She tensed at his touch, every nerve binding tightly from the smallest caress.  His fingertips were rough, calloused by too many hours spent with his guitar, but his touch was gentle and light on her skin.  The feather-light touch brought a line of bumps to her arm.  She swallowed silently, her eyes darting nervously across the room--the fingerprint-free glass coffee table standing on wrought-iron legs in front of her, the warm reddish-brown-painted walls in the sitting room, the black leather couch that matched the one she was seated upon.  She took a short breath, an airy gasp inward--the cherry-stained, glossy hardwood of the flooring, the expensive painting hanging over the bare mantle of the crackling fireplace.  She spasmed, a shiver dancing up her spine--the hand-woven, river-screened silk area rug, decorated in repetitive patterns of metallic golds and reds, imported from Bangkok.

"Are you cold?" he asked her quietly.  When she didn't respond, he kissed her temple tenderly. "I'll bring you a blanket."
 

"Umma!" The shrill voice pierced the chilled air.  Her voice split in panic. "Mommy!"

It was getting late, the sun's warmth quickly disappearing as the moon clocked in for its few hours of nightly labor.  Minduelle's sobbing voice broke through the chilling late-evening air, echoing off the desolate playground's plastic skeleton.  The other children had left hours ago, their hands clasped in their parents', their arms swinging together idly; eyes lit up by taken-for-granted love.

Her breath came in pants, her lungs strained from her shouting.  Her small jacket hung from her shoulders, the too-long sleeves covering her tiny hands.  She heard the snap of a twig and she turned sharply, her breath caught in .  She heard the crying howl of a lone wolf in the distance.  The soft, repeated "whuk?" of an owl as it called to its partner.

Mindeulle slowly retreated to the tunneling tubes, careful not to make a sound that might give her position away to any carnivore that may be passing through, looking for a quick meal of little girl to satisfy their always-present hunger.  Once inside, the cold radiating off the plastic tubing seeped through her jeans and she shivered, pulling her jacket closer to herself.  She curled the extra part of the sleeves into her fist, clutching it tightly as she drew her knees to her chest.  Her lungs began to burn, her eyes stinging with hurt.
 

Abandonment is not an easy thing to accept.  It presses questions in your mind and guides you to false conclusions.  It abducts you and goads you to a place too oppressive and dark for even the most luminous of us.
 

A tear spilled from her glassy eye, followed by another, and another.  Her breath came in choked sobs.
 

Darkness consumes you until the remnants of your eternal light, too, turn to darkness and disappear.