A little pretentious, Halloween fiction.... 
In the season of desperation, I returned to the Tower and found myself unable to process the changes I found there.
Her face swam in and out of focus. I tried to touch it time and again, tears crawling down my cheeks, but my fingers merely passed through the image of her, like the shreds of memory that she was--intangible, inconsequential.
But it was the Tower, that long, dark edifice that reached towards the night sky, towering above the limestone cliffs of a forgotten bone-yard, which drew my attention. The air was cold, yet alive with a whispered breeze that sang of ache and disillusion.
The Tower--its iron doors as I had left them on that fateful night. Leaves, brown, dried and cracked, littered the basalt steps fronting the entrance, evidence that none had trespassed there for such a long, desperate time.
None save me.
The wind, biting cold now, began to pitch and scream.
Her voice, I swear, rode those wild buffets and her fingernails raked my core. Stealing myself, I kicked past the piled leaves, leaves somehow spared the torment of the wind and held nearly immobile against the Tower itself. I touched the frigid metal of the Tower's door. I pushed and felt the hinges grind against ancient fittings. The torment of the opening door added to the cacophony of the wind and a new lashing tore my being. I nearly fell back but, after several eternal moments, gathered myself, stepping forward.
She was standing in the doorway, a hideous affectation of the Tower's power over my mind. I was mad, I knew, but I had come full circle. The wind was screaming my torment and the empty sockets in her withered face drove the cold deeper into my soul.
Happy Halloween!
In the season of desperation, I returned to the Tower and found myself unable to process the changes I found there.
Her face swam in and out of focus. I tried to touch it time and again, tears crawling down my cheeks, but my fingers merely passed through the image of her, like the shreds of memory that she was--intangible, inconsequential.
But it was the Tower, that long, dark edifice that reached towards the night sky, towering above the limestone cliffs of a forgotten bone-yard, which drew my attention. The air was cold, yet alive with a whispered breeze that sang of ache and disillusion.
The Tower--its iron doors as I had left them on that fateful night. Leaves, brown, dried and cracked, littered the basalt steps fronting the entrance, evidence that none had trespassed there for such a long, desperate time.
None save me.
The wind, biting cold now, began to pitch and scream.
Her voice, I swear, rode those wild buffets and her fingernails raked my core. Stealing myself, I kicked past the piled leaves, leaves somehow spared the torment of the wind and held nearly immobile against the Tower itself. I touched the frigid metal of the Tower's door. I pushed and felt the hinges grind against ancient fittings. The torment of the opening door added to the cacophony of the wind and a new lashing tore my being. I nearly fell back but, after several eternal moments, gathered myself, stepping forward.
She was standing in the doorway, a hideous affectation of the Tower's power over my mind. I was mad, I knew, but I had come full circle. The wind was screaming my torment and the empty sockets in her withered face drove the cold deeper into my soul.
Happy Halloween!
radiofrank:
Prententious is good. 
radiofrank:
I'm glad that it's almost over, and I'd prefer to not have to do it again.