𝚁 𝙴 𝙵 𝙻 𝙴 𝙲 𝚃 𝙸 𝙾 𝙽 | 𝙴𝚛𝚎𝚗 𝚡 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

𝚃 𝙷 𝙸 𝚁 𝚃 𝚈 - 𝚂 𝙸 𝚇

A familiar place.

One I knew all too well.

How did I know it, though? I've never been here...Have I?

The place was so familiar—but laced with fear, and an undertone of regret, sadness and...rage.

Why would I come back to a place like this? Such darkness... such little light in between the two buildings.

But this darkness was not only physical. No—it seemed to be making its way inside me the longer I walked in the alley. It synced with my heartbeat somehow. A heartbeat that was awfully slow for a place that I should normally be scared of—

Why wasn't I scared?

I wasn't scared because...my body was welcoming the darkness. Savouring it.

I absorbed it—as if sucking it from the alleyway itself and into my heart and soul.

Welcomed.

Deserved.

My body wanted to feel it.

And so I let myself take it in—grasping onto it as if it were the only thing I had left.

Why wasn't I scared?

Suddenly, my body was no longer my body. I was watching—like a bystander in a crowd. I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything but watch.

I had my eyes upon myself, full of that darkness—like a ghost. No—like a shadow. A moving shadow that put out every light source in the area as it savoured the darkness.

Piano was playing in the back of my mind—and I looked towards the source of it. Towards me. As if a part of me were walking alone. As if we were two sides to the same coin.

Except I didn't know what my side was supposed to be. I was a shell compared to the darkness radiating from the other part of me—the only thing I knew was darkness. The part I was conscious from was merely nothing...

The shadowed version of me kept walking down the never ending alley. It loved the taste of the fear and burning rage. It fed off of it.

How did I know this place?

The music was beautiful, I thought, as I stared at the being who I somehow knew was me.

But there was an edge to the music. I couldn't figure out what it was... it was hauntingly beautiful.

And I savoured that edge, too.

I followed, like a ghost, as I watched myself approaching something up ahead.

It appeared as a ball of light from this distance—a light source that I couldn't put out—unlike the rest—at the end of the alley.

My shadowed self paused upon noticing it, if only for a moment. A single pause—of what? Hesitation?

We continued to approach it—not sure how to feel about this light source that couldn't be put out with the dark pooling from every pore of us.

The atmosphere changed the closer we got, and suddenly I began screaming.

I was screaming at my shadowed self to stay away. To not get any closer to that light.

Why was I screaming? The light was so welcoming... so much nicer than the corrupted gloom of this alley.

I wanted to go to it.