The incessant hooting pierces my soul. Why does this feathered fiend of the netherworld punish me so? Every night for what seems an eternity this messenger of the reaper visits me and injects me with venom of adrenalin. Although a drug of choice for the young it is nothing but a reminder of how far my foot is in the grave, and I find it difficult to steady my beating heart. There was a time when that muscle would beat in time with another in a resonance of bliss that although long lost is still not forgotten. Oh how I have loved…and oh how I have lost. I reflect for a moment and I feel pity for my heart, for in truth for the majority of my long life I have filled it with hate, vengeance and regret.

I have pondered on my many lonely nights why it is that the owl follows me so. How is it that the thing can live so long? Regardless of my searching I have found no answer and I am left to fill the void with my own twisted reasoning. I have long convinced myself that on that night of our tin anniversary, when she was cruelly taken from me, a part of my soul was torn and flung into that half dead demon that now torments me. I was fractured in two, with all that was good in me removed and left resident in this twilight half dead demon of purgatory. What remained was a torn and twisted beast of agony that would never rest again and would be shadowed by a bird possessed. Indeed I pity the bird for it has been dragged into a lingering death. I am sure it cannot rest until I do.

At first I thought it may have been a splinter of my love trying to reach me to help me find those who had destroyed our bliss. It cannot be though, for the hooting cry of a pain refreshed has done nothing but wake me with the cutting blade of fear night upon endless night. My love would give me rest and thus it cannot be her for I have found none in over forty years. It cannot be her…not even a reflection of her. Although tonight I must wonder if I have been warned of a pending doom, for in the dark depth of the room I can see him – standing there in the door way. Without a single doubt I know this is the remaining spec of filth that I have hunted for so long. The hunted become the hunter and turned to strike me the final fatal blow? Do I now lie on my death bed? What cursed damnation is this that the scum that I have vowed to destroy be able to come and end me now? There is no justice in all of creation if such a travesty can be allowed.