In The Hour of The Moon, on The Day of Silcharde, the Moon a Crescent:

Thursday was the day of the week that I would go to visit Annie. I got in my car and drove into Amherst, passing through the busy comings and goings of all the folks daring around pleasant street and wound around the suburban backstreets in the south part of town out towards Hampshire College where her house was.

I knocked on the door to see the friendly face of Mrs. Wells open the door. "Hey Kathy, is Annie around?"

She smiled. “Upstairs, as always.” she said, letting me in to take off my shoes and scamper up the carpeted steps.

I walked in to the upstairs den to see Annie hunched over on the couch, clad in her usual uniform of a dark hoodie sweatshirt and pajama pants, her teeth grit and her eyes transfixed on the television screen which rumbled in the wails and slicing of her sawblade against the gargantuan carapace of some cosmic monstrosity.

"Hey Annie" I greeted her.

She did even glance at me. She stayed glued to the screen growling "come on come on come on come on"

I watched as she continued to hack and slash blindly, winnowing down the eldritch abomination’s HP bar drop by drop, but with one poorly-timed tap of the dodge button, Yithogh the Feckless bore down and speared her avatar through the abdomen with his long skeletal tentacle-fingers. He lifted her up thirty feet into the air and bit into her, peeling Annie's character into his gullet with his several rows of fanged teeth like kebab meat off a skewer.

The words ‘All is Lost’ bled red across the screen with an ominous groan.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuck!!!" Annie hissed.

"Hey, you've still made it pretty far since last week." I said.

"I've been stuck on Yithogh for the last two days! I suck so hard!" She whined, slumping over on the couch.

"Come on, let's go for a walk. You know how those games are. You take a break and get some fresh air and next thing you know you’re wiping the floor with the antediluvians and racing around the crimson ziggurats of Kutha.”

"Uuuugh. I just need to git good."

"Well come on, let's git you good" I said pointing her towards the door.

Annie and I had been friends for years now. We’d met when our parents had charged me as her babysitter, only four years her senior. Even then, a ten year old Annie was always more mature and better company than my fourteen year old peers, and I’d had ample time to corrupt her to my wicked ways. Of course, her high school years having flown by, now she was also adrift with me in this pseudo-adulthood limbo.

Together we walked down her driveway and the empty neighborhood street and made our way to the old cemetery at the end of her road. It was on private land, and the locals knew us from when we were kids, so nobody used to bother us there and it was a nice quiet place to just hang out and watch the birds that darted between the branches.

It was also one of the few places where Annie really felt at ease. There was something peaceful about the old stones and the overgrown grass that made life seem less stressful, that gave perspective that things should not be so fast paced the way the world around us always screamed at us to heed.

Annie collapsed onto the ground and lay in the lane between two weathered 19th century headstones.

"So up to anything besides Darkborne this week?"

"Not really" Annie said. "Mostly trying not to collapse into the usual weepy puddle of anxiety, and Darkborne is about the only thing keeping me from doing that right now."

"Life can be like that some times." I commiserated. "Have you thought a little more about school?"

"Nah. I know I go back and forth about that but just the idea freaks me out."

"Why? You'd be perfect for it! University was the first time I actually felt like I could spread my wings and be a real person."

"And how'd that work out for you? You're underemployed and in six digits of debt."

I sighed and looked to my feet. "That's different. I'm a lot dumber than you are and life just got in my way. I know if you were sure about what you were doing that you'd crush it and have a great time!"

"I doubt it." Annie sighed. "I still have the dreams sometimes."

"I'm sorry..." I said. "You know I'm here if you ever need someone to listen."

Annie forced a chuckle. "That's the problem, everybody listening to me all the time." She muttered.

"Anyway, how's your week going?" She asked me.

"Pretty shit. Ran into somebody from high school the other day." I sighed. "I mean, other than that it's been okay. Everything is stressful. Everything is falling apart. The bottom could fall out at any moment, but that's how it's been for the last year. At least for the last few weeks I've had a project to distract me."

"I'm sorry." She said. "I wish you didn't have to feel that bad about stuff. You didn't deserve what happened with your dad."

"Yeah." I said, tears coming to my eyes, "I just try not to think about the past, but every other day it feels like I'll just run into something and the wounds are open and gushing out again."

"Hey, what's that thing hanging from your neck?" she asked, pointing to my newly fashioned amulet that hung from my neck.

"Oh, this?" I said, taking it off and putting it in her palm to inspect. "I made it, the design is from an old magical book I found."

"What kind of stone is it?"

"Heliotrope. Bloodstone." I said.

Annie looked at it for a long time. "What's the symbol on it?"

"It's the sigil of a spirit. His name is Scirlin.”

Annie kept looking at it for a while. "And the paint it’s... it's your blood... right?"

"...Yeah."

"Huh." she said. "When I look at it I feel like... I feel like it's got something of sunset in it."

"What does that mean?"

"I dunno. It's cool, but its got something going on. Like holding amber up to the sun."

"Can I have it back?" I asked.

"Sure." she said, putting it back in my hand.

"Hey, let's head back in, order a pizza, and we'll be at The Grand Mausoleum of Moro by midnight. I'll steal the controller if I have to!"