Here's something that I wrote back in 2011, but never had the chance to submit it. I still like it, though, which is why I'm putting it up now. Nothing in it has been changed, so it doesn't take into effect anything we've learned from the recent things...
Raven was the embodiment of pure darkness.
Gilbert knew this, better than anyone else could imagine. It was an unending pit—an unfathomable black-hole of nothingness, of despair, of fear, and of pain. Some nights he would concern himself with the corner of his bedroom, skull thrumming against the wall, face slick with sweat and ebony curls, flat in their distress. His golden eyes would be open, yes, but they would see nothing. He wondered if it was the equivalent of being blind; everything would be black to his eyes, plain, blank, every color in the world yet no color at all.
Then, after an eternity of staring, of wondering the existence of himself, of this life, the searing pain would wrap its greedy fingers around his heart. His chest would constrict the oxygen would squeeze out of his lings and he'd turn into a gasping mess. Gilbert would clutch his chest, in vain, as a sudden wave of sorrow wiped his mind clean. Depression, suicide...it would flash images through his mind, burning his skull, enveloping his entire body in flames.
In a split second it would disappear, he knew, disintegrating what seems like years of built up pain in an instant. And the man knew that it wasn't gone, no. through a flurry of black feathers he would stare hazily as the world returned to him in a dim blur, and then sigh hopelessly as that dam of endless darkness caged itself back up again.
Raven was the embodiment of pure darkness.
Gilbert knew this; that chain's very essence shook his entire boy, tore his sanity to pieces, then reassembled it into a shabby rag-doll barely held together by thin threads. He didn't rest, didn't sleep.
Some nights, most nights, every night...