When The Dark Loomed

The weight of Black Daffodil's words lingered, absurd in their implications yet unshakable in their clarity.

To say that something was waiting outside the plane of Carcosa—an unknowable force so determined, so singularly focused on my death, that even Black Daffodil doubted I'd survive without her intervention—was, frankly, insulting.

Worse, it made her need for my survival all the more evident. It wasn't a selfless offer born of some newfound altruism; no, she needed me alive. My death, it seemed, would bring her significant discomfort—or perhaps worse.

And then there was the second layer of absurdity. 

Strip your face clean.

The words echoed in my mind, churning irritation into outright anger. Black Daffodil, connected to me as intimately as a reflection in a mirror, had to know how those words would affect me.

That compulsion to strip away imperfection, to remove unsightly asymmetry, the awful curse that had ruled my life…