The Raven

Chapter Five

My mind was in a haze. Everything felt so foreign, and unreal. The world was crumbling beneath my feet, yet I did nothing to run from it. I wanted to die too. How was I supposed to carry on without him? No this wasn't right; I must have been dreaming. This was too absurd to be real. But why would I dream of his death? This had to be a nightmare!

Time to wake up!! I thought to myself, but I wouldn't. This is reality, a harsh reality.

A swirl of darkness, thick as fog, filled my eyes. It burned as it spread over my pupils and into the whites of my eyes. I couldn't see anymore; everything was touched by the foggy haze. I didn't want to see anymore. The fog was now moving into my mind, and clouding my thoughts and memories, taking away the pain, making everything numb. The thick haze metastasized until I was alone in a dark abyss of nothingness where I had no control over myself.

I could see my limbs flailing in front of me, but I had no feeling in them and no control. I saw one foot being placed in front of the other, a slow, melodic pattern and beat, but I was going nowhere. My arms stretched out for my hands to reach for something, but I saw nothing. Where am I, if nowhere. My hazy mind made me sleep, but I couldn't recall why. Why was I so tired? Perhaps it was all this running to nowhere. What I saw was an eternal darkness in a never-ending tunnel that stretched as far as the eye could see, in every direction. Finally, I stopped running. And suddenly, I had control of my limbs. Why had I suddenly stopped? I needed to keep going, I needed to escape this darkness, I needed to keep running. But I could not will my legs to move forward.

Just then, little faces appeared before me in my dark abyss. They were faint at first but became clearer as they got closer. I couldn't tell who some of them were, but a few I recognized. But then it occurred to me how absurd this was, little floating heads, and I figured I was dreaming, or at least delusional. Some of the faces wore masks that covered their mouths, some wore nothing, and one or two had facial hair. Their mouths moved as though they were speaking, but no sound filled the silence. I kept saying what, but I did not make a sound either. They looked at me puzzled and shook their heads. Their mouths moved again as if they were confirming something, then they disappeared. One face, a handsome face, leaned in close to me and began to whisper. He called to me, "Silver, Silver, snap out of it. Silver!" I looked at him with bewilderment. "You've filled the silence of my dark abyss with sound!" He smiled, and I screamed; I recognized his face! He was my ghost I'd seen in human form in the hospital. It was Adam!

Suddenly, I snapped out of my illusion of a dark abyss and found myself sitting in the hospital chair with doctors all around me. They were asking me to calm down, saying that it was all right! I was screaming and causing yet another scene, as my hands gripped both sides of the chair I sat in. Adam was grinning form behind the doctors and shaking his head. He began to walk away, so I stopped screaming and stood up. I needed to leave.

"Silver, please sit back down and calm down. You're in shock, you need to sit." Doctor Smith said, but I didn't care. Reality hadn't sunk in, and my adrenaline was pumping. I started after Adam, but he picked up his pace as he went out the front doors of the hospital. He walked around my car that was still illegally parked out front and headed towards the parking lot. I jumped in my car, started it up, and drove in the direction he ran.

I had a sneaky suspicion that Adam had something to do with the apparitions and Jack's death. Or that Jacks death was a gateway into my world. Whatever the exact reason for his being in my world, it was somehow connected to Jack and his death. It hurt to think about it, but I needed to keep pursuing my ghost man.

I followed him out of the hospital parking lot towards main street. He was driving rather fast, but not fast enough where he'd draw attention to himself by the cops. He had a '69 Chevy Camaro. It was black and dripping in chrome. A very sexy old muscle car, also my favorite kind of car. Just my luck. I wondered about where he had acquired it. To my knowledge, he was essentially a ghost. How did he materialize and happen to get possession of my favorite car? But I was sure I sent him back to whence I pulled him form! There was no way he managed to stay in this world and take on a material form. Unless I messed up, which I was sure that I didn't. No, no, I am sure I did it right. He had to of used Jacks death as a conduit into this world. But if that is true, then that must have been what he was telling about, his riddles.