I. The Ossuary of Echoes

The clock strikes thirteen in a hall with no doors, Where shadows crawl hungry across the cold floors. I wake in a forest of ivory and lime, To the rhythmic, slow rot of the carcass of time. The ceiling is weeping a wine made of lead, While the silence is screaming the names of the dead.

I waltz with a phantom whose face is a mask, "How long have you lingered?" the hollow eyes ask. I try to respond, but my tongue is a moth, That flutters and dies on a shroud of black cloth. The walls are all pulsing, a ribcage of stone, Holding secrets that marrow has etched into bone.

A fever of velvet, a chill in the blood, As memories rise like a black, oily flood. Don’t close your eyes, for the darkness has teeth, And the world you once knew is a grave underneath. You’ll carry this haunting, this shiver, this sting— For the bells in your soul have forgotten to ring.