Disclaimer: Somebody else's sandbox, I'm just playing in it.

Set post 'Grave Danger' by about 6 months.


If you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you. - Nietzsche


He hates dark confined spaces with a blinding passion that borders on irrational insanity. There had been a time when he loved nothing more than to sleep in a darkened room, but those days were dead and gone. That was before - before he was kidnapped…before he was buried alive and left for dead, before…before he became the victim.

Sometimes, the nightmares are the worst form of torture. During the daylight hours or while he is at work, he can temporarily escape into a false sense of security. He has taken to immersing himself so deep in his cases that there are times when he goes days without sleeping. It isn't healthy, he's aware of this, but at least the nightmares can't touch him when he's up to his eyes in paperwork and evidence.

But when he finally crashes from pure exhaustion, then – then they come. Dark and horrific, they consume him. A nameless dark face, distorted by a black hood, a green glow light illuminating his tiny piece of hell, and the cold smooth surface of his coffin all close in on him making it impossible to breath. He never dreams of the rescue, only the darkness, and the bitter cold. He always wakes up screaming, covered in a thin layer of cold sweat. Shaking, he stifles the scream before it wakes the neighbors, and tries to quall the shaking of his body, but nothing he does helps. He desperately gulps down air as his heart races away. He tries to count to ten but the numbers are meaningless jumbles in his frantic mind. He can't think straight and he can't breathe. Panicked, he fumbles on the dark nightstand for the light switch and bathes in the sweet relief that the tiny lamp brings as it floods his bedroom with a dim orangish glow.

But it's not over and he wonders if it ever will be.

He glances across the room to the small nightlight that he installed right after his kidnapping. It doesn't help much, and it only serves to remind him of the feeble glow sticks he had, so he never turns it on.

He sighs heavily as his pulse begins to slow back down to a nice normal pace. He consciously evades sleep for the rest of the night and by the time he's due back at work tomorrow night he's dead tired. But he'll work the next few days, running on nothing but caffeine and an irrational fear of going to sleep.

He knows that the nightmares will be waiting just beyond the threshold of dreams and reality. They always are, and it's always the same. But he'll evade the dark dance a little while longer, hoping that the next time he'll be left in peace.

But it's always the same, and it never changes.