Dancing In The Dark

Chapter 1: Rustling

The clock ticked obnoxiously continued through the air, it was the only sound I wasn't numb too. Everything else was merely noise, sound in the distance.

Yet the clock kept aching by. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

I had been sitting there for what seemed like hours but may only have been minutes. I could feel the air stiffen and dry as the clock marked the next hour. 2.

As if it was automatic I rose to my feet, yet the action felt numb, almost as if I had done it every day of my life. As if I was sleepwalking. I wandered down the hall, pushing open the glass door, feeling a brisk wave of air break my stagnant breathing. I reached into my pockets to pull out my headphones, automatically the music managed to snap me out of my trance.

I pulled out a cigarette, cupping one of my bandaged hands around the red flame of the lighter as the tobacco caught ablaze. I felt the smoke fill my lungs, letting out a long, shaky breath.

The crisp autumn air brought a swift breeze, slightly blowing against the ends of my long black hair, causing it to move in the wind. It would almost be calming in a way.

Despite the efforts my headphones I could faintly hear chatter of the ones surrounding me, along with the occasional forced cough's they would force as they passed. I always couldn't help but let out a dull form of laughter. It was as if I was exhaling cancer into their faces, or as if they were passing toxic gas. The thought seemed to mildly amuse me, how naive people could be. As if ripped from my thoughts of my own reality, there it was again.

The feeling was there again. Void. My headphones were violently ripped from ears, my back slammed up against the cold brick wall and the feeling of choking.

My cigarette had dropped from my reach but was snatched up by one of the faceless students, being pressed against my wrist unwillingly. I could barely let out a sound. Amidst the group of faceless students, laughter sounded.

All I heard was laughter and shouting. They loved to hold onto their mockery. They would find anything to bring themselves up and shove you down to your lowest points.

It was what I felt was forever till I had slipped back into consciousness, the sky seeming to have darkened into an abyss of black, yet there was red next to me. Red all around me. What time was it?

Time may have been thought to be irrelevant in this situation, with all the red in surroundings but it was vital. I looked at my wrist. Tick, tick, tick. To my dismay the hands marked 12.

The red seemed to keep pouring off me as I rose to my feet. A rustle in the bush. I wasn't alone.

I clenched my tightly bandaged fists and started to make my way down the dark pathway, toward what I knew as not my home, but my sleeping residence.

There it was again. Another rustle. A swift movement of a perpetrator in the dark. I had figured it was one of the many faceless students again, out to prey on me.

I kept moving, my heart starting to race as I dared to move onward, leaving a trail of red behind me.

I suddenly came to a halt as I had reached down to the end of the pathway. As if my whole being froze in time, unable to move a single muscle. A thing stood there.

Off in the distance, in the shadow of the ever illuminating streetlight stood an inhumanly slim and tall figure. He was dressed in all black and his face mainly stuck out of me as it was as white as snow, and there was a complete lack of there every being traces of a face. He was faceless.

Though I spoke metaphorically about the students in the beginning this man, this thing, was all to literal. It scared me to my very being.

Feeling the trail of red behind me getting larger, I found my vision starting to blur and my whole body start to sway. Another rustle.