It’s been some time since I have worked to post with any regularity. The last several months have been a roller coaster while I have dealt with a lot of the messy particulars of being a human. Through all that, I have struggled to keep working. I have seen failure. I have lost motivation. I have thought to throw in the towel. But I have worked through much of it, prodded along by the firm, yet gentle and loving hand of my wife. And I am here to share my work again. I’ve done a lot to improve myself. Very little of it fun, but I have come to a place where the work resumes at a heretofore unheard of pace. A pace quickened by the self-discipline that can come after some deep soul searching. I am rededicated to my goals and I hope that you all will come along and enjoy the fruits of my labors with me. I have a lot coming up on the horizon, but I won’t speak much about it until it is close. Gonna play everything a bit closer to the chest now.

Thanks to those who have stuck around. Be ready for more. I hope you enjoy this new piece!

Happy Halloween!

-Neon

It’s dark here. It always has been for us here now. Not a single one of us remembers what the day was like. We all know it though. We all feel it inside of our minds. A faint glow from another time. That ancient memory of our people and the sun.

The dark has changed us. Made us something strange. Our skin has paled. Our eyes grown larger. The cold has settled into all of our bones, but we have grown accustomed to its sad touch. Crystals of ice grow in the dark. They began as little more than a carpet of blue and white. Some now stand as tall as the tallest trees once did. The only light we know is the pinpricks of the stars in the ash colored cloak over our sky. Fire does not even burn here. There is no warmth for us in this frozen night. We have lost count of the days since the sun left us.

We implored it to stay. Cast ourselves upon the ground below it and cried up to its radiance. Wooed by the people from far, it chose to abandon us. Day by day, it slipped farther and farther. We felt heavy in body and spirit as it became a pinprick among all the others and eventually vanished. It left too soon for us to be ready for the darkness and the cold. We were not prepared. The weak were lost first. Then the old. Soon the very young. Most of the healthy among us were taken as well. The people from far left us their elixir. They said they had greater need of our sun than we did, but that they would leave something to help us survive. In our pride and anger, we refused to use it. We refused to take their help, those beings that had stolen our light and our warmth. But time got the better of us. So many were lost before we humbled ourselves.

A great vessel filled with their crimson elixir had been left for us. In the time we refused to drink, its surface had become encased in a shell of ice thicker than a man was tall. As we worked to break it free, many more of us perished. In time, we freed the vessel from its frozen casing and dipped our hands in to drink. No one cared why it had kept from freezing. We all gathered and drank deep. Drank our fill until our bellies could hold no more. In hours all who drank from the great vessel grew ill. We feared we would lose so many more, but in time, the sickness subsided. We all began to change. We cast off the great furs that kept us warm for they now burned our skin. We tore down the huts we had lived in for they were as furnaces to us now. The darkness no longer hid our surroundings from us as we could see all things by only the light of the stars. We lived now with more freedom than we had ever known. The elements no longer held the power to harm us. Sleep was never again the thief of time. We were free to roam our world and we did not seem to grow old or take ill.

For a time, it seemed that they had given us prosperity in this darkness. We flourished in the shade. Basked in the cold. But that has changed. A hunger grows. Something we can’t understand. Many have gone mad searching the world over to feed the urge, but none can find satisfaction. Our numbers swelled at the height of our supposed freedom, but now we are losing ourselves to madness and starvation. Our greatness has become the curse of hunger. Not even death comes to relieve us.

Is it the sun they took from us? Do we crave its light again? Is it something among the stars?

There is nothing that can feed us down here.

We must leave.

We must find it.

We must feed.