The girl in the black night has always been hungry.
She has never known anything of the tattered rags upon her shoulders.
She has never known anything of the wet sandy ground beneath her bare feet.
She has never known anything of the comforting warmth of another's embrace.
She has never known anything of the wet cold fog of the night that conceals her.
She has never known anything but the hunger...
...and his voice in her mind.
She has never heard his voice with her ears.
She has never seen him with her eyes.
But, in her mind, he comes whispering and her hunger eases as surely as the morning dispels the gloom.
She has never known anything but the hunger and the comfort of his voice.
They are her torment and her salvation.
In her mind his voice soothes away her hunger and tells her what she must do.
The girl in the black night lies still as the dead behind a sandy dune.
The girl feels the heft of the axe handle in her hands.
The girl watches the little village, its lights obscured and its throaty generator muffled by the thick coastal fog.
She hears the soft lapping of the waves on the beach in the distance.
For a moment a faint emotion flickers across her mind and is gone.
And she continues to lie still.
One with the cold, one with the night, one with the fog that conceals her.
Lying with her hunger, waiting for him to come whispering in her mind.