I must leave my home today. I have lived in other places in the past, but this one really was where I belonged, and now I must leave it. I can still remember when I first came here, although it has been a great deal of time since that happened.

The snow was driving on that day, as it often was at that time and it was terribly cold. It was my role to collect firewood for my village however and I had become very familiar with the cold over time. I never felt comfortable in the village, the others felt I was inadequate for other tasks in the village, or simply seemed to dislike me. Thus it was that I spent most of my days in the woods collecting wood and would wander into the village at nightfall to deliver it, hopefully after the others had gone to sleep. I prefered it this way, less contact with them, more time spent with my thoughts, with my work. That period of my life ended predictably enough. One night, I didn’t make it back to the village. As I said, it was as cold as any night I could remember, the snow was falling in such quantity and with such ferocity that I lost my way in the storm. I don’t know how I got turned around but I remember tripping and stumbling along my way and filling my hands with splinters from the firewood I was carrying. I was determined to get back to the warmth of the village in time for some dinner and despite the mocking I would no doubt receive for my battered appearance after my trial in the snowstorm.

It was then that I fell. I had heard the cracking beneath my feet and knew it was going to happen before it did, but I was so cold and tired, I reacted too slowly. The ground under me gave way to void and I slipped down into it. I have no idea how far I fell, but I remember the pain when I hit the ground, my legs, my arm, momentarily became explosions of pain and I lay there unable to move, looking up for the stars, unseen somewhere far beyond the whipping snow above. I never saw the stars again.

I’m not sure when I lost my senses and passed out, but I remember distinctly what woke me. I was moving, and not of my own accord. I was sliding, or being drug along the floor of the massive cave I had fallen into when its entrance had been covered by thin ice and snow. Through the haze of pain and confusion, all i could see in the darkness were glowing lights bobbing up and down through the darkness next to me, and a strange chirping animal noise accompanied them. When I stopped moving, I could smell earth, dampness, soil, the smell of darkness and underground places. I thought, for a moment, that I had been carried to the afterlife by some sort of spirits, and I was going to lay here forever, in the dark, underground.

That was not to be of course, though I would stay underground here, in my home for a very very long time. I will tell you more of this story soon, but for now, I must prepare, prepare for my journey back.

-Nocturnal