There is a dark room.
It's not dark in the normal sense of the word, which usually refers to shadows drifting over grassy lawns and the moon overhead.
No.
Not even close.
This is the kind of dark you can almost taste, the feeling of it heavy on your tongue and in your heart.
It's the brand of darkness only available in dreams.
Or maybe it's only in Hell.
Either way, it's the type of darkness that makes you feel claustrophobic and agoraphobic at the same time. It's the type that doesn't allow you to see yourself or anything around you. It gives no indication of how much empty space is around you, whether you're in a closet or a ballroom or something in between and infinitely worse.
So.
There is the room.
It's dark.
And it's cold.
I know you're not supposed to be able to actually feel anything in dreams, temperature or otherwise, (and isn't Hell supposed to be hot?) but this is different. It's not so much feeling cold as it is a sense of feeling cold.
So it's dark.
And it's cold.
And there's someone in the room with you.
No.
Scratch that.
Not someone per se, but something.
Something horrible.
And it's breathing and you can hear it but you can't see it and you're afraid but because you can't see it (or anything else) and the sounds are distorted, there's no real way to know just how afraid you should be. How close is it? Is the something across the ballroom or breathing down your neck? What is it? How bad?
These are important in determining how you react in a well-lit room.
In the dark…
It's something else altogether.
You're afraid, not just because there's something there, but because you don't know what it is.
And that pushes it from horrible to outright Hellish.
Torture.
But you don't know what torture is, my friend.
Not yet.
But you will.
Your suffering is coming.
And you will suffer.
Because this is a place of punishment.
A literal Hell on Earth.
And it's been specifically designed for you.
So hold on tight.
And try not to wet yourself just yet.
There'll be many more opportunities for that later on.
I mean…
Just wait til the lights come on.
