Day Three hundred and forty one - For you

'Let it begin on my end', I say, as I draw the knife from its sheath. It is an ancient thing, though the blade itself is bitingly sharp. I use it only as a ceremonial token, and seep it in blood until it starts to hum, and as it wakes from its long slumber, it starts to speak. 'Speak, dead speaker', I command it, and it does as it's bid. 'The first', it asks. 'The Sisters', I say, 'All seven of them.' There is a moment of silence, that stretches through the endless night above and around me. Faintly, in the unknowable distance, a faint sound echoes through the cosmos, as if something had popped out from existence. 'It is done.', says the knife.

'The second?' I pause for a moment, the choice must be weighed before being voiced. So be it, out of everything, this. 'The day of first contact.', and at my words the knife raises itself from where it lay, and levitates before me. It hangs now above my head, kin to Damocles of old. It lowers and touches the top of my head. I can feel its sharply cruel point. It asks me if I am certain of my choice. I say I am. It says it will hurt. I tell it it hurts now. 'Very well', it says sadly, as it performs its trepanation ritual. It did not lie - it does hurt. By the time it has finished its work I no longer remember what I asked it to excise from me.

'There is only one more request. What sacrifice do you require?', the knife asks me. It has drunk richly from the blood I'd it given it as tribute, and it glows and pulses. It beats in time with mine own heart, and speaks with the voice of the one I love. The third I cannot, dare not, say out aloud, even in the immensity of nothingness that surrounds me. I put my lips to the blade, and whisper my command. 'And then?', the knife asks. 'Will you let me sleep again? Will you let me rest?', it pleads with me. I promise it I shall. I near the end of this profane pursuit, and none alive will have earned the right to judge me. 'Days', I tell the blade, 'Weeks at best.' The gentle pulsing seems to indicate a nod in agreement. 'I understand.', it says. 'It shall be done.'