The City of Lights sparkled in the night. Poets have written that when those lights shine, “Paris is a city for lovers.” But Bathory had lived long enough to know that the sparkle was just an illusion, like love itself.
Looking out now upon this so-called City for Lovers, from the driverless black carriage that raced away from the Théâtre de l’Odéon, Bathory swore she would one day burn Paris to the ground and stamp her boots upon its ashes.
The Undead. Dacre Stoker, 2009
You have no anchor to this place or this time, maybe some unbeknown age. You are stuck following the ways you utterly despise. Yet you haven’t forgotten why you have crossed the oceans of time. When you see around there’s nothing, just the ashes of meaningless life you dreamt eons ago
The same you. Dawn will never come.
See behind the ghastly endless darkness, stealthily bordering your time. It’s a frightening place you can’t see and nobody wants to go, but you
Those static glimmering city lights are inconsequential specks compared with what the dead saw and what the unborn will see. It’s not day or night, but tiny stars in an ocean of darkness.
This is not the end, just another beginning.
