An unnamed captive exists inside a mental darkness where an ancient, cruel thing waits behind a weakening invisible barrier. The captive has lost his name and nearly all memory of the people he once loved, leaving only horror, despair, and one repeated image.

The captive continually relives a scene in a room of red marble and glass: a lovely woman with delicate hands is beheaded by a guard on the orders of the man on the glass throne. The captive understands that the woman’s death was not her fault, and the memory becomes the central wound that the darkness keeps forcing him to witness.

The captive wonders whether the waiting thing is a prince or whether he himself was once a prince. Because he failed to stop the execution, the captive rejects the idea that he could have been noble or worthy, believing a true prince would have saved the woman.

Though some real world still exists outside the shadows, the man who ordered the woman’s death forces the captive to act within it. The captive feels like a marionette under mental shackles and resents those around him for failing to notice that something has taken hold of him.

The captive remembers the woman saying she was not supposed to love him, which deepens his guilt and despair. As the barrier inside his mind continues to weaken, the captive believes he deserves the darkness and feels himself losing the will to resist the thing waiting to enter him.