Prologue
Ajax does not sleep, he dreams.
And in his dreams it comes to him, painted in colors worthy of a child's crayons box, jaundiced by the eons of nothing all the same.
It's cheeks hollow as the flesh dances and peels and falls clean of the bone, leaving not blood, nor mark, not a thing to say it was ever there.
Ajax wakes, when the night is young still. Branches swaying outside the window, moonlight pooling in the crevices and dips of his slender body, and festering like a wound. A sickness that overcomes him.
The night is young still, Ajax is not anymore.
His steps fall silent down the corridors, muted by the rot of the skin, and the long plush carpets his feet cannot feel. Red like his blood, red like the dirt he was once buried below.
He wanders down the long hallways for an eternity stopped in time. Then, he steps out into the gardens, grass withering under his feet, flowers dying on his wake as if he were death herself.
Acres and acres of empty land extend before him. And he wants to see them all burn.
