Hello. I'm Indigo Murphy, and welcome to my first story. I tend to write short chapters, but I hope you enjoy this introduction to Pigtails and Drumbeats.
There is something very relaxing about drinking a mug of hot chocolate and watching TV on a Sunday night. However, that was not what Henry Sharp was doing on Sunday night. Instead, he was watching alien conspiracy videos on his laptop and eating crisps. Henry Sharp found these strange stories of crop circles and disappearing hospitals very fascinating. Of course, there was that bit about the Christmas thing, but he couldn't recall the memory, although everyone claimed they had seen it with their very own eyes.
Contrary to what many may think, Henry Sharp didn't much believe in aliens. He thought everything that had 'happened' in the past few years were just very peculiar hoaxes. He more fancied the idea of mysteries and secrets than he liked to actually be subject to real evidence. UFOs and disappearing cows were his cup of tea.
"I better get to sleep", he muttered to nobody in particular, raking a hand through his short brown hair. A quick nightly routine later, and he was off to bed. But as the minutes ticked away, midnight quickly leaving to subject to the AM hours' rule, Henry Sharp lay wide awake. Hypnos refused to take him. He was restless again - and no amount of Nyquil could put him to fitful sleep. He tossed and turned, frustration increasing steadily into an intense desperation that brought irrational tears. He tugged blankets up and threw them down again, closing his eyes with determination only to fly violently out of bed a moment later, tossing his pillow across the room. After two hours of this, he grabbed his phone and turned to the Internet for help.
He did as the Internet told him to do, and lay in his most comfortable position. He put on some relaxing sounds he found on Youtube and tried not to fidget. He slowed his breathing, emptied his mind, and finally drifted off into a discontented rest.
0000000000
He was falling.
He was falling. He tried to grasp onto something, anything, but there was nothing. Falling, falling, onwards and onwards, and the worst part was he knew. He knew this would never end. He would fall forever, on and on for eternity. He would never sleep, he would refuse to die. There was only falling.
As he fell, thousands of faces flashed by. A young boy, an old man, a curly mop of brown hair, a younger face framed by blond hair, more and more, on and on, and yet there was something connecting them all. They were alike. It was more than that, though. They weren't only connected to each other - they were connected to him. He loved them. He hated them. He despised them and yet he needed them.
Their hands reached out to him, seeking to catch him, to halt his fall. He tried, oh how he tried to grab them, but every time his hand slipped through their fingers, and they simply watched him fall. He tried again and again but nothing worked. He just kept falling and falling, forever and ever, and the faces faded, leaving him, abandoning him. He was alone, utterly alone, alone with himself. Ha. He was trapped. Falling. Trapped and falling with himself, forever. He laughed. He was laughing at himself, delighted by his own fear. For he was afraid, yes, so afraid and alone. His laughing echoed around him - and yet there were no walls. Only the walls of his mind.
Yes, his mind, this is where he was. Trapped in his own mind. Falling forever inside his own mind. He continued to laugh, and the laughter echoed inside his skull. Laughing, laughing. Falling, falling. And the drums. The drumbeat. It had been there, the whole time, and yet he had not heard it. But he had, hadn't he? It was loud. So loud. The loudest sound, even louder than the laughing. Laughing and drums. Laughing and drums. Drums. Drums forever. Drums. Drums. Drums. Drums -
He was falling.