Those who survived the night bore no palpable wound, but for all my care they died soon enough anyway. They stumbled from the temple's jagged maw during the fading dark, when the lake lay calm and colourless, or they crawled forth when dawn bloodied the old stone. They left behind the lucky ones, slumped cold beneath the waxing sunlight.

During what days remained them, they flinched at the sight of stone walls, and cowered from the encroaching dusk. Their eyes were haunted with a gold glaze, their skin drawn and pale; their limbs sluggish and their minds dazed. They would not eat. Their deaths were infinitely slower, drawn to an exquisitely prolonged pitch.