
“What a shame…” the familiar voice of the blighted, ancient elven god speaks before me. I dart a look down and slowly bring my head back upright. Swirls of color like gunmetal and teal form to create a cloudy color palette before me. Two dots of bright blue shine through the inky scene, before I blink it away and the color spectrum truly makes its way back into the room around me, painting its way across the stone floor of the battered hall. My head is foggy and slow. Every thought and every movement is like wading through the swamps of the Hossburg Wetlands.
What the fuck was that? What is happening?
Before I can truly take in the god before me, there is a growl to my right, grabbing my attention. There on the floor and made to kneel, incapacitated, I find the angry, seething body of Lucanis. He is still struggling against the Blight that holds him. He glances at the tendrils, as if examining them for a weakness and, through that, a way to free himself. I can see blips of Spite striking red through his sharp eyes.
“You should have accepted my mercy while you still had the chance, Little Crow.” Elgar’nan speaks once more. His tone is malicious and full of disappointment yet still seems calm and collected. I find the god with my dazed and splotchy vision. He is where he had been standing before I had fainted, but now I am above him. Above everyone. He has his hand turned palm-up, outstretched towards me.
Shit— Time is running out. I have to break free. Think, think…
With a clench of Elgar’nan’s fist and a red glow of light, I feel time running short. Running out.
However, you can still be of use to me…
The blood magic that tethers itself to me begins to glow as well. I look around for anything, everything. Anyone or any mana to pull from, but it is like there is a sapping magnet pulling the connection I have to the Fade away. It forces my muscles to relax. The Blight wraps itself around me more and more, like a cocoon. As the fleshy, wet Blight arms caress over my body, it grazes over my sensitive, lightning scorched skin and broken bones. I am once more made aware of my injuries. I push through the pain, the slowness of the mind, and clench my teeth.
Focus. It’s not over yet.
“ Grrah! Don’t. You. Dare—! ” I hear Spite hiss from my right, before the tendrils holding his arms back wrap around his neck and squeeze until he can’t speak.
My eyes widen, “L…Lucanis!” I struggle to call out, but Lucanis nor Spite can answer outside of their choking and writhing.
“ You will be silent. ” Elgar’nan glares at Spite, the red light in his palm pulsates in rhythm with the Blight surrounding Spite and I. The blood magic tether he has on me begins to beat in time with this light as well, as Elgar’nan’s his closes. I feel that clotting sensation in my blood once more. More intensely this time. It forces me to breathe in time with the light. I can’t speak. I can’t move. My head feels like it is being squeezed between Elgar’nan’s fingers. I feel…connected to him. Like I am an extension of him…or he is an extension of me?
I pull on my magic again, but nothing happens. Not a spark, not a flicker, not a single particle of light forms. The Blight is closing in on me, covering my vision. Is it siphoning my magic? No… I can’t be… I won’t become part of the Blight. I will not fuel Elgar’nan’s tyranny. I try to move my dominant hand down to the lyrium dagger, around the Blight and to its rune-enchanted hilt. The blunt and searing pain of moving that arm reverberates up to my shoulder and across my ribcage. I have been through worse and still fulfilled the contract. I cannot fail. Not like this. I will not let Elgar’nan take me. Not me, not Lucanis, not Spite…we have to make it. For Davrin, for Assan,... for Varric.
As I maneuver my hand down to my side, the Blight, like some large muscle, squeezes my arm to my body. I breathe out, not wanting my cries to give away the amount of pain this is causing. I continue to reach for the lyrium dagger, stretching my fingers down as far as I can stretch them, and they find nothing. The tendrils slip across the remaining hole of my vision. A red, vein-like pattern creeps into my vision from all corners. I see the elven god approach me and gently take something from the Blight below me. Holding it close to his face, I see the glowing blue light of my lyrium dagger reflecting a similar hue across his eyes, almost like magic. It swims across his eyes and around his face. Or is it the Blight doing that to me? He looks to Lucanis, and right before it all goes dark, Lucanis is pulled backwards into a cloud of black and it falls like feathers from a bird. Then, there is just the Blight.
It pulsates like a beating heart, but it slowly goes quiet.
