Low and grating. In. Out. In. Out.

The darkness from the corners of his room had eyes.
Donnie stayed still so he could hear his own hoarse breaths. In. Out. He rubbed his eyes.

His vision was pixellated. Every tiny speck of darkness shrouded his sight. The walls of his room appeared to cave in on him, the clock at the side of his bed relentlessly ticking.

The darkness had eyes, his room had audition. Walls were paper-thin. Surely the whole house could hear him breathing? His eyes darted accross the room, taking in everything. Infact, he was pretty sure his whole face had clouded over. If only his mind could do the same.

Ten more minutes. Ten whole goddamn minutes. Last minutes, he told himself, make the most of them. He chuckled to himself. This is funny. Hasn't this already happened? He rolled over onto his side, still laughing. It couldn't be five to already.... isn't it funny how time flies when you're having fun? He smothered his giggles into the pillow. This wasn't funny. He was insane! Ha! He remembered promising himself he wasn't... Just a little confused, the product of unconventional regulation.

He felt his thumb rise up to his mouth to gently rub his bottom lip in reluctant anticipation.

11:56.

Out of the blue, Donnie heard a gentle thud against the window.
He sat up up bolt straight, a surge of recallation running through his body, accompanied with a rush of fear. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Catiously, Donnie rose from his bed to the window, to be greeted by another pebble hurled at his window. He blinked in shock and then peered down into the inky blackness, his eyes adjusting to the night.

A lone figure stood on his front lawn. Donnie picked out that she was holding a white sheet of paper and her long raven hair hung around her shoulders.

It was Gretchen. He narrowed his eyes, his pupils bulging and his brain throbbing as something distant came back to him.

Two letters.... Roberta Sparrow....
sigh of relief....... time machine.......
Two letters. Donnie blinked. That meant... the sheet of paper... he must have...

Donnie hurridley opened the window. Gretchen looked up in relief, hope shining through the tears in her gaze.

I remember, Donnie! I remember! Her voice was straining in near desperation.
Go away! Donnie yelled, I don't know you, go away!
He choked on his last words, he had to get her to go... it was the only way, right?
What?! Donnie, let me in! Gretchen was now directly underneath his window, I got the letter... and Donnie, I do! I.... remember you.

Donnie breathed heavily and bit his lip.
Go home, Gretchen. He shut the window and lent his back against it, before drawing the curtains and climbing back into his bed, choking mentally on his own martyrdom. He gulped.....
He moved his gaze across the ceiling, tracking an imaginary route of a plane flying rapidley over a different sky.

Gretchen... I don't know if you will even know who I am...

He sucked in sharp gasps of air and rolled his eyes further across the ceiling.

...but if you know what I mean, I want to explain some things.... and tell you something.

The sky ruptured with formidable pain. Gargantuous clouds enveloped the grim morning sky and set a preminision of the past. Light erupting from the engraved pattern in the sky reached out to an isolated figure and only this one person can see its proportion.

My name is Donnie Darko. If this makes any sense, I would have known you if things had been different. I want to tell you, if I never get the chance again, that I love you and I still do. I don't think you'll ever know me, or remember me but I hope one day your life is going to be as beautiful and peaceful as you always wanted it to be. When you've read this, I won't be here anymore to explain things and I'm not even sure how you can remember someone you haven't even met yet, I can only hope that something happens to remind you and that you know that I loved you....

His eyes pinpointed a spot above him directly and he then glanced over to the clock on his table.

12:00.

Outside, Gretchen heard a car pull up near the drive and she ducked in the bushes, clutching the piece of paper close to her chest. Slowly she sank into the soil wondering if she was too late to stop the inevitable.

A far-off whirring was spiralling towards him, and Donnie could feel it. Even as he lay motionless, his expression now blank and parallel to the the ceiling, he could feel his chest heave as the distant vibrations shook him before they reached him physically.

Gushes of air sped past the fateful missile as it hurtled towards its target....

Donnie craned his neck back, his eyes now boaring into the ceiling, willing the plaster to crack.

Gretchen stared out into the empty darkness and saw a girl get out of the red car and walk towards the front door. She was metres away and Gretchen closed her eyes in submission to the fact that the boy she would hardly now know was about to be erased from her life permanently... again.

Time practically now stood still and Donnie saw it come even before it hit the roof.

Elizabeth lent back in ecstacy against the front door and smiled to herself.

The prodigious impact could be heard throughout the street, the whole of Middlesex, assuredly. A roof tile slid off the roof, almost hitting Gretchen as she lay curled, her eyes screwed fast shut in the fragile shelter of the bush.

It was strange how Donnie had been expecting it, longing for it to put him out of his misery for what had seemed an eternity, so he never even flinched when the plane engine came. As it spliced through the meegre plaster on his ceiling, the rafters cracking under the immense weight.

His mind agonising over what should have been his painless release

as the vast shards of rafters darted and loomed towards Donnie, his eyes blacked out in vacancy with what little remains of his sanity telling him ceaselessly to ignore his fear.

The giant shaft of wood shot through the sheet penetrating the skin on his chest. His body lunged forward with the impact, falling then abruptly down back to the mattress, now soaked in red. The wooden spear finally lodged in his chest and he gazed around his now delapadated room, his final raspy breaths moving the rafter slighty as he squirmed, his soul escaping from the pain.

Donnie hoped it would go soon..... he promised himself it would... and he saw Gretchen shaking under the porch uncertain of what to do and he felt rueful. He saw Elizabeth curled by the front door as the chandelier swung fragments of plaster from its bulb. His father startled in the front room, his mother getting up trembling from her bed.

Donnie knew he was dead. He had been even before the first shaft of the roof had split. The slow deterioration of his mind, now only completed by the collapse of his body. Donnie smiled to himself. This was funny. He laughed. It was hilairious. The warmth swallowing his body even as he grinned in his newfound knowledge and the light reopening his eyes to what he had wanted for a long time now.

Even if.... even if he had waited an eternity. Nothing mattered anymore.

He was free.