the creeping sensation of my skin shattering into the pinpoint tips of ten thousand spiders legs as I'm standing on the edge of a cavern that yawns so wide as to challenge the entire expanse of the sky.

the sting of a syringe poking the pattern of the starscape across my shoulders. the hollow drone of a bell's dying clang.

ribs cracked, wind hammered from my lungs, I am Orpheus looking back.