No rhythm of the Titans’ livid dreams. No breath coming from me. I feel weightless and encompassed in comfort. Then, a crackle of a fire. The feeling of warmed air moving through my hair. The smell of…
“You should eat, Baby.”
I open my eyes, and I have my face in the bosom of a woman in a red robe. I try to look up at her, but the smell of fresh food grabs my senses. I turn to look at the rodent on a stick that she holds up to me. A fire sits before us and the cooked rodent makes my mouth water. Everything is so…big. The fire, the woman. I grab the skewer with both hands so as to not drop it, then look at the woman. Something about her seems familiar. Her eyes are watering from the smoke that the fire gently billows toward her. She smiles gently and tiredly at me. Her hair is long and black, and her eyes are brown. She makes me feel…comfortable.
What was happening? When I try to think of what has happened, it is like looking into a black void that yawns back the way a dark cave would. The unease of not knowing what lies within that dark void keeps me from rushing in, but I do linger.
“What? Do I have something on my face?” The woman jests and wipes the wet dirt from her cheek. I shake my head, my curly hair frizzed and down to my shoulders. When I look at myself, I see the body of a small girl. There are strange indents on my arms, like a swirling grey that moves across me. I tense and the woman hugs me close. “Shhh…” I let my body fall into the woman. Her body swallows my small frame, like a pillow. I look at the rodent on the stick to distract myself.
Who is this? Why does she make me feel so…safe? So…comfortable. She rubs my back slowly. The wind whistles around us within the darkness. The dark makes my heart feel caged with fear. I have never been afraid of the dark…I…I can’t remember why. There is nothing before or after this moment, but part of me tells me to pull away, run into the darkness, but her hug is tight. Not suffocating, but secure.
“Quo viamus?” I ask in a small voice. My heart is beating fast. It is as if speaking is some act of rebellion and I am expecting to be disciplined for speaking incorrectly. The woman hums.
“Don’t speak Tevene. You don’t know that language. You know the Trade Tongue and haven’t had any education on matters of magic, Tevinter, or Venatori. Do not even speak the word ‘Venatori’, do I make myself clear?” The woman’s tone is serious and commanding. I tense and nod quickly, silencing myself for a moment as I recall the words in the common language.
“To where are we heading?” I ask meekly. The voice that comes from me is one from a Tevinter child. The woman quiets and sighs, like the wind surrounding us.
“Away, Baby…Away.” She speaks with just her breath and hugs my head back onto her bosom. There is a twinge. A…spark of a feeling. I feel the woman shift slightly. I know that feeling. It is so…familiar. A connection deep inside of my chest. Like lightning flashing and rippling across the sky and disappearing moments later, just for the darkness to roar up and the wind to sweep across the land.
CRACK! Zzzap zap zap!
I flinch, and the woman pets the top of my head, “Just go to sleep, Baby. It will be morning before you can say—”
“Now!” I hear a commanding and feminine voice from the darkness beyond the campfire. I look out, but the woman pulls me back to her.
“Shhh…” The woman comforts. I feel my eyes closing. It is like I am in a dream, unable to control myself. I am watching from within, and I can feel what this little girl feels, but I cannot move the way I wish. It is like someone wrote the script to this play and I am an unwilling participant.
“HaaaagrrRAH!” I feel the world shift around me. From the darkness behind my eyelids, there splits in half a wake of light and a flood of the smell of Blight wafts into my nose. I fall into the light and reach out into a sea of pain and memory to catch myself. I fall away from this woman, and I hit the ground hands-first, crumpling onto my face from my unexpected crash onto something solid. The sounds of a fight surround me. “Someone help Rook!” I hear Taash from my left.
“Where is Lucanis?” I hear Harding from further away.
Sounds of flinging magic emanate from a particular point in the room followed by a menacing, amused laugh.
“Look at how you still fight. My dragon thrall lives, the Dread Wolf is dead, and yet you still believe you can fight me.” Elgar’nan laughs with a slight manic undertone to his voice. “How pathetic .”
