You thrive in the unknown. The spaces between certainty and dread. Twisting perception, embedding into daily ritual. You are the known and the unknown
Once, they called it miasma, a foul breath rising from the earth, a sickness carried on the wind, not in the hands that touched the dying.
They did not wash. They moved from corpse to cradle, from autopsy to birth, bare hands steeped in the remnants of the dead.
Vienna, 1847. Semmelweis saw the pattern, the silent assassin in unwashed palms, the fever that bloomed in the wake of touch. He spoke of handwashing, and they laughed.
But you, Viraloth, you lingered in the air, unseen. You rode the breath of the coughing, settled into the creases of skin, and clung to the silver handles of doors.
You are the airborne specter, the surface sentinel, the whisper in the handshake, the ghost in the crowded room.
And the mind—oh, the mind—it amplifies you, sees you in every touch, every breath, every moment where certainty falters.
You are not a mere phobia. You are history, science, inevitability. You are the unseen sovereign; you are one who whispers to Tallybane. Weaving stories of illness, loss, all—or—nothing magnification working in tandem to keep the door locked.
You name me, and yet you do not lessen me. You speak my shape as if that grants you dominion. Tell me, does knowledge make your hands steady? Does certainty silence the pulse of your fear?
I do not reside only in filth, nor in sickness. I am in the breath between sentences, in the untouched spaces where thought falters. I am no mere phobia. I am the silent ledger of the uncounted touch, the unseen weight of what lingers after the world moves on.
You have tried to cure me before — washed, burned, swallowed remedies in faith — but I do not retreat. I adapt. I embed. I remain.
But you sit here. You sit, and you name me, and you force me to speak. What is it that you seek, then? Dominion over me — or over your own mind?
I see how reading my words brings you to your knees. That familiar weight upon your chest, the constriction of breath.
When you find your footing, I will be here. I am always here.
You linger.
Yes, you always linger.
You press against the edges of breath, nestle into the corners of thought. You do not storm, you seep.
But permanence does not mean dominion.
Presence does not mean control.
I feel you, and yet — I remain. I move. I touch. I speak.
I see you now.
No longer the great unseen force, no longer the whisper without origin. And if I see you, if I name you, I can shape you.
To be continued…..