Ankyra Sound and it's as if my eyes have been replaced with gasoline.

kevlyn. caiaphas' eyes widened, rimmed in fibers of bloodshot red. kevlyn had slipped into the blackness, leaving her alone.

not alone. ephraim's voice sounded distantly. mom, it pleaded.

that single syllable had once meant more to caiaphas than anything else in the world. now, it meant nothing.

caiaphas took a faltering step forward. her thin limbs were dangerously close to the gurgling pool - the very pool she had once protected ephraim from - but she didn't know. her memories were scattered like buckshot, her mind a melting orb of chaos. a dark turn of mind had overcome her - the utterly insensate working of misfiring synapses.

she did not see ephraim step forward. her eyes were trailing the ceiling - or what she thought was the ceiling. it was black, melting down like a foul icicle; already the shadows had touched her forepaw, and were snaking their way up her willowy legs like a malevolent animus.

caiaphas gurgled in terror, reeling back. her movements were stilted and slow, like a drunken or headsplit ox. no no no no no no! she cried -- or tried to -- over the thickening inflexibility of her tongue. once more that low keening groan bubbled from her frothing jaws, as agony melded with ceaseless dread. the very same black-rot that had seized control of her brain was spreading out across her body in spidery obsidian tendrils -- and caiaphas could only watch in horror as the shadows overtook her.