The Abyss—
Down the stairs. Down, down, down, swerving, turning, winding, creaky staircases. Down. Below you cannot see, into the depths of darkness none too safe. Deeper, deeper, into the night, into the dark, into the emptiness. It surrounds you, embraces you. It drowns you.
Another step, and your foot slides against the stone, threatening its own hold on the slippery pavement.
Don't fall.
Another step, the wall beside you is cracked, you can feel the abrasions on your fingertips. You tread lightly as you follow your intuition deeper into the dark abyss.
You can feel your pulse, you can hear it, it's a thump, thump, thump in your own ears. Reminding you that you're alive. Just a few steps further, surely. Just a few more, and you'll be free.
Freer than you were before. You will be amongst the dark, the freedom of the night. No one will see you and you will see no one. That kind of freedom. The kind of freedom that overwhelms you with just how much you have of it, the kind of freedom that entices you into the depths of the dark, the kind of freedom that you give your whole life for, that you would sell your soul for.
The staircase seems endless, the darkness seems blinding, you can feel your eyes searching, trying to see more of anything. Trying to glean onto any light that might exist—but light has disappeared, it disappeared long ago leaving only the dark. Only you.
The smell gets mustier as you go deeper. The air seems colder and the goose bumps on your skin are proof not only of your excitement, but of the despairingly cold climate. Soon, it will be of no issue to you. Soon, you will be free.
Deeper, deeper, further into the darkness.
"Rosie!"
You hear it, faintly, at first, and then growing stronger.
"Rosie! Rose! NO! Don't you dare leave me! Hang on! Hang on damn it!"
The voice. You know it. It sounds so tortured. You feel your heart tear at the corner. So tortured, so sad, so desolate. That's not right. That voice should not sound like that. It should be happy. It should be gleeful, it should be overflowing with mirth and laughter and joviality that would energize the whole world with its happiness.
You stop, your foot hesitantly hovering over the next step.
"Breathe! Breathe!"
A light pressure on your chest. You can't see anything, so who are you to discredit this strange pressure?
"Rosie…Rosie no!"
It's crying now, you realize. The voice. The voice is mumbled and jumbled and clogged with tears. But the darkness seems so inviting. The darkness, the abyss, freedom.
You realize that you can't hear your own pulse anymore. It seems to be fading the deeper you go…fading, fading, the pulsing slows, it too, hovering like your foot above the stair, hovering in your lungs…to breathe or not to breathe, to pump or not to pump, to live or not to live.
"CLEAR!"
This voice isn't familiar. Not at all. It's an ugly voice, an emotionless voice. Where is that beautiful, tortured voice you heard earlier? The one with the tears, the one with emotion and need. The desperate kind of need where wanting anything else is beyond all comprehension. The tortured voice was prettier.
Your foot stops hovering. No, the dark abyss seems much too dark now. Not as safe. No. No. Not deeper, never deeper. You cling to the wall. If not down, if not deeper…where? Where to go? There's nothing to see…nothing at all.
You use your hands to feel. Feel the ground for a different path…a different way. You search your brain for the words…your fading pulse making it more difficult to find words…to find meaning. If not down…up! It comes in a spurt, an idea, an image. It takes you longer to find the word, to wrap your head around the concept. Up!
You feel the stair. You move your foot.
Up.
"300! AND… CLEAR!"
Faster. Faster. There is a buzzing sound now, a buzzing sound so clear in your head.
Faster.
The word resounds throughout your mind. Faster…faster…the stairs seem steeper on the way up. It's so tempting just to stop and rest...so tempting to stop. Your pulse is getting louder; it's pulsing in your ears again. More. More. Higher. Up.
But…to stop. It would be so lovely to stop.
You can feel a whisper of breath now, and you need more. This little whisper of breath is not enough to go on, not enough to fill your lungs. More. More.
Light.
There it is. Just a sliver.
How could you have ever wanted to embrace the dark? The light, the beautiful light. The light really blinds, the darkness only consumes.
Up.
And you push…towards the light, towards the light, away from the dark, away from the abyss…higher higher…gasping for breath, more and more air, more oxygen towards the light, your pulse practically screaming in your ears now, more, more, more.
And then you open your eyes.
There is that poor tortured, voice; you can tell from his face that he belongs to the breaking, destroyed voice. And he opens his mouth and says the most beautiful words you've ever heard:
"Don't ever leave me like that again."
A/N: So a week and a half ago I published a totally cute, completely fluffy Scorrose flick and then I write this. This. I don't even know what this is. I wrote it in fifteen minutes and it was just...there. It's kind of...morbid, isn't it? I'm not quite sure what wizard procedures are in death...so I just did it the muggle way.
Alas, please let me know what you think, really. I like to play this little game where I try to see if anyone has ever reviewed on every single one of my oneshots (I let the multi-chapter stories slide) so far, I don't think anyone has. Just throwing that out there.
~wwccd