The sun has no business shining so brightly. Not now. Not today.

Chewing the inside of your lip until your mouth floods with the sharp tang of blood, you turn away from the window and tug the heavy curtains back into place, cutting off the pale morning light and shrouding the room in darkness once more. Each step across the floor feels practiced and carefully chosen, and yet you plod. Your bones are like lead, your skin stone. An effigy come to life, pulled free of its tomb to walk the earth among the mortals.

In the safety of the darkness, you walk across the room, arms outstretched to feel for sporadic furniture and pillars of priceless art. The wood is polished and smooth under your fingers; the marble cool and impersonal.

When your hand grazes the engraved doorknob, you hesitate, hearing muffled voices down, down through layers of wood and brick and stone. Your next breath is heavy, rattling, as if through a skeleton’s loose ribs. It will take courage to leave the dark. Courage you don’t think you have.

It would all be so easy if only you could blow out the sun.