Darkness. So thick, it penetrated his very being, each and every cell. It coiled around him, within him, through him. The worst part about the Shadows? They were sentient, and they were hungry.

The squirming black ate at his foundations, each bite a sharp sting spearing through him, gnawing at his soul until he wasn’t Atticus anymore.

He was pain.

The starvation had hit him on the heels of the pain, depleting him of all his energy, leaving but a glimmer of life inside him. Enough to feel, while refusing him the mercy of death.

Burning anguish, gut-wrenching hunger, despair beyond hope, and still he held on to the image...