If it's too bright, you can blink and block out the light. The dark waits to take its place. In the shade, all eyes are lidless.

++

We, the Hunters, blocked it out for too long. We saw the things hidden there, confined to arteries. Living in the pulse.

++

There's ash; it blows like leaves in a storm. They can't be caught, counted, measured, or grasped. But we all see it.

++

I hoped it was a collective madness. That the color was drained out the world because we bled our humanity out of us.

++

But seeing the first was unforgettable. The distant glimmer, an object of malignant desire. After that, impossible to ignore.

++

We argued, but its existence became undeniable. Its baleful pull, inescapable. Shutting eyes only made it clearer. I pursued it.

++

I found it, my first, the source of ash. Its cinders erupt and flare into our world. They fall in theirs, cold and blackened.

++

They say it's a rend in our world. It burns where we would bleed. Scabbed over. A petrified memory of barbarity. A pile of dust.

++

What I remember most? The smell: still lingering, burnt flesh and sulfur. Seeped into the earth, seeped into me. Then the pain.

++

I reached into the wound. Tore it open. It engulfed me in billows of fiery heat. I was made to relive the death in its depths.

++

A momentary glimpse. Teeth punctured skin. Jaw crushed bone. My hand deluged in flesh, I pushed, only to melt into its maw.

++

The world returned. The Faustian revelation, fresh, grinding within my mind. Another anomaly was calling, weak and far.

++

You know, the second was much the same. I came undone in a flash. But I took what I wanted from the fire and the fury.

++

The third was easy. I welcomed the heat, as I had grown cold. As it ebbed, I was pulled apart, arm from shoulder, leg from hip.

++

Ripped. Flesh lacerated. Bones ruptured. Neck torn and twisted, around and around and around. Time ground to a halt.

++

When it passed, I was somewhere else. My fear and anger became overwhelming. I raised my hand to my face, to feel if I was me.

++

Too many elbows bent and fingers curled. Nails like claws, some torn out their bed. My face bloated, convulsing at my touch.

++

The floor was far below. Ovens smoked. A school of strung up fish hung around. Webs covered all. My flesh began to tighten.

++

The inverse was constriction, compression, shattering. In the maelstrom, only the image seen remained: the beast's lair, found.