"The Journey of reinvention is one of raw emotions."
- David Rudbarg -


The first thing he notices is the silence.

It's not the peaceful quiet that signals another day has come to an end, the gentle muting of sounds due to the world having gone to sleep. If that were the case, there would still be the occassional sleepy chirp of a bird, the high buzzing clicks of bats hunting, the sound of a sudden rush of wind gently stirring the leaves on the trees.

No, this is something else. This is a silence which has wrapped itself around him like a heavy blanket, smothering him, dulling his senses. It undulates around and over him, moves through him, rendering his limbs into useless apendages, making them feel like they're made of lead, anchoring him to the ground.

This quiet ... it's an absence of Life.


When he focuses on drawing in air, it flows into him like ice water, shocks through his system and freezes him from his very core, spreading out and numbing him. His eyes flutter rapidly, and he manages to slowly turn on his feet, trying to peer through the haze surrounding him. A flickering orange light draws his attention, and he's drawn towards it, like a moth towards a flame, unaware of moving his feet yet somehow closing the distance.

The flames undulate through the thick mist, and even though he is now quite close, there is no warmth emenating from them. No heat. It takes all his willpower to focus on the source of the flames, and as he peers through the pervading fog he starts to make out a shape, a mass of what appears to be twisted metal, a form which looks to have been folded over and into itself several times.

Moving closer he suddenly makes out a shape within the metal mass, a still figure barely visible among the smoke and flames, composed of stark whites and glaring reds. He recognizes a leg, horribly twisted. An arm, flung half outside of what he now vaguely realizes to be a car wreck, hand outstretched as if at the final moment it was trying to grab onto something, anything ...

When his eyes finally move further to look into the interior of the car, when his gaze dares to seek out the face which is turned towards him, the icy numbness within him encases his heart, tightening, feeling like a million icy shards pierce the organ which feels strangely quiet within his chest. His mouth falls open in a silent scream to mirror that of the man staring back at him, blue eyes widened as if they're confronted with the greatest horror ever seen.

Eyes which have stared back at him from a bathroom mirror almost every day of his life, and are now filmed over in death.

He screams.