Hello, darkness, my old friend...

The Blackness around me, which had been whirling aimlessly until that thought, feeling my ears with a hollow, booming sound, became agitated. And, whether through Mimir's perception, mere instinct or both, I knew it wanted to silence me...

No. Not just me, specifically.

Somehow, the Blackness knew, like an animal driven crazy by fire, despite having never seen it before, that I had referenced a song, a form of art, something that entertained and helped minds grew.

An aspect of civilisation.

That thought made the booming sound become a shriek, like a cold wind blowing through the bars of a cage and the hollow bones of the thing that had died inside. Civilisation, the word and the concept alike, enraged the Blackness. Words were something thinking beings created, and that, too, offended it deeply.

It didn't want me to think or speak, never mind bring a fragment of civilisation into its empty grasp. It wanted to make me one with itself, or destroy me, or silence me if it couldn't.

And, in a way, it was succeeding.

The Blackness should have killed me. That wasn't my suicidal streak returning: it was a fragment or creation of Chernobog, who, twisted as he was, was still able to affect me. The Blackness should have wiped me from existence, permanently.

But it wasn't. It couldn't get through.

I turned inwards, and was back in Ghencea. All the unmarked headstones were shattered, mounds of cold marble standing above open graves. The corpses in them, long dead and too rotten for me to make out their features(if, indeed, they had any, or were just vague shadows, like the headstones had been before being shattered), were rolling, feeling the cemetery with screams from empty, unmoving lungs. Then there were those trying to climb out of the graves and failing, their skeletal arms, only covered by papery flesh at the joints, falling apart every time, causing the dead to fall down, wailing in despair. They never stopped trying.

The sky had changed, too: the starless night was now even darker, clouds almost as black as it pressing down until their bottoms touched the cemetery's fence. Drops of inky rain, as large and heavy as cannonballs, fell, cratering the ground and scattering the corpses in their graves. Pale, insect-like monsters, growing from fat eggs to writhing larvae inside the raindrops as they fell, reached maturity upon impact, either burrowing into the graveyard dirt to make nests, or tearing into the corpses to lay their eggs.

I turned away, but even the thunder and lightning, louder and brighter than any I had experienced on Earth, couldn't hide the sight and the feeding sounds.

My grave was the only one untouched, my human corpse staring blindly up at the nightmarish night with a grin frozen in rigor mortis.

And above my headstone, I found my strigoi side.

'I am saving us, David,' it said softly, its shadowlike form darker than the night, darker than the storm clouds I now say were impossibly huge, hairy insects (what of the storm, then?), yet as visible as ink spilled on a page.

That wasn't what startled me, though. For the first time ever, it had used my name. I crushed a shattered headstone further as I backed away, in shock, but it didn't mock me.

'Are you doing this to scare me?' I asked, gesturing at our surroundings.

It shook its head, white eyes leaving faint traces in the air. 'I have no more control over our mindscape than you do, human. This...is a representation of our struggle, and fate, if I fail.'

Fate....I looked at the insects feeding on the corpses, and began to understand. 'They are all us, aren't they?' I whispered, knowing it could have heard me from the bottom of Hell. 'The dead. And the insects are the Blackness' attempts to destroy us. Meaning the clouds...' The Blackness itself, of course, bombarding us with fractions of itself, on a metaphysical level.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

'Not just that,' it replied. 'The Blackness is Chernobog, the way our limbs are us. He is here, with us. Perhaps not literally, not yet, but he sees us. The Heads were right, David.'

'Retiring would have done nothing and you know it. Don't tell me you actually wanted to-'

' "And this time, he might never let go". Chernobog doesn't seek a pawn anymore, David. He wants a knight.'

The thought chilled me to my core, making me choke on a breath I didn't need. 'But the Blackness-wait! Why are we wasting time talking?! Every moment is one more chance that we'll end up worse than dead!'

'Time does not pass here, David,' it said, frustratingly patient for once, while I was the one pacing around like a crazed animal. 'And I am already doing everything I can.'

'But the Blackness should have destroyed us by now,' I argued. 'It wants to. Unless Chernobog is holding it back to torment us, before he makes his move?'

'Perhaps. Or, perhaps,' it slowly lifted its head, and I saw it was not connected to its neck. Something that might have been a beard hung down from its face. 'I am beating it back.'

