Once Bitten

The narrator looks back on a time when his heart was hollow and he had no one. The world he describes is a grim place, buried in endless night and gripped by war. Blood has soaked the ground, and the air is thick with the smell of the dead. Amid all the destruction, a small spark of life still survives.

He is a lone soldier on that red-stained battlefield, his makeshift armor of tin catching the pale moonlight. His body is battered, and he expects to die soon, one more name among the countless fallen. He thinks of himself as a flame close to going out. Then he meets her.