I look up and struggle to make an attempt to stand, but I can only prop myself up on one knee. I feel as if I might fall at any moment. As I look up, Elgar’nan is surrounded by Taash, Harding, and the Inquisitor. Neve is next to Emmerich, trying to undo the wards that keep him in stasis. Taash runs up to cut into the blighted elven god with their axes from top to bottom, and as they rush up and jump up to attack the massive elven god, he stabs up from his side and straight into Taash’s stomach. A blue glow emanates from their stomach, and they gag as they hold the hand Elgar’nan is wielding the dagger in and quickly uses their right axe to hack at his elbow. Elgar’nan grunts and pulls the lyrium dagger from Taash before hovering up and away. Blood drips down the blade of the lyrium dagger. Taash collapses to the ground, holding their stomach. Harding is calling out to Taash and running over to them, putting her bow around herself once more to tend to Taash. A blue color wisps from Taash’s wound, then slowly begins to turn purple…then red. They tense and clench their teeth in pain.
It is then that it dawns upon me…so much has happened…so much is happening…
I look to where Lucanis had been held and find it empty. It is as if he were never there. My heart beats fast. I can’t get up…Fucking shit in a fucking fuck basket. I cough a rough, wet cough from deep in my chest and fall onto my side. I gather up as much magic as I can to summon my orb, sparking with a fierce need to survive. To help Lucanis and Taash. To kill Elgar’nan and Lusacan. But…we are outmatched. We have to regroup, escape and find another way to kill Lusacan. Maybe Morrigan can— Before I can think more on what to do, the Inquisitor rushes to me and pulls me up. My body feels as if it might be pulled apart as my bad arm is the one the Inquisitor pulled me up from.
“Gah!” I cry out and hold my arm.
“Come on. We need to kill Lusacan. I’ll distract Elgar’nan. Help Taash and tell Scout Harding to find Morrigan. We can’t do this without her.” And with that, the Inquisitor turns around and reaches out to Elgar’nan. From the Inquisitor a chain bolt of lightning arcs out and electrocutes him, a chain of purple lightning hitting her as well. I can feel the static from the blow emanating off of her.
“Inquisitor?” I ask, concerned about the self-inflicted magical blow from her poorly aimed attack. The Inquisitor grunts and shakes it off.
“I’m fine. Get rid of that dragon!” She orders and rushes forward as Elgar’nan growls at her.
“Roook!” I hear Harding call out with worry. I glance at her, seeing her look at me with a look of desperation as the wound on Taash pulsates red. They can’t even get up from the pain. Taash can’t get up from the pain. I take one more desperate look at the empty space where Lucanis once was, then clench my teeth before stuffing down the tears and limping over to Harding and Taash. I kneel down in front of them and examine the wound. My eyes widen. Black and red web out from the wound like…they are infected with the Blight— but, how? Harding looks at it with wide, hazel eyes. “No no no…” She shakes her head and looks at me, her hair sweeping over her shoulder and behind her as she looks from me to Taash. “What…what do we do, Rook? What is happening?”
“I’ve never seen anything like this. The dagger…” I stop and look back at Elgar’nan, at the dagger. As if I had imagined it, there is not a single swath of blue on the ancient elven god of vengeance. The dagger he is holding…it is red with blighted lyrium. When—
Taash coughs and shakily gets up, “I’m still in the fight…” Taash declares through gritted teeth. Harding stands and gets her bow back out.
“But…” Harding attempts to protest, but Taash interrupts her.
“We know the risks. We have to kill Lusacan or everyone dies. With Solas gone…” They look down and then back to Harding and me. “You need a dragon hunter.” Taash grips their axe handles and glares at Lusacan, who has been watching and waiting to come in on Elgar’nan’s command. Lusacan and Taash seem to meet eyes. As Lusacan breathes hot air from her nostrils, Taash growls, hitting their axe blades together to make a loud clanking noise.
“Come on! Get over here and fight me!” They yell, and shortly after, they roar out a cone of fire, similarly to when they lured out the blighted dragon that attacked Treviso inside the Blighted Shallows of the Hossburg Wetlands. Lusacan shakes her head and snarls, shifting awkwardly with her imbalanced weight on this palace being held up by one tendril of Blight. Her back leg slips behind her and as she catches herself to stabilize, the ground shakes and Taash rushes towards her. Harding seems determined and goes to rush in too, but I hold my hand out towards her.
“Harding, wait.” I stand slowly and pull my hand back to hold my arm.
