The raven always comes in the dark.
It comes in the dark, at the time when you cannot face it anymore. When the broken mirror through which you perceive reality falls away into the void. When you can no longer see straight. When nothing makes sense, and the surreal is all that is real. Then it comes, its sable wings blending with the darkness that surrounds you. It comes and circles over the field of death that was once life. It circles over the battlefield, and feasts on the corpses that your life has left in its wake.
It follows,
down,
down,
down
that spiral. It dares you to take another step down the spiral staircase into the final dissolution of conciousness. Its harsh voice, in mocking tones in your ear, its wings caressing you like the touch of the darkness itself. It swoops down on that dreamlike battle field, as it starts to flow, like water, into the void of the darkness and the vile, despairing dreams of agony, that torment you every night.
It stalks you every waking moment, yet it only whispers in your dreams.
It only appears where none else can see it.
It only fights where none can you help resist it.
It alights upon a corpse and begins to feed. It tears the bloody, still beating hart from within the charnel clay. You know the one it feeds on; you know them so very well. It is you. But, in a final, searing, moment of terrifying revelation, a truth dawns on you. This truth sends you over, cascading down the raging waterfall of death that waits at the end of the spiral of despair, in a torrent of blood and tears and fear and loss.
That you can never escape the raven.
Even death will not hide you from it.
It is in your soul.
It is the truth behind the illusion of a benign reality.
It is you.