Breathing. He'd been breathing and that's all he'd done. No more tears, just breath. I wanted to wake him, but I couldn't. Not after I watched for so long as he begged for sleep.

He smelled of decay. Were those things transmittable? I'd never brushed against death long enough to know. That was all I could smell, decay. A balm of it that somehow underwhelmed the lichund stench. That awful smell I'd learned to love.

It was a hard thing, being a touch away. He was a boy built from shards and I knew I'd only gash myself open on his crude edges.

I think that's okay. I think I want that.

It's not often I turn my back to the moon. But for him, I'd make friends with the darkness.

Or I'd fight it and all of its monsters.