Sea Lion Shores our iron coffin

”you’re going to leave me too.” the words slid rustily from his throat, cloaked in the croak of disuse; all at once he was frog-voiced and trembling before her, not at all the somber companion he had been these past weeks.
was it catharsis that led him to speak? healing? the growing blackness that yawned chasmic within him? who could know! who could know?
rage, loathing, hatred, terror; they spilled across merrick’s expression like toppled dominoes, one after the other, and he made no move to bridge the distance between them.