Harding turns and stops, an arrow already knocked on her string, “What is it?” She asks, seemingly ready to listen, but also full of worry and frustration.
I limp up to her and point to the throne Room exit, “You’re the fastest one here, Harding. I need you to descend back down the Blight and find Morrigan. Bring her back here to help finish off Elgar’nan.”
Harding furrows her brows and gestures to outside of the Throne Room with her bow, “She stayed behind to fight off the Darkspawn while I came up to help. Without her down there, we will get overrun with thousands of Darkspawn.”
I think for a moment. “Can you switch places with her? Hold off the Darkspawn while she helps defeat Elgar’nan?”
“I can do it, Rook.” Harding nods at me and takes one last look at Taash, who is halfway up Lusacan as we speak, before running to leave the Throne Room.
The doors slam shut in front of her, a loud THOOM! eminating across the chambers.
Going somewhere?
My head pounds. Harding slides to a stop and I summon my orb, looking back at Elgar’nan. The Inquisitor looks back as well and her eyes widen. Neve stomps her metal foot with frustration as she struggles with the magic holding Emmerich.
“This magic. It won’t budge.” She says and looks over at the noise. Her eyes widen too, “Lace! Behind you!” She begins to rush over. I turn to Harding and see tendrils of Blight slithering across the large double doors to the Throne Room Approach. Behind Harding, tentacles move across the floor and begin to rise up behind her. I quickly sprint forward, tripping over myself as pain shoots up my side, but I use my mana to teleport forward and take my dagger out. I slash forward to make the Blight slink down. It only hits air…the world moves slow. Below my dagger, the tentacles stab down into Harding’s small body, squelching through her and then raising her up above me. She gags, chest heaved up and pooling blood out and down her steel breastplate. She eyes are wide with surprise, her arms moving to attempt to grab the Blight and free herself, but it only stabs up into her more, earning another gag…a gargle. Her fingers grip her bow, the arrow still knocked. She gasps weakly, scrunching her face up as she fights for consciousness.
Neve swings her half-staff at the Blight and a shard of ice pierces the base of one of the tendrils. It doesn’t seem to do much, but I follow her lead. I send my orb at the base of the tendrils and charge up a larger orb to send at the bases after weakening them.
“No…Lace!” I hear Taash from behind us, a distance away.
“Scout Harding!” I hear the Inquisitor. As I attack the tendrils, I hear grunts from behind me, and the Inquisitor sounds pained.
“So…weak. So…frail. You could have been so much more.” I hear Elgar’nan. The Inquisitor goes quiet. I hear Lusacan roar and Taash screams. My head is buzzing. My ears are ringing. Right as the tendrils pull back, the enchanted arrow on Harding’s bow drops into the blighted ground below, sticks headfirst into its fleshy outside, and explodes into tiny shards. Neve summons an ice barrier in front of us to shield from the small blast. Then, she pulls it down and rushes to Harding. I turn to assess the situation behind us.
Elgar’nan stands, raising the Inquisitor up by her neck as she struggles to gather enough magic to shock him again. Taash is no longer in sight, and Lusacan is turning to face us now, snarling with fire in her maw.
“Neve.” I look to her and then to Harding. Neve’s expression is tense. Harding lies dead in front of us, sprawled with her eyes open and drying out.
Her eyes are drying out.
My breath catches, but the shock is heavier than the grief in this moment. Neve doesn’t linger past gently closing Harding’s eyes. Determined, she stands with her hand-staff and turns to enter into the fight again.
“We have to keep fighting.” She says full of purpose…full of justice. Whispers resound in my mind. Low…quiet. I can’t quite make out what they are saying, but they make me pause.
When will you learn to quit?
Elgar’nan’s voice reverberates through my mind and the red returns in my vision. I hold my head and march forward, quickening my stride to free the Inquisitor. I zip forward. With Neve hitting him with ice magic from the front I limp around behind him. Right as I get behind him, the Inquisitor finally gathers enough magic in her hand to shove into his face. He grabs her wrist, almost amused.
