the tendrils claw at your skin and wrap around your thin flesh like talons

you’re held in place, unable to move by this enigmatic force, a shadowed figure you still cannot seem to understand

it’s been years and you cannot free yourself from its grasp, no matter the tactic or weapon you choose to yield against it, you always seem to fail

in every universe?

you aren’t sure. hope is a dangerous and fickle thing, something you haven’t allowed yourself in some time now.

perhaps.

perhaps another.

it’s a masochistic thing, the imagination—what could have been, what could be, if only you were free.

you used to reach for it, before the fight became meaningless, simply fate, you think.

it’s not real.

not in this life.

you are doomed much like sisyphus, but your punishment is not the painless kind.

meaninglessness and despair.

two words you know all too well.

it won’t stop, the tendrils will keep coiling around your limbs, the shadows creeping in through your skin, into your bones, your soul, the very core of your being.