Forsaken

"I walked the night for years before I dared to walk again in the light of day. Until then, when I ventured out of the cave, I would wait until the time when the moon was at its darkest in the sky. Shame and black bitterness stained my every thought for decades. I passionately avoided any pool of water if there was the slightest chance that I might see my own reflection, even for an instant. I could not bear to see the monstrous reminder of my sentence, my eviction from humanity, the permanence of my exile. I did not know how terrible the curse would become then; how absolute was my damnation. Not for two hundred and fifty-one years did the full horror of what had been decided completely seep into my understanding. The soul-deep, consuming and abiding loneliness and sadness of what it means to wander accursed for all time; to remain. At that time, with the stupidity and inexperience of most of childish humanity, I was absolutely stricken with the physical manifestation of my sentence. Yet, even then came the stirring realization of that ultimate separation with which I had been doomed...condemned to wander the earth in the shackles of time...forsaken by the living and the dead."