How often do you mistake things for your monster? How often do you see his face in the passing strangers before you – hear his voice in the dulcet sounds of the wind – taste him in the sweet pools of morning dew? How often does he still haunt you (is it truly haunting if it’s what you ache for?) – still call to you from the gritty slumber of your dreams? You may wander, dear Rapt, but you will never be able to stray from the aching of your own soul.
The world is wide and dangerous to a boy with doe-eyes and a quivering core. The world is a gaping jaw set wide before you, like the split open canvas of a circus tent that calls to you with a cacophony of sounds. Come play with us, Rapt. Become one with us, Rapt. But the circus tent is a lion’s den, and there is not always a welcoming of acrobats and clowns and a smattering of applause. Sometimes there is something much darker waiting for you there, maw open wide in a careening smile. Come play with me, Rapt. Become something for me, Rapt.
A soft tumbling, like daisy petals falling with the last rays of summer sun – your voice - small and almost shivering. An opportune moment ready to be plucked from the ground – how could Eight say no?  “Who, perhaps, did you think I was?” His head snaps towards you, akin to a move so unnatural. He watches you closely, as tendrils of magic waft towards you, crawling into your skull, swimming around the gray matter that made up your wants and wishes and past and dreams. Ah yes –this will do. Something fresh and bright, a pulse that throbs throughout your mind – your monster. Ever so briefly, the magician’s face phases into something you may remember so well; a scythe slice opening his mouth wide, splitting his black face into a smile wide like the canvas tents. An invitation to step inside.
You are sorry? If only you knew, little thing, how sorry you could be.

∞

and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in