The devils trap

I was running but not getting anywhere, the sounds were getting closer.
The sickening slap and wheeze of their approach sounding like a throat cut and breathed through.

Shade spawned and hopeless bound.
Welcome to the warm boil.
That you do notknow IS the point.
This is the dark spell.
Look for it. Its message is this"You are Close."
Then in the softest of whispers confess," You were never near, Despair."

When you reach this place. Do not look at the road before you nor the memory of reason. Look instead around you at the edges. The byways and sideways. Though seemingly thwarted
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