The sun sank inch by inch behind the western wooden scrub.
The dusk slowly turned into a dismal orange-red, soon swallowed by the rising night.
The colors in the courtyard were also gradually drawn away, the old locust tree's claw-like branches, only withered during the day, now seemed like countless stiff hands, densely woven against the ever-darkening sky.
Silence was terrifying, the usual nightly watchman's clappers were far from this Willow Alley, making the entire alley feel eerie...
Cold.
A chill that seeped from the depths of the earth, from the roots of the walls, wet and carrying the silent, rotting mildew of ages past, creeping up around the ankles, crawling up the spine, burrowing into the seven orifices.
She... awoke.
Her consciousness was chaotic, like stirred muddy water, faint buzzing hummed by her ears, her face stiff, unable to twist, she felt she wanted to say something, but... her throat seemed blocked, as if something was strangling it.
