(se) like a dimmer switch on low

DEIMOS

The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head
The thunder of the drums dictates

The rage didn’t dissipate, lingering in his bones, a stronghold of familiarity he could trace over, remember, recall, what it was like to permit the abhorrence to do something. Within these walls he had nothing but his anger and melancholy, resting in their requiems, their dirges, their laments – naught to tear down but his own spite and vitriol. The cataclysm contorted and coiled around his heart and stayed, a stranglehold he knew he shouldn’t have wandered into, a snare with its nettles and thorns, buried and burrowed against the insides of his ribs. It could rest there, in the quiet, hollowed portions of his chest, and he breathed it out along his lungs, along the panels of stone and the lacquered portions of earth. “She was like a daughter to me.” And he marched on, suddenly indifferent about Loren’s condolences, the cool weight of his abyss pushing down along brawn and shoulders; eventually there’d be nothing left of him but those pinnacles of glacial abhorrence.

Loren took back the implications surrounding the Shield, and he narrowed his eyes, staring straight ahead, nodding. Perhaps it had been hectic. Perhaps his mind had been foggy.

But his jaw locked tight and his brows furrowed, leading, leading, leading into the telltale glimmers. A low rumble curled through his mind, would've ricocheted and echoed, if given voice. What happened to Ru? Because he hadn’t seen her since then either – another loss to drift within.

The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead
The rising of the horns, ahead