Not quite the hot dark of embers, but a soft, hopeful dark. The dark that comes just before the sunrise, a kind of dark that helps the orange and gold blossom across the sky, like a small flower trembling open in spring. The dark that encourages you to fall asleep as you close your eyes, tossing and turning in a futile attempt to slip away into the depths of unconsciousness, blissfully unaware. The type of dark that occurs in a complete solar eclipse, blocking out the light, the noise, the feeling of being, leaving you in the silence of serenity, if only for a few seconds. Eloa knew that the time had come. There were two strange marks in her palms. If you looked carefully they would look like holes made out of rope but it was healing, it was gradual and painful but nonetheless she knew th