“Your resistance is overrun. Your comrades have been crushed by my glorious forces. There is nobody left to aid you…and your time in the light is done .” Elgar’nan then twists her hand, causing Inquisitor Adaar to cry out. Neve’s magic doesn’t seem to be phasing him. I grip my dagger and jump up and stab down at his upper back, but something yanks my ankles out of the air, and I swing down until the world is downside top. My skin stretches from the weight of my body, and the tightness makes it feel like it might tear open. I cut up at the tendril holding me, but without being able to curl my body due to the gashes on my back and side, it misses and only summons another that restrains my arms and squeezes them until the pain is all I can focus on for the moment. I hold onto the dagger with everything I have.
Gathering myself through the pain, I call out, “You’re lying!” Neve’s magic has stopped.
“You are naïve.” Elgar’nan glances at me, eyes glowing blue. Then, he drops the Inquisitor and summons his purple sword. She lands on her knees and holds herself up by her prosthetic.
I summon my orb, but it fizzes out. The whispers return. I struggle against the Blight until my right arm maneuvers its way out, and I summon my mage orb again, then send it out towards Elgar’nan, but he is too far away. It disappears before it hits him.
Damnit! Damnit it all!
I am being pulled backwards. I send my orb at the tendril holding me, struggling against it with everything I have, but where its grip slips, the others make up for it. My arm is consumed back under the Blight before I can attack any further, and I am turned back upright within the audience of Blighted magisters.
“Know that in your final moments, it was Elgar’nan, God of the Sun, that put down your fruitless group of insubordinates. Just like the Dread Wolf, you will perish under my guiding light.” Elgar’nan then swipes down at the Inquisitor, and from her side, she pulls out a handmade hilt. In a split second that even a Crow could miss, magic ejects from the hilt and perries the attack and Elgar'nan met with a counter that slashes up his whole body.
He hisses and glares at her, seeming confused and angry. The Inquisitor glares at Elgar’nan and ruthlessly slashes at him over and over again with her Arcane sword. It is like watching two Crows fight each other. A dozen swift attacks all in the span of a few seconds.
SHING!
The Inquisitor’s body falls limp, and as it collapses to the ground, her head topples down separately. My chest tightens.
I hear Neve struggling next to me. I look over and see the Blight has begun to surround her, as it had me before. All of the hope that had been swelling up in my chest has now deflated.
How are all of our efforts failing?...I know why. Solas. He caused this. He interrupted our plan; he stole the dagger from us. He released these blighted gods to begin with. Without his stupid plan to bring down the Veil, none of this would have happened. Nobody would have died.
“Neve?!” I ask, as if that would help her fight better. Break free.
I hear steps walking towards us.
“Protector of Dock Town. You should have taken my offer whilst you had the chance.” Elgar’nan speaks as he approaches her from below.
I pull against the Blight again, exhausted, “Don’t you dare, Elgar’nan! Let her go!” I demand.
“Haha! You believe you are in a place to make demands?” He looks to me, sneering.
His eyes…why are they blue? Weren’t they red? I look down to his blighted daggers. Red. Then I look back up to his face. Red eyes…
Neve writhes and struggles, twisting her body desperately and freezing pieces of the Blight to beat her fist against within, but her movements become desperate, pained, “Guh! Rook…!” She pleads with me, almost as if trying to ask me to do something. Her eyes widen with fear now, and she looks at the room before us with a twinge of sadness and regret.
“Fight, Neve! Don’t give up!...Neve!” I call out to her, but the Blight swallows her up. Just like that…I breathe heavily, anger surging up.
“You are nothing but a tyrannical monster! You blight everything you touch! You kill what you can’t control. This is the world you are making. You are blighted, Elgar’nan! Can’t you see?...” I yell out, tears swelling up. “Do you even care?”
Neve.
“There is no light save my glory…” Elgar’nan preaches.
Bellara.
“No refuge save my shadow…”
Harding.
“No desire save my perfected intention…”
Inquisitor.
“I am Creator and Destroyer.” Elgar’nan turns his palm up at me and I begin to descend.
Lucanis.
“I am will made manifest.” The Blight loosens. My eyes widen, but I can’t move. My limbs move for me. I step out of the Blight, his gestures seemingly controlling my body and its movements. “I…” He walks me to the stairs to the outside porch of the Throne Room. “Am…” I can’t rebuttal, I can’t interrupt him or move away. It is like…I must follow him. Up the stairs…past Lusacan…to the edge of the platform. “Elgar’nan.” My will drops to my feet.
