Fractals of light cascaded down the etches of her porcelain skin. The faceted hues of gold and green scattered and melded into a vibrant tapestry that clothed her windowed frame. She nestled upon the effigy of the Lamb, seeking the embrace of a shepherd's hand. She looked into his eyes, the Son of Man, and envied the certainty of his purpose.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
The words were sung in her mind like a hallowed melody. Haunting her conscience in silent turmoil. She felt abandoned by the world. Alone, to wallow in the dust and ashes of her past, eternally enslaved to the harrows of time. She wept as the waves of sorrow crashed against her crumbling soul. Her tears carved crevasse down her face, falling to the floor, forming miniature seas of silent ruin. She wept for the loss of her father, who had left this mortal plane many blessings ago. She wept for her naivety and her curious wonder of the world. She wept for the ritual of routine and normalcy she had lost. She wept, knowing she would watch the lives of those she loved bloom and wither, time and time again. She was cursed with the knowledge that she would never see the end of the meandering river that she drowned in.
She tightened her palla around her shoulders and shook as a chronic chill wrapped her nerves. The cold wrought not from eventide, but from an eternal cheimón that had befallen her senses. Though the waking world was bathed in a diurnal light, she stood captive to a ceaseless, shivering night.
As the first murmurs filled the nave, she withdrew towards the back of the parekklesion, covering her face from the familiar faces that had once welcomed her. No one knew what had befallen the lively daughter of the chartophylax. To her loved ones, she had vanished without a trace. They mourned her loss and symbolically buried her in their hearts. She had visited her presumed resting place many times. Tucked away in her family's narthax was a proconnesian white marble sarcophagus, containing an empty larnax. Though devoid of her body, it incarnated the essence of her life as it once was. By any real significance, Theaphanïa had died and been entombed by the life she had once known.
The air was thick with the scent of beeswax and honey as the candles were lit for the Sunday liturgy. The subtly sweet aroma blended with the metallic, pungent smell of ink and the musky odor of dry animal hide. It hung like a tribute from the scriptorium, lingering like a fragrant shroud.
Should a passing magistrate or the middle-aged face of a cousin peer into her alcove, they would not recognize the devoted daughter of the archiver, the quiet girl they believed safely laid to rest. They would see the unnerving perfection of a marble statue drawing breath. They would see the vrykolakas. The very community who had offered prayers for her soul would not hesitate to drag her into the merciless, judging light of the courtyard.
To endure, she was forced to become a phantom long before the world had truly forgotten her. A barren ache took root in her throat. It was an affliction that demanded naught so vulgar as the crimson lifeblood of men, yet left her perpetually parched. Her empty vessel yearned for vitality, for the phantom warmth of the lost routine she mourned so desperately. She pressed her fingertips against the carved oak of the pew, seeking the grounding familiarity of its grain, but found no shock of temperature. The wood was merely an extension of her own lifeless alabaster. She was a creature exiled from the realm of touch.
She cast her gaze upon the aristocratic women weeping softly before the altar. For them, sorrow had an end. When eventide truly fell, slumber would offer them a gentle reprieve—a fleeting, daily death wherein the mind might seek harbor in dreams, mend its mortal wounds, and wake reborn with the morrow.
But for Theaphanïa, the sun merely sank, and the moon merely rose in a singular, unbroken torment of consciousness. The hallowed sanctuary of dreams was barred to her. Nevermore would she rest her heavy head by the hearth, nor surrender to the sweet, pulling weight of fatigue. Her eyes desperately craved the mercy of closure, yet found only a relentless, wide-eyed lucidity. The meandering river she drowned in had no shores where she might rest.
An elderly man, a patrician her father had once debated with over ancient scrolls, stepped into the aisle. His hands trembled with a mortal frailty she would never again possess, his skin mapped with the beautiful, tragic decay of time. He lit a thin taper at the altar, bowed his silvered head, and left his fragile hopes at the feet of the Divine. He had an end. He had a purpose. Theaphanïa remained in the dark, her breath perfectly, unnaturally still. She was condemned to watch his small flame burn down to nothing, knowing with a terrifying, absolute certainty that when the final ember died, she would still be awake.