The bow of the ship plows into dull black mud. Cold seeps up through the soles. Dead trees stand along the bank, black and bare and broken. Everything is shadow. The lamps do not throw light, only flicker. And there, on a low branch, a single raven. One wet eye fixed on the men. It does not move when they pass. It does not call. It is the only thing alive at the edge of the underworld and somehow that makes it worse. The dead at least are honest about being dead. The raven is the watcher who decided to stay.
The Raven of the Underworld
One bird on a low branch at the edge of the dead world. The only living creature Odysseus sees there. It watches with one wet eye.