The streets below were swarming, with thousands of people: unknowing and unaware of what was happening, just a few hundred feet above their heads.

"Why would you do this?"

"You know why." He took a compassionless step toward me. Those blue eyes that were empty, like a barren wilderness, never leaving mine. I stepped uneasily back, towards the ledge, clutching my wound- from which a torrent of blood was surging. The knife was still protruding, the affliction was too much to bare.

"Please don't do this."

"You leave us no alternative," It took him one more condemning blow and I was falling. Falling, to the harsh; unfeeling pavement and as the collision came, the darkness of the abyss took its hold, and the screams from the street echoed in my ears.

In a world of moonless black, I ran, chased by the tormenting ghosts from my wicked past. I was drenched in unknown anger, that was fuelling the only splinter of life I had left. I craved the one thing that I was denied: life. But nightmares of a terrible fate were stirring. I had become like death, hollow, weak and vulnerable. The hell that I had called home was mutating, merging, moving.

Suddenly I was wrenched awake. Agony was flooding through my impotent body. The blades of pain slashed my battered skin; my head was a victim of brutality, and my stomach was shrieking in anguish.

Where was I? Who was I? How did I get here? So many questions but I was lacking in answers. My splintered memory had vaporized leaving doubt, fear and trepidation.

I uttered a piercing cry of torment. With the aid of a nearby cupboard I agonizingly pulled myself up, wrenching a disgustingly large syringe out of my hand as I went. Crusted and blistered fragments of aging blood covered my putrid gown and a new stream of scarlet was now advancing steadily from the newly ruptured slit in my hand.

An obscenely nauseating smell befouled the air polluting my thoughts. It smelled like flayed rotten flesh and seemed to linger as if waiting to strike at any moment, waiting for a sign of weakness.

The room before me bore no clue to its purpose except for the various machines around me. One displaying numerous moving lines, another making condemning sounds that echoed in the bare and barren plane that was this room. The room oozed with coldness, the white walls so immaculately clean and yet so uninviting the stark boldness glaring with dictating eyes. The room I noted had one pitiful window which had various bars stretching from either end, rather like a prison cell.

I edged to the window, the view was of a void, a eminent onyx coloured cavern…

As I turned to the window an imbedded feeling stirred from the deep pit where it had spawned a torrent of doubt and misgivings; each one sprouting a new network of dark conspiracy; unearthing the truth and cultivating the lies.

"Are you certain?" I demanded with undying urgency. There was a heavy pause.

"Of course."

An abrupt wave of nausea grabbed me, my head was a fragment of a broken life and my mind was torn; searching for a logical explanation- any explanation that would justify it.

They know. They'd found out. And yet they knew I wouldn't do it, no matter what they tried. They asked anyway, but I would never sink to their level, their hell, a place I knew there was no coming back from. Just like last time, it was trickery, a ploy to lure me in, but this time I wouldn't be so foolish. I knew they would come for me soon, expecting me to ask for redemption, and offer penance, but I would not be used, not again.

"You have shamed me my tempest." Came a callous rasp from behind me.

Fearfully I turned. He was here.

A sharp sound brought me back to reality. As the realisation of what I had just remembered dawned on me I started clawing desperately on the haphazardly made bars on the window. I had to get out.

There was another sound beckoned from behind me this one though was more ominously loud and it reverberated off the walls. Apprehensively I turned to find a man, his eyes, barren like the wilderness, leaning heavily against the door. He was dressed in completely intoxicating black, secrets shadowed his eyes: grinned knowingly at me. Then reaching inside his streamlined jacket, the stranger pulled out a silver object. As quick as it appeared it was gone- disappearing into his pocket, leaving me temporarily blinded, from where the flash had hit me. In a daze I starred, ignorant to what was about to come. I edged closer to the window, I couldn't think strait, the only thing I knew was I had to escape. He lifted his hand, showing me exactly what had been in the pocket, I flinched. A knife. Lifting his penetrating gaze, he said, smiling in a disgustingly sick way, "Now, what do you say we finish this?"