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As a man I am mostly unremarkable yet in this precise moment know I partake in an event truly extraordinary. It is ominous, perhaps, that today marks the crucifixion of our blessed Mother’s son upon the gibbet at the gates of Jerusalem. Just shy of one million moons have passed since that onerous day and although I know I am not to suffer the same torment as he, believe that I, too, find myself as in death. Yet this is most confusing for, certainly, I am alive! In truth, I know not why I have been plunged into this bleak wilderness nor what it is I shall find, but I suspect it is the afterlife, for the living do not reside here I am sure of it. In solitude and from within the depths of my soul I yearn for it to be Paradise, for I seek deliverance. To know I am arrived in the celestial spheres would bring great comfort, for is it not man’s fervent desire to attain salvation? Indeed, to find myself in the realm of darkness would be to accept eternal separation from the Creator and I am unprepared to contemplate such a ruinous truth. Thus, just as I pray for eternal life, I pray for light in these shadows of foreboding. Yet I fear this darkness. Am I to be denied? Exiled thus? 4 Banished to a cataclysmic afterlife of eternal death, to the very core of the Underworld where the Black Emperor reigns? I fear this is what He has ordained, although why I cannot think. This is not my time, for most assuredly, I am not dead. Indeed, my heart beats strong, as the Roman drums of war. In this moment I know dread. I am not blind yet cannot see the path ahead, for in stumbling and lurching about this desolate wasteland I look up to find myself in a forest which has an impenetrable darkness, as black as the ebony trees within. I have lost one of my senses for the blackness is such to be blinded, eyes gouged and tossed aside, for they are no use to me here. Tree roots ripple at the decaying soil as undulating waves such that they wish me to falter and stumble and they are victorious. I stagger directionless, reeling and pitching, drawn in as a spinning whirlpool sucks me deeper and stronger, as if Charybdis drags me into his very bowels. As ebony, so dense it may sink in water, I too plunge to the depths of the abyss, hauled into the forest with a force more powerful than the Mighty himself, but I cannot escape. A scream echoes as I am pulled to the core of the terrifying entangled maze, determined to avoid it and all the bedlam that resides within for I fear this is a gateway to the Underworld. Yet struggle is futile as the violent maelstrom drags me in further, the solid arms and fists of trees which, as I, breathe with life, force me deeper into the black void. For this is The Dark Wood. That desolate and hideous place of which we have heard and of which we are all afraid.