A moment of silence settled over all of them. Then Velva broke it. __e are the hunter and the haunter, the haunted and hunted.___ut for what purpose?_ asked Sir Sun.__t is all for the same purpose, Timothy._ The empty that wish to be full.

An Undergrounder is one who comes back after he__ or she____ou know, under the ground._ Daniel__ green eyes flared again. __hat isn__ supposed to happen._ Sir Sun nodded in agreement. __ost certainly not.

It happened during the winter of 1973, when evenings rang out stillborn from far across the weathered moorland, and snow fell hard and heavy and clung atop the peppered veins of nature__ tough bracken, all picture-postcard like.

Despite the horror, we survivors were endowed with a will to survive. Or instinct. Or maybe it was faith.

Once and for all, let us speak the paradox aloud: "We have been force-fed for so long the shudders of a thousand graveyards that at last, seeking a macabre redemption, a salvation by horror, we willingly consume the terrors of the tomb...and find them to our liking.

Velva wasn__ merely a rose among the thorns, the lily of the valleys, she was Empress amongst the stars and planet.