Even the wolves don’t come out at night because they’re afraid of what hides in the shadows: being banished here is worse than a death sentence.

It creeps in on you slowly, the loneliness.

Not lonely in the sense that you have ever felt before. A loneliness that you feel in your bones, breaking you slowly from the inside out. The darkness, so deeply saturating your soul that you can no longer tell if it is coming from around you, or from inside of you.

Yes, this void is far worse than death. At least death would have an end in sight. At least I would know my own mind up until the very end.

Here, I become a stranger to myself.

My insides twisting tortuously slow to match the evil in these shadows, slow enough that I can say goodbye to myself. They never expected me to emerge from this plane of existence, and I suppose they are right in a way. I am not the one emerging. Something far worse is.

When am finished with them, they'll be wishing they were the ones banished here.