Disclaimer: RENT isn't mine. Pinky swear. This plot is.

His eyes are open, but nothing is visible but a yawning blackness stretching out before him where his room should be. Terrified baby blues widen as far as they can go, searching frantically for the old Well-Hungarians poster that had been hanging in his room for seven years and counting. For the nightstand beside his bed with his glasses laid carefully atop it. For the night light plugged into the outlet in the corner where no one else could see it, only him. Nothing. Nothing but black.

Mark wonders where he even is- he feels around for the sheets that he had been tangled in when he fell asleep the last he remembered, and instead he finds empty air. Patting around, he realizes that he is sitting on nothing at all when his hands meet his bare skin, thighs and then knobby knees, moving down to where his bed is supposed to be. It doesn't make a terrible lot of sense, but Mark is more focused on the ominous growling echoing from somewhere in front of him.

It was low and menacing, something like a large dog and a bulldozer if those two noises could cross. Images of snarling beasts, fanged and wild-eyed, flashed through the filmmaker's mind and he stifles a whimper with limited success. One of his hands flies up to cover his mouth, and he is relieved to find smooth skin caressing his lips.

Even if his hands are cold to the touch, alarmingly so, at least he has them. Unlike light, or a ground to stand on.

Just as he thinks that, there is a sudden falling sensation and a gasp is torn from his throat without warning. "Fuck-" He throws his arms out just in time to land braced on them on the asphalt, wincing as layers of delicate skin are torn from his elbows and the heels of his hands. Blood is already beginning to seep out, crimson welling to the surface, and he realizes that he can see again just as the first raindrop hits his temple and slides down the side of his downturned face. Eyebrows furrowed, face still screwed up in pain, the filmmaker casts his gaze to the sky. It is angry, full of dark clouds and crackles of lightning, and he predicts the rumble of thunder less than a second before he hears it.

As he gets up on one foot and pushes himself to his feet, swaying and disoriented, Mark looks around in an attempt to get his bearings. This is the city he knows, but not a part he's ever explored in all the years he's lived there. The brick of the buildings is mud-brown, ugly; the asphalt beneath his feet is too black, looking almost as though it could suck him in, a wormhole. Everything exists in sharp angles and harsh, unforgiving contrast. The lines painted on the road that he's standing in the middle of glow vivid orange, almost sinister against the darker palette of the landscape.

At first glance the street is empty- but Mark takes his first tentative step and they appear. Every person on the sidewalk is staring at the ground. They are deathly pale, lips bloodless, dressed in black cloaks that hang limply around their too-skinny forms. One of them feels him staring and glances up, and Mark sees that they are crying tears of blood, only the whites of their eyes visible. A wave of nausea sweeps over him and he jerks his head away, turning it towards the growling far in the distance.

The scene has changed again. The filmmaker is having a hard time keeping up- how is he supposed to know where the hell he is or what's going on if every time he turns his head it all melts into something else? He whips around wildly, muscles tensed to flee, and realizes that he is underground. This is the subway…

Those glowing orange stripes, the same ones that had painted the road before him only seconds ago, have followed him here and they provide the only source of light in this dark, dank place. It takes him a moment to realize that he should follow it; the light seems sickly, flickering dimly, but he's afraid that if he strays from it he'll be lost and never find his way to the living world on the surface. And Mark has never done well in small, dark places. He's nearly having a panic attack as it is.

Where is Roger? Where is Maureen or Joanne or Collins or Angel? Even Mimi might be of some help, even April, BENNY. Though he is "the rock", Mark doesn't know what he would do without all of his friends to help him, give him a purpose in life. He'd probably just drift- like now, lost in the darkness. He hopes that the orange light will lead him to someone, lead him to Roger if he had a choice, but any of them would do.

