Like a ship torn from its moorings,
On the wild, wind-swept sea

He had failed.

The truth of that statement sunk into him with every step, a double-edged sword of mutual loss.

He had failed, and now there was no hope. The slim chance of salvation – for himself, for the world – was lost now. There would be no going back.

He walked on in the endless twilight, across a world broken and torn from grief. The Land of Desolation brought to life, endless desert interrupted only by the shattered remains of rocks and dying shrubbery.

I have fallen from the wreckage
Of who I used to be.

He remembered running, screaming her name at the top of his lungs. She was crying, fighting back the shadows that clutched at her, reaching out for him.

"Help," she called, "Help me!" and only he was left, no one else could hear so he was running, running as fast as he could, the ground blurring under his feet while the world narrowed to that struggling white-cloaked form being swallowed up by the living darkness. She was dwindling, more and more of her body wrapped in black coils, and putting on a final burst of speed he dived for her grasping hands.

Their fingertips brushed. A spark of lightning ran between them, freezing time for one endless moment. The resultant implosion threw him backwards, straight into a wall of solid rock. As his head cracked against the granite and he fell to the floor, he saw the darkness swallow her up and vanish. The last spark of light extinguished, he gave himself up to a dreamless sleep.

All alone and all forsaken,
I'm searching for a light

The next few days were torture. The world cracked and reformed, blasted alternately by heat waves and ice storms. Her power, magnificent and bright, had halted the unmaking of the universe, but now it was gone and nothing stood between his world and the Destroyer.

Solid earth rippled under his feet, dropping away beneath him and ripping apart with a sound like thunder as he fought to keep his balance. Whirlwinds threatened to rip the skin off of him. Storms of insects rushed past him as he took shelter in the lee of a stone, tearing vegetation apart in their mad frenzy to escape the destruction that ruled the world. He saw them overtake an antelope racing ahead, and when the flood had passed all that remained were gleaming, parched-white bones.

In the distance, he swore he could hear the screams of dying children.

But I tremble on the knifes-edge
Of the dark abyss of night.

Now he walked along the endless desert, knowing it was over. No one would come to save him. He wasn't worth saving.

A shadow on the horizon broke the monotony, revealing itself to be a jagged crack in the landscape. He couldn't see to the bottom, lost as it was in the dim, unchanging light, a gaping wound in the world matched only by the bleakness in his soul.

He stood, poised on the edge, gazing in, as a little voice inside his head whispered Jump.