scene one

  There was a feeling of oppression looming as he walked through the midnight wood. Wind was blowing, branches falling, not far from where he stood. Lost in thought, the Night was covering all with his visionless hood.

Night, with your deep dark veil
hiding things we must not see
I trust that when you finally set sail
you'll return yet again and cover me

  The storms came frequently now to his solitary place. Always a reminder of the weight that he bore, always a reminder of what lay in store, for those who found themselves here at Death's lonely door - here where he had always understood so very much more.

  Fire was the answer, for it came from within. On a long ago day, he knew Life would one day end. He knew this by the gifts Life would continually send to him. It was then he had chosen to quietly blend in until his exile's end - until the day he would stand on sunlit ground with the words he would ultimately send. It was on that day so so long ago, that the Fire had spoken to him, "Go! Never turn back, never, never give in".

  He wasn't dying, though he lived on the threshold of things that are gone - at least, not dying as of yet. It was here that he had found his home - the wind, and the gloom notwithstanding. It was here that he would hone his resistance to Life's society, to lies, to just about everything - here, on his own, alone.

  It was the fire within that sustained. Like a burning hearth on an ice cold night, or a sojourn down a long lost path by candlelight. Something that was longed for, something to prove, something to enduringly complete that this world never knew, something true.

  Path, after path, after path, it had been a long long time. The temptations, the losses, the persecutions of the past. Like tendrils, grasping, reaching for a soul they would bind. Of the one on the run, that they must find. The one unaligned, never part of the vine. But something has now changed. The branches falling told of a world marching to his threshold. A world frantically running out of time.

Oh Time, how you hunt me so
Your pulling ropes tug at my soul
What more is it that I must know
Before you drag me to the final goal