Paul Kearney
This Forsaken Earth

PROLOGUE

In the end, man dies like any other animal: alone, and raging against the dark. I know this. I know there is no God, no trusty patchwork of angels to speak for us. We are but cages of flesh, waiting for the worm.

Some things endure. Love, hate. These can be passed down through the lives of many men. They can become more important than life itself.

Only to fools.

This love-this hate. It has endured within you. You think of her still.

I-I dream of her. At night-when the moon is a long broken gleam on the black waters of the sea-then she seems close. She was a thing of the night always. A creature of shadows.

Can you feel her?

Sometimes. It is like the flash of a star, which fades if one looks too close. She lives. She is alive-and she thinks of me yet.

She hates you. She would see you dead.

No. Perhaps. And yet she may love me too. That is the way she was made.

A pause.

Will I see her again?

Silence.

One