Chapter 1, Post 3: The Man Who Does Not Exist

He crested the path even as the still-hidden sun sent its rays bending around the curve of the earth, splicing for a moment dark earth from lightless sky. Just as quickly, the light succumbed to the gathering clouds. Only the gray on gray of daylight without sun remained. It would do.

Sniffing the air again, beyond the snow he scented something far more elusive. Searching always searching, his sad, black eyes devoured the miles of valley that stretched far below, but like the dog who waits at the door for his master dead years on, his actions were guided more by habit than memory. He suspected that at one time he had known what he sought, but that, along with so much else, had been forsaken to the snarled vines of the wild.