Prologue
It was the silence he couldn't bear.
It was deafening, and everything he had, it penetrated. His mind, his dreams and his heart were full of the sound of it, and he soon forgot what it was to hear. He tried to fill the quiet, with soft speech, or with his own singing.
But as the time flew by, he also forgot his own voice. No longer could he hear his own breath, or feel the pain that had once racked his body. He thought it as relief when the pain first stopped, but sooner begged for it to return, just for a sign that he was still alive.
It was impossible to tell how long he had been in this place, as time was possible to tell. No light entered his vision, and he wondered if this was due to the darkness, or if he was blind.
Despair entered him, became him, or did he become it? The powerful emotion swamped every other, the anger he had once felt, the worry of what was to come, and the memory of who he had once been.
All he could do was wish for death to take him, but it never did. Day after day of waking up to the darkness, he cursed God for leaving him in this place. This was not life, it he was indeed alive, there was only despair, and now once again anger.
And as he became weaker, knowing that death was close, he felt happiness for the first time, because he would soon leave this place. He would leave this oblivion, this consciousness, and this curse.
And as he fell asleep for what he thought the last time, he was happy.
But once again, he was denied the thing he longed for. Again, he woke up to the silence, and the darkness, and the despair.
And he heard, heard his scream. His scream of rage at whoever was keeping him here, his scream of angst at the life he knew he once had that he could no longer remember, and his scream at himself, for not being able to just DIE.
He raged, he screamed, he banged on the walls that were only wide enough to keep him inside, and he no longer felt despair, only the rage that was consuming him.