Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe

by Thomas Ligotti

(Nonetheless, like all crowds who attend events where there is, or seems to be, an element of hazard, they secretly wish to see something go wrong.)

I am an offspring of the dead. I am descended from the deceased. I am the progeny of phantoms. My ancestors are the illustrious multitudes of the defunct, grand and innumerable. My lineage is longer than time. My name is written in embalming fluid in the book of death. A noble race is mine.

To become the wind in the dead of winter and howl the undoing of all that would abide in warmth and light.