The darkness swallowed up the forest like an ink blot soaking into a sheet of white paper. It was invasive, it was choking. The air was thick and damp, and clung to the skin like a cloak. Even the dew drops that quivered from their feeble grasp at the pine needles and the weeds barely reflected the light from beyond the trees, a light that had no obvious source.
His back against the cool, harsh bark of some sort of coniferous tree, the figure in the darkness clutched his thin body as he shivered in the night. The navy long-sleeved shirt he wore gave no warmth through its tears and its holes.
He eyed his surroundings suspiciously as he fought the exhaustion that threatened to steal him into unconsciousness.
The man's short brown hair was tussled and somewhat matted, but it was the last thing on his mind. His green-blue eyes were frosted over with a combination of anxiousness and weariness, and beneath them lay heavy black marks that gave way to the distress he was in.
He took a heavy swallow and sighed through his nose. Though the logical side of him knew that he had, for now, escaped danger, the usual distrusting part of him screamed for his body to get up again, to run.
He could no longer trust his legs, however. He had collapsed under the weight of his heavy, shaking body not more than ten minutes ago.
He needed a rest.
The man's eyelids began to pull down over his green eyes, against every last ounce of will that he had left. Lifting his hands, he gave them a rough rub and shook his head, trying to shake away the cobwebs, trying to erase the images from his mind.
He trailed his hands down the sides of his face, stopping at his dry and cracked lips. He winced, fingering lightly the crusty puncture marks the needle had made two days, three days, a lifetime earlier. The holes lined above his top lip and below his bottom. They still had not healed; the thick string that was sewed through them constantly tugged and reopened the wounds.
Tears stung at his eyes as a flood of emotions choked him. He felt violated, invaded, used. His hands shook, and he wanted nothing more than to tear the string that sewed his mouth shut away. The thought of it there made him ill, and he became somewhat dizzy.
He lowered his hands. He couldn't do it; he couldn't free his lips from their painful bind.
It wasn't just that it would hurt. It stung now, stung like his pride and his sense of life. One could only imagine what it would feel like if he tore at it rabidly like he desperately wanted to. It wasn't just that.
He was afraid.
The voice danced into his mind again, a swirling, taunting dance. The words began to repeat themselves, over and over again, like they had haunted him in the darkness of where he had escaped.
"Thou shalt rest in the fires of Hell," the voice taunted. "Thou shalt speak no evil!"