Dawnbreak casts a veil of pale autumn sun across the banks, a mist grazing the horizon. The cracks of a river splits the plains into two, gently washing up against the waterside. Salt-encrusted cliffs circle the open valley, a waterfall tumbling down, down, off the edge and crashing softly into the river. The world still sleeps - almost.

Bonaventure is running. He is not sure how long it has been, but something has been on his trail for quite some time. He knows it, feels it; senses the bone-chilling presence that raises the gooseflesh, tastes something sour in the air not of the mountain breeze. He had always been connected to a beyond, something more than the threads of mortal life, but this was overwhelming, so large a revenant that he is repulsed. And yet, there is _familiarity_. In the terror, there is a fondness, smells and noises from his past. Memory.

The reeds crawl against his smeared shins as he reaches the glittering, muddy shore. He feels the presence stutter to a halt like a flame going out, eddying away as sure as the waves of the brook. Water. Would the water keep him safe for good? Free him of the torment of the spirit? Never had he encountered such a threatening, repugnant spirit. Never had one clinged to him so far.

He takes the respite in mental warfare heavily on his shoulders, like iron weighing down on him, until he sinks into the tallgrass. The white undergarments are soaked in mud, fresh from the bed, as Bonaventure had flown in terror from his room in the dead of night.

He catches the reflection eye of himself on the river surface. Two eyes, dark, tired, a head of golden curls, a crooked nose, pale lips. Everything is there. But something is wrong. Too much of it, he thinks, like a smile with too many teeth. Perhaps it is the haziness of the river reflection. Does he see wrong, when his spirit self appears behind him? He thinks, he has more in common with the dead than he thought.