dane_valek

It was a long night. Not in that it was especially eventful, just long. It seemed to him that all too often, that was a term which meant something entirely different. All he wanted was to curl up in a ball and fall asleep. He wanted to disappear, because that's how he felt his life was turning out. He was almost convinced on more than one occasion that he was no longer a corporeal form, but a spirit vaguely recognized by the people he called his friends. In other, simpler, words he was a little depressed, and rather tired. He pushed to key into the lock and opened the door. The light outside was off. It struck him as slightly odd, but paid no mind to it. Bulbs burn out, people fade away. Just another sad truth of the world. The door swung open with a single, slight pop as it rose off the tread plate of its frame. Otherwise the door opened completely silent. He turned and shut the door, leaving him in complete blackness. He knew the room like the back of his hand, as the popular phrase seems to go. He got a little paranoid, but figured it was just his state of mind. Thoughts of retrieving his flashlight from his backpack sprung into his frazzled brain. He ignored them. The doors were locked, and with the security bars in place on the windows he was confident he was safe. Of course, as you have most likely figured out (and he knew in the back of his mind) he was wrong. He entered the hallway. The encompassing darkness fled for a mere instant as he felt a scream enter his form. This was reassuring on the fact that he wasn't just a spirit. There was indeed a solid form in which he existed, and this was his proof. Just at this moment his damaged brain processed the image that came from the darkness, and it was of another figure in the hallway with him. The details were crystal clear almost like looking at a photograph. He could see the dirty moustache, the scar in his eyebrow where no hair could punch through the disfigured flesh, the tattoo of what was most likely an eagle or some other bird in flight creeping along his neck from under his shirt. This was the last thing he would see, and he saw it for what could only be described as one exact quarter of an eternity. Then the blackness crept back in again. He wasn't sure if his brain had just released the photograph from its memory banks, or if this was indeed that fading blackness that is so often associated with death. He knew he was dying, and that didn't bother him. What bothered him is that someone might actually care.