Out of the Darkness/Dark Side of Dimensions
Part 1: Let the Darkness Come
Prologue
He had not slept well in the last few weeks. The dark circles under his eyes were permanently tattooed onto his face, and the shadows in his eyes could not be dispelled with his usual passion. His sleep was an endless cycle of restless nightmares, a mental state teetering on collapse like a shaking house of cards.
The person whose footsteps had marked out his path to success for him was gone now. The person who had become the center of his obsession as well as the rock on which he rested, was gone. No matter how confusing life became, he needed only to think of this person to focus his mind and push through the obstacles in his way. No matter how alone he felt, he needed only to face this person to see the same pride and burning desire to win reflected in his eyes, as well as the same crippling fear of failure that nipped at their heels like hellhounds. That person was gone, and he was alone now. in his place was a foreigner whose mind he did not know and whose methods he was unprepared against. In his place was someone who shined like the sun and smiled with its warmth and seemed to carry no demons inside his heart. He hated him. He hated this pretender, this usurper! He had never been fully aware of his dependency on that person, but now it was painfully obvious. He felt so alone.
It was like he himself had died. Without that person to reflect his soul, he traversed through life like a ghost without feet to rest on solid ground. He spoke little, ate little, and slept even less. Gradually he dwindled, trapped in a spiral of despair he could not escape from or fully understand. He was painfully, painfully alone.
His brother tried to talk to him, tried to help him sleep, but nothing worked. When he caught himself almost taking a near-fatal dose of sleeping pills out of desperation, he stopped. He flushed the pills down the toilet, and turned on the light.
The small part of himself that still carried a glimmer of life within it (he suspected it was his conscience) began to imagine what the others would say if they saw him out. What his brother would say. What the other person would say.
He had no choice, he growled aloud. He would have no peace otherwise if this terrible dread didn't stop devouring him from the inside out. He turned on the computer, and he began to work.
He was too important to follow that person to the other side. There were a lot of people relying on him. So the only solution would be to drag the other person back.