These bones are hollow. The mud is old. From where do these stones hold? The Apostate still knows. Bred from the earth and grown from the fen, he lives through the mire, trekking until the days end. The night is contempt, but where else could the sun rest? The Apostate discerns that all needs a break, and yet? The ground is sickly without light. The sun should be praised and kept. Shown in gold is the essence of life.

  Through gates of ivory, he slogs through the green. Careful, as to not trip on the roots unseen. The trill of a river heard over yonder, names The Apostate a follower. There salmon caper and brown bears plunder. He hides from the beasts near the shore, following the river to a salmon’s hoard. He spots the redds and digs through the gravel, taking handfuls of roe from the deceased mother. It’s through her death that the plants will thrive. Unearthed and laid before creations' eyes. The eggs are carefully laid in The Apostate’s bag, made from a fallen deer's hide. He continues down the river until he finds the shore pines. The fallen cones are not what he needs, decayed and weak from within, but the earth it will feed. Using a knife carved from an antler The Apostate excises a single cone from the tree and adds it to his gipser.

  Grey starts to cover the land, the sun’s preaching light fades as gloom arises. The clouds that cover are rancor inscribed, the winds that push are tartuffe implied. The Apostate only sighs as rain drips onto his brow. Ahead, the future is dark, but The Apostate does not stop. The gale huffs against his skin, pushing him further and further into the woods, where the trees give a break from the drizzle. In the rain, frogs and newts jump and scurry along the floor. As The Apostate ducks through the trees, a squish and a squeak is heard beneath his feet. A small brown frog, mottled with spots of black, lays flat in the mud. He kneels and looks at his mistake, but a tear is not shed in its wake. To give back life would not be resurrection, rather wrongful animation. He picks the frog up and notices the shell of a snail still stuck in its mouth. The Apostate pries it out then tosses the dead towards a young garter snake, adding the shell to his sack.

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  The wind still shoves, the rain still falls, The Apostate cannot stall. Heat is lost and cold starts to caress, this is so close to his true rest. But the chills itch where the sun does not touch, the goose flesh only bets and tests his guts. To stop his quest would change all but nothing, a dream is a guide for designing hopeful findings. Quitting isn’t bad, it’s just called adjusting.??

  The Apostate spies a fly agaric, barely visible beneath a pile of leaves. Red and speckled, like those where fairies settle. Cut from the base, The Apostate adds the shroom to his scrip, but he is not released. The clouds continue to cover, though the wind and the rain cannot mask the odor. Vile and foul, skatole and the hint of something sour preys his every path. The drips on his brow cause the flesh to pillow down, untethered from the bone, leaking purge onto the stones below. Each step is unfelt, each move is fumbling and inept. Though a dream, failure is something he cannot accept. This body is not bruised, it's dead.

  Streaks of orange fire glare through shadows, the sun is back, and it is full of desire. Glaring a ray of reverence and favor. The Apostate unloads his pouch, laying the roe to the west and the cone to the north, the shell to the south and the shroom to the east. He sits in the center and waits for the sun's full exposure. His skin has slagged, his muscles bloom. His tendons unravel as his stomach loses the status of being a room. Warmth and eagerness hums through his decaying body, his appendix falls into the grass as he leans forward and begs the sun to make him a trespass. Eyes closed and fists clenched, The Apostate calls:

  I’m sorry, you have brought me back, but I cannot stay. The soil needs not man, but bones to replace. This gift is loved, but cannot be sustained. I’m sorry to have invoked your name. I lay for mercy, I lay for scrutiny, I lay for words beyond the mass cruelty. This life is false and not a destined wight. I cannot serve this light. I give you eggs, I give you seeds, I give you a new opportunity. I give you home, I give you myceth, so please, I beg, give me death.