It seems like an eternity before he sees anything but darkness and that ominous jack-o-lantern reminiscent streak stretching before him. It is eerily silent except for the distant echo of what he hopes are his own footsteps and a slow, steady sound that he eventually figures out is his breath. But soon the growling starts again, without any warning at all. It's as if someone suddenly turned the dial on their stereo to full blast, and Mark can't even hear his own panicky thoughts when the orange light suddenly fills the tunnel ahead, flames shooting up out of the cracks in the concrete.

He probably could have dealt with that. Mark Cohen is a stoic enough person by nature and although he's had panic attacks before, been nervous and fidgety, that's usually when he's embarrassed rather than scared. There are only two things that are truly enough to frighten Mark: the first is the dark, and nobody knew that but Roger and his secret night light in the corner outlet. The second is-

"Mark! HELP!"

Roger's choked, desperate voice has him terrified in an instant. Heart struggling to restart after it's sudden halt, the bespectacled man steps forward and looks around anxiously for his friend, fists clenched at his sides. Half-moons will be dug into his palms if he keeps this up, bleeding and aching to the touch, but he doesn't care. Roger. Roger is in trouble and he has to find him.

"Mark, don't let them take me!" the guitarist's voice sobs, a nopte of fear in it that chills the filmmaker to the very bone. It seems to be coming from beyond the wall of flame only ten feet away from him, whose heat is oddly absent despite his proximity. "I didn't mean it!"

Didn't mean what? He wants to ask, but the answers are already shooting rapid-fire through his brain as he takes a hesitant step closer to the flame. The drugs, he didn't mean the heroin; all o fthe mistakes he'd made, April, he didn't mean that either; the hurt he'd caused his family, his friends, especially Mark- the bruises, the blood, the mental scars that would never be erased. He didn't meanit, didn't want to die for it.

If Mark had a say, Roger wouldn't be dying for anything.

"Roger?" The first word out of his mouth in this hellish place is, fittingly, his best friend's name. It sounds better, smoother when it swirls around unspoken in his brain; outside it becomes feeble, an echo. Roger couldn't possibly have heard that. He was pathetic- he had to try again. "Roger! Roger, stay there! I'm coming!"

Each word is weaker than the last, the final note trailing off barely audible beneath the roaring of the hungry flames which flare up in what Mark swears is a grotesque, laughing goblin's face. Horrified, he nevertheless takes another step forwards and feels the searing tongues lean towards him to lap at his fragile white tissues, tearing them clean off the bone. Although it hurts, it's nothing compared to the thought of losing Roger. He squints into the fire desperately even as his glasses melt right out of their frames and down his face like molten crystalline tears.

Where is Roger?

The piercing sound of a scream, hardly even human anymore, bounces off of the smooth subway walls and that's all it takes to send Mark sprinting into the unbearable heat. There was the strangest sensation of his remaining flesh dripping off him, milky water from his charred bones, but there were more important things at hand. Roger, where was Roger? The screams became louder, louder, and he thought that his ears would bleed. He had to be close. "Roger-!"

And then, suddenly, the flames were extinguished. Blackness descended around him and the pain radiating throughout his body following the paths of his veins and arteries intensified, making him cry out in agony. Blindly, Mark fell to his knees and fumbled, desperate for some source of light. He HAD to find Roger.

His hands met the cool, familiar metal of his camera and he sighed in temporary relief. He had his camera- somehow, that meant that everything would be okay. It had to be.

The relief was short-lived. All of a sudden, the nausea from earlier returned with a vengeance- halfway to his feet, Mark froze and despite his burned, mangled body he felt as though someone had doused him in icewater. With shaking, barely recognizable hands- the orange light had returned, sickly and sinister- he pressed a button on the camera that he'd never seen before and aimed it at the ground before him, peering through the lens.

The second thing he was afraid of was losing Roger…

There, in a heap on the ground, lay Roger Davis' guitar pick in a pile of ashes.

So, how did you like it? This story is in the works still and I can't promise updates regularly or even anytime soon. This is, obviously, a dream… It's just the prologue. But I found it the other day and now I'm feeling really inspired to write this story. So here you go. Please review and give me your critiques! Be as harsh as necessary.

~ Toni