"And what did you think?" - the Shadow said - “That I was going to let you off the hook that easily?” The words weren’t loud, they didn’t need to be, they slid into my skull like they’d always been there, coiled around the soft parts, tightening until I could feel the pulse in my temples. I wondered how long this whirlpool would keep spinning, thoughts knotted in the claws of darkness, the weight of them pushing my head down as though to drown me. I’m holding a human skull under the candlelight, watching the flame tremble in the wind that slips through my broken window, shadows stretching like veins across the walls. Who is speaking to me? What mouth shapes these answers? The voice feels like it should be good as it pours a vial of something I’ve always called inspiration, the same way it did when I was twelve, when I placed my hands on the piano keys, black & white like a chessboard, and my fingers became something more than mine, fused with the instrument, part of it, not separate, breathing together. The memory haunts me in a way I cannot hate. It is a ghost I would safely keep. But now my hands clutch the air, uncertain before they touch the keys, stuttering before they land, unsure if they will draw a melody or silence. My brain says keep going, keep pressing forward, but the world refuses to bend, it just stares back at me, blank & unshaken waiting to see who breaks first. And so I press harder wringing, pulling, torturing whatever spark is left inside me until it bleeds out in minor notes & fractured words. Sometimes it feels like carving into my own ribs just to find a fragment worth keeping, breathing life into something that doesn’t want to live, a coldhearted world of steel, playground of machines. I don’t know anymore - does the artist drain the life from the instrument, or does the instrument drink the artist dry until nothing is left? Am I feeding the work or if the work is feeding on me? I only know that something's being eaten, and that it is almost finished.