The darkness was cold and unforgiving, and his footsteps echoed just a bit too loudly, they reverberated back into his ears making his head throb and ache with pain. Scenes, memories and light entered and flittered across his vision, only to disappear in tiny bursts of vibrant white light. He stumbled forward, a single though propelling him on, forcing him to continue. It was truly the only thing holding him true to a goal he'd seemed to have forgotten about, that had slipped his mind in this ghastly dark place filled with knowledge and it was alljusttoomuch.

Cold red blood seeped through his hair and dribbled past his chin forming droplets that eventually gathered into a heavy, sagging crimson mass which eventually fell into the darkness,the abyss of nothing. His left arm hung limply at his side, mocking him as it swung uselessly to and fro as he stumbled forward knowing he couldn't fall but still bracing himself for the inevitable.

A door or gate appeared up ahead and he reached for it, hard grey, metal, fingers opening and closing as mumbled words escaped parched lips, a hushed mantra that only someone with very perceptive hearing could pick up on. The memories, scenes and other fantastic things that he'd seen before, but could not remember when or how stopped so abruptly he was left gasping and choking. As if all the oxygen gathered in his lungs had been forcibly ripped out and the only thing keeping him standing was his goal… his goal… Don't forget your goal…

The gate was so close now, he could feel the cold metal of its handle as the knuckles of his useless arm grazed the edge. He struggled against hands that had sprung from the ground in millions, diving forwards fingers clenching and unclenching, the goal he'd long forgotten began ebbing, flowing and growing. The pressure, and the lack of oxygen was forcing his eyes closed but the goal, ever elusive, and the feeling of needing to accomplish something made his legs move forward, one baby step at a time. One tiny, tiny step at a time.

Cackling surrounded him in such a wavering fashion he felt the need to cover his ears, long strings of words followed this abrupt and terrible voice that he couldn't understand but knew were mocking him. They flittered around like birds with wings of steel, cold and dead but filled with an underlying malice that he couldn't quite put his finger on, growing and ebbing getting higher and higher until finally dive bombing around him. His arm ached and his hand was clammy, cold and completely limp, he couldn't even twitch his pinky, in that instant he knew his body was threatening to completely shut down.

But he was so close.

Without a second thought, a hand of metal was clasped around the gates handle and the door was yanked open, with a burst of strength that came from the primal instinct of finishing what he started, revealing such a bright light it nearly blinded him. He stumbled through and as his eyes adjusted to the new and foreign colours a voice spoke but this time it was clear and powerful and disappointed as if it had almost been eager at one point to see the outcome but its hopes had been squashed.

"You have failed."

Grabbing his head to dispel the words that had somehow deeply affected him he stumbled backwards and hoped to reach the gate, once again reaching for the door. He wasn't going to fail, he couldn't fail. This time though when the gate was opened and the blackness was once more revealed, his body was yanked into a dark tunnel and blue lightening crackled around him but it didn't hurt him, and he was falling, and falling, falling, fallingfallingfallingfalling.

Thunk