The Final Hello
This is a “Write or Die” response to The Darkness Descending
He couldn’t have known — would never know — in the last moment before he ripped the plug from the wall, deep inside her battered mind, on a lonely platform in a dark room, Meg stirred and began her long climb upward…
Meg climbed unthinking, unfeeling, unknowing for what felt like an eternity. She crept over broken, smoldering cold timbers, hid in the rowboat that appeared silently at the shore and carried her to the far side, through the slashing reeds past drowned ships and imploring dead. On the other side, she staggered past lumbering lost souls, gaping ruined shells of once-cozy homes, and endless fields gone to sour weeds and seething stubble. Bursts of insane hyena laughter echoed behind her while a flock of crows lunged at her head screeching furious madness.
Another flight of stairs shimmered up ahead. She staggered to keep moving, urging her legs to keep stepping and her hands to hold tightly to the railing. Wind blasted her with sudden buffets of fury, urging her to let go. The relentless horde below her howled a chorus of agony.
She clutched her belly, doubled over in pain, and crawled up the steps to get away from the clinging harpies, babies wailing, and sucking snails afflicting her ankles.
