You Just scared me half to death," I said.

"You should be thrilled you're halfway there.

Dying would be normal for me, and one day, I'd be buried beneath a stone, and nothing would matter anymore. It'd be ordinary, like life.

And that terrified me, endlessly.

With painstaking rumination, the tips of his fingers grazed over my neck, a deafening silence. I didn't move as his hand paused at the base of my throat. He listened to the arrhythmic beating of my heart, my pulse thumping beneath his fingers. He kissed me along my neckline and throat. I almost burst apart from the longing. My blood burned for him.

I was made to rule the darkness.

Ellie, would you frolic in the land of forever with me?

The voice blurs and fades, like a faint cry riding on the tails of the wind. I yawn and stretch, rolling over. I fold my pillow under my head and wait for the voice to return. When I hear nothing but the sound of my own breathing I allow myself to drift back into a dreamless slumber.