'Mimir's power? But how...?'

'I told you I'm better than you with it. You banished that phantasm in the Roundhouse's chapel. I...have been pushed further than we have ever been, and turned to the only salvation I could see.'

The best place for it to grow was in the field. Ha...seems you were right, Aya.

Smile filled with the calm only death can bring, I looked my worse half in the eyes. 'You said the insects were more than the Blackness.'

'Worms of doubt, David. I..." it clicked its fangs together so fast they cracked, then healed. 'Am not protecting our body, so much as repairing the damage done by the Blackness as soon as it occurs. Divine power, to counter divine power.' It floated down behind my headstone, laying its hands on it and leaning forward like a tired old man. 'But I cannot protect us from the inside, too. It is too much. If I try to fight both battles, as I am now, I will lose both. You m-must,' its claws cracked the marble. 'You must not give in now of all times, David. We are withering...'

I looked down at my hands, expecting to see lost fingers, or holes through my palms, but I only saw skin beginning to flake away.

'No...' I whispered. 'Not again!' I put my head in my hands, claws digging through my hair and into my skin until cold blood began oozing out. 'I can't die alone! I haven't told them-'

'For God's fucking sake, you bitch!' my strigoi side roared. 'I'll let the darkness eat us before we kill ourselves again! Didn't I just tell you not to despair!?'

'I-'

It walked right through the headstone and over the grave, slapping me so hard my head almost turned around. 'Your friends? Good. Think of them. You haven't said goodbye. They saved you last time. Was that for nothing? The priest never tried to kill you. Was that for nothing? The zmeu loves you.'

Another slap, this one knocking me to the ground. 'IS THAT FOR NOTHING!?'

Looking up at it, I had only one answer. 'No...'

It leaned forward, head tilted, cupping a hand around its ear. 'I'm sorry? Did you ask me to show you what the Black God will do in our body?'

'Fuck you.' I stood up, smacking its hand aside. 'You're fucking shit at pep talks. Let's beat this thing, before I wake up and realise whatever it's planning for me is better than listening to you.'

'Good.' Its mad jackal grin mirrored mine. 'Chernobog is dumber than you are if he thinks anything but me will break you.'

I barked a harsh laugh. 'Keep telling yourself that.' I looked around, realising something else was wrong, or rather, hidden from us by the Blackness' assault on our mind.

'The thing in the moon.' I jerked my head at the insect-filled sky. 'I can't feel it.'

'Nngh...our instincts have rather more pressing matters to worry about-'

'Screw our instincts. You said it's not a fragment of Chernobog a while back. Were you bullshitting me?'

My worse half's expression-so to speak, since it only had the shape of a face and eyes-was hurt, though I couldn't tell if it was from my words or the fight against the Blackness.

'Are you daft?' it gasped in a reedy, strained voice. 'I just told you, our instincts have other worries. What did you think I was talking about?'

'So, that freak in the moon is...my instincts? Then what are you?'

'Ah...' Its head twitched to one side, as if it were having a seizure. 'It is...an aspect of me, but not only of me. We're both hungry, David.'

'I certainly aren't.'

'No? You don't hunger for life?' It chuckled drily. 'You would even if a god cut me out of our core. I am your deepest thoughts and desires, but...you can be the happiest, most peaceful strigoi undead, but you'll always crave that warmth.'

'Is that why it greeted us both, back then? Then what is the moon? The world our hunger tears through?'

It rolled its eyes, making them flash. 'Not everything here corresponds to something else, David. It's just the moon. I suppose you could say it means our hunger stands above all, or something, but...urgkhf!' It bent forward, coughing blood so thick and heavy, it cracked the ground upon landing. 'Damn it. Enough of these questions, David. You are distracting me-'

'No,' I said, as it dawned on me. 'You are distracting me.'

'Seriously? Passing the blame now?'

'No! Don't you see? The more I talk to you, the less I spend thinking about how fucking horrible the mess we're in is!' I smiled broadly at it, looking probably as unhinged as it was. 'You said time doesn't pass here, right?' I spread my arms. 'Then we have nothing to lose.'

It kept its head lowered for what felt like an eternity, then raised it slightly, regarding me with one eye. '...Ha,' it rasped eventually. 'Figures...it would take certain death...for you...to be honest...with yourself...'