A scream shatters the reverent silence of the autumn evening.

A flock of birds takes flight from the red and orange laden branches at the anguished sound.  It’s a child’s scream, a heartrending noise full of terror and pain. 

The sound appears to be coming from a run-down little shack tucked away in the endless expanse of flaming trees. Inside, a pretty young woman with a silken curtain of ebony hair sits on the floor, cradling a boy around twelve years old who is sobbing like the world is ending. A gaunt figure with a coarse brown cloth covering their hair kneels beside the pair, murmuring in a language long ago forgotten by the rest of humankind. As they speak, curling, looping silver lines twine their way over the boy’s body, making him scream even louder. The patterns begin at his feet, swirling over his toes and heels, then to his ankles, calves, disappearing under his clothes. The boy’s shrieks have turned to heaving whimpers now, the effort of screaming too great. The silver reappears at his collarbones, adorning his neck and shoulders. Sweeps over his arms, curls around his elbows. Laces between his fingers.

Finally, the lines stop moving, settling over the child’s body like shimmering ink. Every inch of skin below his chin is bedecked with the elaborate swirls and whimsical flourishes, like an artist’s final dying masterpiece. The young woman gasps and a tear slips down her cheek, unbidden.

‘It is done,’ rasps the figure, standing up in one fluid motion. ‘He shall live until the end of time.’