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Prologue
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Darkness—one would never really know the true meaning of that word unless one had been here... Lived here... Water as black as a night with no stars. The floor sunk with each step taken and was darker than the water. Those were the only differences. Water was liquid and a slightly lighter shade than the ground, which was solid. The air... So, thick... You'd imagine it was a hot, humid, summer day... But, no... This was a winter's night... A winter's night where a blizzard decided to arrive and bring such coldness.
Freezing—everything was cold. The only chance for one to gather even the slightest amount of warmth was from curling in on one's self and wrapping one's arms around their body. The only protective blanket found inside this place. The floor... hard... This would be easier to handle than this cold. One couldn't stop shaking until one had been in this place for at least a year.
One's self. The mind no longer thought correctly. The numbing feeling of insanity slowly crept its way in through the cracks that have slowly been chipped into the corners of one's mind. The cracks... No bigger than a pin head... But, insanity had a way of managing its way through small spaces. If one wasn't strong, one would die from one's own two hands.
There were no weapons in a place like this. There weren't monsters... But there were... It was so hard to explain. This place brought out one's memories... The memories one locked away into the crevices of the memory... The crevices one never looked into. They came out to haunt one's pitiful self now... When one needed comfort the most, they came out—adding salt to the wound. Even though these monsters were horrible, there were still others. Others which could touch one's skin... Break it. Their claws would rip into one's skin and blood would run down one's body. One would feel the pain, but when one ran one's hands over the wound, it wasn't there. These monsters slowly clawed away at one's sanity.
Time—it doesn't exist in a place like this. One doesn't age, doesn't feel age occur. One's body is simply there. No time to tell the difference between then and now. One would think that there was no difference between then and now since there was no time to keep track of these things. But, one wouldn't mind. Time wasn't something that was needed in this place. If there was a way to keep track of time, one would only grow more insane. Knowing how long one had been in this place. Knowing that one would be in this place for the rest of their lives.
Knowing that one deserved to be in this place.
Nourishment—there was none. One wouldn't eat in this place. One could only hope that drinking the vile, dark waters would keep them alive... But, then again, why would one want to be alive in this place, this place where there was no real food to feed one's belly? But, after a while, the ache in one's stomach seems to wear out. Like the body could only handle so much pain, so it unconsciously negates it to lessen the hardships on one's body. The pain no longer exists after one has spent so much time in this place.
Only the numbness remains; the feeling of one's own body being lighter than air—no longer the tingly feeling one would feel when the circulation was cut off to a body part. No, that feeling was lost long ago. Now, it was just nothing. One could disappear into the air and no one would know. No one could know. There was no one to know. One was alone. Even if one remembers coming into this place with someone other than one's self, one is alone. It's strange though. The way this place works.
Insomnia—only to add to the time to one's timeless boredom, one cannot sleep. One cannot eliminate some of the hours in one's "day" so that it isn't as long as before. No. One must live out throughout this day--the entire day. The feeling of death slowly creeping upon one's self. No longer is there the hope of there being a nice death. No longer the hope of dying as an old man in his bed, sleeping. Now, only the hope for the insanity that almost devoured one's self to take away everything. No more thought. No more insomnia. No more coldness.
Even though one was in this place by one's self, there was so much noise. The monsters that scratched didn't make noise, no. One's own mind did. Like one's self turning against one's self. So confusing, yet not. One's mind speaking to you. Random voices from random moments. Even though these voices were retrieved from somewhere in one's memory, one didn't remember nor could make sense of these voices. Like a rambling of some foreign language. Being in a country one doesn't know of, but having lived in it for one's entire life. Like one's own parents could be speaking to one's self but one wouldn't be able to decipher what they were trying to say. The constant low-pitched drone that was the background music for the song of voices of a different language. The droning noise that became a theme song in one's mind.
In a place like this, one could only wish for one thing. Not, the feeling of nourishment or sleep. Nor the wishing of ending the numbness. Not hoping that one day one would open one's eye after blinking and everything would be light instead of dark. Not for the warmth that one's body needed so greatly. Death wouldn't be what one wanted in this place. One knew death would not solve anything in a place like this and those voices and droning sounds would probably follow you into the depths of hell—or was one already in hell? No, one would only wish for one thing in a place like this.
Silence.
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