On Your Own

???

Your eyes flicker. Gravity pulls in the direction of your back. Bright lights stream in through unknown sources, causing shafts of light to pierce the featureless darkness. You stand up, shaking. Noises rattle through the walls like marbles through a Plinko board. Hollow, dastardly sounds that bring chills and fear and death. You perform a great feat in staying on your feet as you look into the deep silver wells of Death's eyes. You cannot tell who this person is that stands in front of you, in the now visible doorway. Several people come to mind.

You see, there is only so many people one can think of in this situation, with a clouded memory and in a vacant, featureless room. The obvious is, of course, a ghost. As far as theories go for you, you don't believe in ghosts at all. That is until you see one. Then you'll be an instant convert. Another one is a manifestation of all your anxieties. Since the figure is without a jury summons and crocs, that one's tossed out. Let's see...

You step back.

The figure does as well.

Oh.

It's you.

Ah.

Oh well, you were bound to meet them eventually. You stretch your hand out towards the form and prepare for the universe to explode. Another might do some investigating before this, but you prefer not to draw things out. Aaaand fade to black.

Um...

And fade...

Oh.

It's a mirror.

Ha.

Ah.

Um.

Well.

You run your hand against the adjacent wall. The wallpaper peels in some places. You feel your way around the corners of the cramped, dusty room until you find a switch.

Flick.

The room is, er, quaint, you suppose. If your definition includes cobwebs and dead rodents. Ah. It doesn't. I see. It's not quaint at all.

A floral bed that makes you want to collapse in an asthma attack from simply glancing at it looms in the corner. A tub of old and forgotten fast-food kids' toys forlornly leans against rocking chair. Books scatter across shelves. Curtains are shut.

You give the knob of the door a turn. You don't know what you expected. You shuffle to the center of the room and collapse in a cross-legged heap. Where were you... There was a car. You know that much. Paige's wedding too. The wind in your hair. You were doing something you weren't supposed to do. There was someone in the passenger's seat. Who was it? Someone... someone...

You look in the mirror. It is you. You don't exactly remember having that many bags under your eyes or the sickly sheen to your skin, but it has already been established that your memory isn't the best.

You kick a wall.

Worth a shot.

You kick the tub.

The toys clatter onto the floor. You make pyramids until your fingers burn. Then you make towers. Cheap plastic smiling faces and cars that can be wound up and dinosaurs that spark find themselves a part of a construction wrought with questionable structural integrity. The last one reaches as far as the window sill.

You kick it down.

You throw open the curtains on the window. Boards. You use all your strength. You get splinters. You throw yourself down onto the bed.

You think of nothing and when a death-like sleep pulls you into its sinking grasp you dream of nothing as well.

3B - Wake up.