Dmitri sits in silence amidst the pale moonbeams streaming from the window, touched by gauzed curtains billowing. He hears the restless roar of the sea, the cry of the white-winged gulls. The chill of the ocean foam spritzes his cheek. Blankly, never blinking, he stares at the portrait on his wall, cheerful and dreary.

His wife's on the phone in the stone kitchen, kneading the dough as she speaks to a friend in the low voice of conspiracy. "The doctor said he'll get better here, but I can't see any changes."

Concern and sympathy crowd the line. The dialogue dwindles, eventually dies, leaving her in domestic silence.

Meanwhile Dmitri moves to the bed, lifting his feet and shaking his head, watching the shadows draw near him. The beings are faceless but deadly, he knows. The stealers of souls from the legends of old. Formed from curled pages of yellowed parchment and ink unaging, crumbling. Whimpering, he presses his hands, starts to pray, swaying fervently his loyalty if they can be swayed. Silently, maddening, the black closes in, enveloping the screaming sin.

Blood glazes bread with a jolt of nerves. Clasping fresh pain, his wife mutely stares at the ivory doorway. The cries are soon drowned by the pounding of rain. Amidst periods of silence the thunder claps down. Fearful, the house does tremble.

Abandoning the warm baked goodies she's made, she goes to the door and calls out his name. Entering the frigid black tomb, she sees him soundly sleeping. His hand uncurled from the sheet, his legs twisted, his lips apart, silently lost in the place of dreams where she cannot follow.

She touches his finger, still hot from the stove, warming the flesh of the young trapped in old. From his fluttering lashes a tear does tremble. She wipes from his brow the beaded sweat, then turns to the window forgotten and wet. She closes it gently to shut out the sounds of malice. Gathering the blankets surrunding his knees, she covers him ever affectionately, sitting herself at his bedside, anxious to fight the waking ones, praying soon the passing of black clouds swirling.

Much of this will read like a lumped up poem, since it was originally intended to be a poem and I somehow made it not . . . Don't ask me how. My writing has a mind of its own.