Minrathous…is on fire. Smoke creates a black, ominous cloud above the whole city. Everything is covered in shadow and blight boils. Darkspawn are crawling up the spires to civilians desperately trying to escape them. Magic flares below, but they go out in a whisper just as I look at them. Street kids are screaming as they are dragged away. Women separated from men. Everyone is beaten…some devoured entirely. Why are they dragging them away? The Darkspawn have never done that. None that I have fought. They were ravenous and feral. I see people gathering in the Bouquet District of Hightown against a wall. Small dots against a hoard of red and grey. The red crackles along the edges of my vision return and…I look out onto the horizon. The sky is black with splotches of red where the smoke breaks open. I can hear the screams from up here. It dawns upon me now: I am watching the end of the world as I know it…witnessing the beginning of a blighted empire…and I’m not dead. I focus my attention on my magic, my dagger I had been holding, but I can’t remember how to summon my magic, and I can’t feel my dagger.
“Haaah!” I hear Taash scream, full of rage from the blight beside us, and they hack into Elgar’nan, breaking my trance. I stumble away, and the floor trembles from the pounding steps of Lusacan behind me. Elgar’nan grits his teeth and grabs their axe from inside his armor covering his arm and tears it from their grasp. I catch my breath and see Taash, seared and scorched with deep burns and blackened skin as they hang from their axe and attempt to tear it back from the god. While he’s distracted, I summon as much anger, pain, anguish, injustice….
Lucanis is standing at the shoreline within Arlathan Forest, just outside camp with Emmerich. His arms are akimbo and I am trying to move an artifact to another location to power one of the shields, “I don’t know what she sees in be, but…I’m happy.” I can hear his smile in his voice. It makes me stop and look between them and smile amusingly.
My lightning bird forms from behind me, and I’m fueling it with the hurt of not knowing where Lucanis is. The sorrow of losing Harding. The anger of not being able to save Neve or Bellara…My hair stands on end, a current of air pulling up and sending the huge thunderbird out to explode against Elgar’nan. A surge of energy saps from me and powers the arcane avian creature. It soars forward with my gestures, and I have to hop up and stop myself from getting pulled in, then zap backwards out of the explosion radius. Taash looks at the bird and, in a split second, drops their axe and shifts out of the way just in time. The bird explodes in a purple burst of lightning and electrical arcs. Elgar’nan stumbles forward and whips around to glare at me.
Before he can speak, however, a splash of green hits him in his shoulder, surrounding him in…a jagged black and blue shape. Blue eyes pierce through it with fury I haven’t seen…since fighting the Forgotten One. Elgar’nan’s furious gaze looks to someone within the Throne Room hall.
“Rook, hurry! I cannot hold him off for long!” Emmerich calls out, collected like a Nevarran Mourn Watcher dealing with an angry spirit…which is not far from the truth. I stand, cradling my right arm with my left hand. I open my mouth to speak, but Emmerich looks at me, full of knowing. “Abscond, Rook! I will find you, but you must first escape his hold!” I want to protest, but I close my mouth and nod at Emmerich. I have to trust him. Taash limps over to me then looks over at Harding, laying still on the stone floor.
“We can’t leave her here.” Taash looks at me with a pained expression.
“We have to—” Before I can complete my sentence, I am met with two boney hands gripping my shoulders from behind and pulling me backwards towards the edge of the porch. The pull is sudden and strong and completely unexpected. As I topple backwards, the world turns up on its back and upside down.
“Gah—!” I reach out to catch myself but am met with air.
“Rook! NO!” I hear Taash scream from above. I hear Elgar’nan yelling with anger. Lusacan roars and I hear fire from the Palace…I’m falling, the hands gripping me still. I try to pry them off of me, but the beating of my heart, the red cornering my vision…it seems to take me over. The whispers…they sound…familiar. Those orbs…the mysterious voice within. However, I begin to hear another voice within. One I cannot place, but it sends some unknown fear shocking up my spine, making my hair stand on end as I soar down through the air in free fall.
No. I am not finished with this one yet.
And just like that , inky blackness swallows me up.