Disclaimer: Friends is owned by Bright-Kauffman-Crane Productions. Title from the song "Signal Fire" by Snow Patrol.

The tension of his situation reflected off the pale walls. Their thickness kept this melancholy secure, a trapped secret that he swore would stay here.

His eyes drifted to the black hands overlapping each other across the circular plane on the walls.

7:34

As he looked at the clock, he had found interest in focusing on it, not for the knowledge of time in keeping terms of any schedule, but the sound that emitted from it as the angles of the hand drifted clockwise. He needed a sound to listen to prevent the deafening silence from eating away at his sanity.

"I'm gonna be straight with you Mr. Geller"

Those words seemed to grab the tension out of the air, and suspend it in it's judgment over his head. The hammer was coming down on him, he could feel it even before it hit.

"You only have 7 months to live."

Like the light in a black hole, the wind in his lungs was whiffed in vacuum of unrelenting force. He felt a hot sensation begin to swarm over his body, pushing sweat through his skin.

"The only way you could possibly survive is to undergo the surgery, but due to the position of the tumor..."

There it was again, the tensions falling down, ready to crush him with the might of Armageddon.

"You'd only have a 40% chance of surviving the operation."

The bright meteors set fire to his soul and held his breath to the smoke. He suddenly found himself hyperventilating.

"If I were you, I'd go with the operation, but it's your decision."

The doctors words had bounced off of him. Ross Geller was now too forgone in his shock to process anything else.

"There'll be some paperwork to fill out at front desk. The nurse will be here shortly to lead you back to the lobby."

Ross slowly rose from his position on the bedside. If the doctor before him could describe how Ross stood there, he'd say he were staring at a lifeless husk.

The doctor approached Ross and gave him a sympathetic smile, trying to let him know that he was aware of his burden. "Thank you for stopping by. I'll give you some time to think about it before we go through with anything else."

For every car that fled down the street as he walked home, he felt nothing. For every person that walked by, he felt nothing. For every window that reflected the pitifulness of Ross Geller, he felt nothing.

The tragedy that had been his secret visit had sent him drifting into a void. Inside, he felt as cold as the steel skyscrapers towering into the updrafts.

He kept himself detached from the light of the city as if it were oblivion. He couldn't even question how his life had come to this point, or even what decision he would make. The only thing going through his mind was the gruesome finality of it all

I'm going to die.

He finally lifted his heavy head from the ground when his apartment came into view, and he stood there on the edge of the sidewalk. When he allowed his eyes to drift across the street to the building at 90 Bedford Street, he was assaulted by the force of a thousand questions beating against his throbbing brain.

How was he going to tell the other? How would they react? What would they suggest he do?

As these questions flew by him, he couldn't latch on to any of them, nor did he attempt to ponder them. It didn't matter if a hopeless void hit him with a thousand questions at the velocity of light itself, there was no purpose to them. There was no point in understanding anymore.

His tired legs carried him across black pavement to the concrete on the other side. He stopped himself when he placed his hand on the door to the lobby. For a second, he contemplated grabbing a cup of coffee across the street, but he quickly realized that he had not an ounce of desire to socialize with anyone. He just wanted to be alone with his thoughts for now.

However, after entering the lobby and hovering to the elevator doors, the sight of the small, empty interior of the elevator came to him with a realization that struck his heart down.

He was stepping into this alone. No one shared his fate, no one would follow him, and no one would be there waiting for him.

Would anyone even miss me?

When he passed the threshold set by the elevators sliding doors, he realized that he felt the sensation that he was trapped. Not only by hopelessness, but the situation in it's entirety. He tried to ignore this feeling, but as he lifted his hand and tapped the "3" button on the elevator wall, this revelation came gnawing back at him.

He was going to die soon. Whether it be six months for now or sooner, it didn't matter. He had been trapped by his own fate, and he could do nothing but wait as it slowly and painfully suffocated him until not a single breath of life was left in him to exhale.

The almost cute ringing of the elevator alerted him that he had quickly reached his floor. And yet as quick as it was, it lasted for another breath that contributed in rapidly ticking away as his meager life.

When the elevator doors parted as if they were the gates to hell, his legs, subconsciously once again guided him to what could only be described as his purgatory. At this apartment he would rest until his body would decay.

His hand wrapped around the cold door nob, but once more he paused. This was where he would spend the next six months in as he awaited a visit from Death. The thought of this place being his deathbed was enough to freeze his blood over like the arctic winter. His hand began to tremble, but he did everything he could to stop it, trying to suppress his fears before opening the door.

What was fear anyway? He already knew that Death was soon to come to him and sweep him off of this Earth. No matter where he sat, whether it be at home, at Monica's apartment, or at Central Perk, it wouldn't make it come any slower.

But when his eyes came to the apartment wrapped in the depressing silence only broken by the sound of his footsteps, the realization of this hollow loneliness came barking back at him.

He only took a few half hearted steps before he found himself pausing again. He stood for that moment and took the time to scan through his possessions and furniture that dotted his lonesome apartment.

His solitude was his purgatory, and it was his fate. Even though he had friends that said they cared about him, in the end, it didn't matter. He was alone in his fate, and when he was gone, this apartment would be cleared out and everyone would move on. It was his harsh reality, and when he finally absorbed it, letting his mind settle on the task of pondering that truth, it angered him. He suddenly found his blood boiling

He tried to form an image of how his life was to unfold based on how he had always pictured it would. He saw someone who harnessed a face that shined through all confusion and loneliness like the sun piercing through the black fog. He imagined a diamond resting upon the silver ring that wrapped around this someone's elegant fingers. He imagined their own ray of sunshine that would look out into the world with an eye of spirit and youth that he once possessed.

For a while, he had known who that certain "someone" would be, the winds of time had blurred the paint, leaving only a messy canvas where her face once was.

He saw happiness, as he had always perceived it would be.

Now, his chance at happiness was once again being pulled away from him, this time permanently. Fate had decided that he had screwed up enough, and his pitiful life was no good on this Earth any longer.

Meaningless.

Just another hunk of trash being thrown aside to burn.

He would be thrown aside alone, as the sight of everyone else lingered in his eyes, forcing him to watch as their lives went on as his was ruthlessly drained from his body.

The finality of this all hit him with the fires of hell. His knees gave out under him, and he screamed bloody murder.