His lupine shadow-puppet flares violet; he drops his hand quickly, afraid of what it might become.

“Why won’t you tell me who you are?” he asks the end of the world.

“I just wanted to save one of you,” she says, with obscure pain, and drops the lamp. When he picks it up she’s gone.

He’s alone in the inky dark on a floating platform, waiting for a train that will not come. There’s a bench. There’s a sign that says 12. There’s a door to a house.

He straightens, and crushes a moth’s cocoon to dust beneath his foot.