The stars fade, swallowed by shadow,
Leaving us adrift in the vast, impossible dark.
A chorus of howls shivers through the night,
Cold seeps deep, freezing flesh and bone.
We cling to the hands of strangers, desperate,
Whispering pleas for an end, for oblivion.

A crimson glow pierces the starless void,
A blood-red omen, cruel and unyielding,
The new monarch of heaven and earth,
The incarnation of our deepest terrors,
Whose cursed name we dare not speak aloud