It was a dream. It was a horrible nightmare that brought out my inner child, coaxed her into the oncoming darkness and shoved her inside. It was the perfect moment for the beast that prowled in the awaiting shadows to plunder my mind, to steal the warmth away and permit the cold to take over. It was agonizing. The process was slow and painful.

What felt like spreading numbness at first had transposed into goading sensations of walking on pins and needles, shards of crystal glass that ripped at the skin and tore the flesh away. The feelings controlled my movements, much like a loopy puppet held together by a series of strings, as I danced across the black flooring of my stage. It was a performance, it was a source of entertainment, as applause broke free and ran loose throughout my pounding eardrums. I was on fire, a pitiful sight. I was something to laugh at, to watch with bright and shining eyes overflowing with amusement. I was out of control.

Then, my blackened surroundings slowly began to take shape, lumps of wet clay being molded into something hideous and overpowering. There was an odd sense of peace wafting throughout the air, an odd sense of relaxation drifting within me. My tense limbs slackened as I stared in awe, my applauding audience gone and my puppeteer carefully hidden from my seeking eyes. The presence was otherworldly, somehow omnipotent over all else, and very much there. But where was it so cleverly sheltered? Why did it persist on hiding?

Trees began to form, springing up from underneath the ground, and dark soot was meshed between my toes. The atmosphere was hoary; the only color a dull, dark gray. The trees grew, but they were dead, branches gnarled and extended into the air, as if reaching for an escape. Sounds, foreign and absolutely haunting, rang throughout this tragic world, but lacked clarity and seemed peculiarly faint. Something shifted, an obtuse crackling of a twig sounding from the distance. But just how far could anything be?

My eyes were struggling to look beyond this hellish playground, to see past the deadness, searching out a hint of color, a hint of life. This place was perpetual, seeming to extend on and on forever. The barren land stretched on beyond my standpoint, but it all appeared to be the same image, daunting.

SNAP.

Was it coming? Was the beast slinking forward now, stalking me? Was I prey?

Then, a voice. Colorless, lacking vigor. But it was a voice.

"Abby? Abby my sweet, my sweet Abby."

It was familiar, the rushing feeling of nostalgia, hearing that name reflect upon the invisible walls of this cage. Though the voice was genderless and shrill, I knew who it was. And I wished…

"Abby. Abigail. My dear sweet…" He was here, wandering around, a lifeless husk without any feeling, and yet…

How was it that love could exist in this place?

CRACK.

He was walking, shuffling around. He was searching for someone, someone who had been dear to him. My mind contained useless gaps that continued to grow along with his every footstep. And that was when I knew.

"Abby I miss you I need to… see…"

He wasn't with me. He was lurking around this realm, perhaps on another side, in an entirely different setting of insanity. I could imagine his eyes, containing a new depth in which he could not be found swimming. Was he lost, abandoned, clueless like myself? How long had we been residing in this nightmare? Time… did it even exist?

Then, a gnawing feeling. A whiplash of guilt traveling through my body, a poisonous spider weaving itself a new home, a web in which it could rest and wait to feed. I could feel my walls crumbling, my vision blurring in hues of empty shades and hollow colors. This place contained life, but they were nothing but menacing shadows, vicious puppets that were dangling from the strings of another force, something incredibly evil. These trees held life, but they were sucking it through their tainted roots planted firmly within the ground, sucking it up through invincible straws. But where was it coming from?

I could hear humming now, ringing throughout my ears. I looked up toward the sky, the gray light stinging my eyes and bringing forth fresh tears. I could cry?

The spider was crawling along my insides, provoking a feeling of unease and feeding the deep pang of guilt. I wasn't alone, hadn't been, and the eyes that could see me left burning holes all over my body. It was watching, waiting, and readying itself to spring up for an attack. I could only watch and listen, finding little comfort in my father's closeness. That is, if he had ever been close at all.

"I love my sweet Abby, miss my darling Abigail… need…" The rest of his pleading cry was swallowed by the bitterness that began to fall like a heavy blanket across the dimming land. It was the blackness, prepared to wash over the stillness, threatening to close in and suffocate me where I stood, swaying. It bathed the trees with its eerie, unwelcoming shadows, traveled across the soot like a disease that couldn't be vanquished. It brought a chilling numbness along with it, and it wasn't long until the wheels being cranked inside slowed to an abrupt stop. My father's cries had ceased to exist, and the picture of his face that projected itself across my void mind began to wither, to blacken. It, too, was beginning to die.

I could feel the spider spinning itself another web of control, pushing out my emotions for the deadness to consume. My life was being used as a channel, a meager stream of energy, which was being used to keep this place alive. My thoughts were becoming panicked, but continued to disperse into the nothingness, into lost hope and broken dreams.

My mother, Abigail, was no longer existent in this lifetime. She had died, and somehow, I had known. Her soul had fled, and she was not here. Here was where everything lost went, concealed safely in a plastic baggie of swirling slaughter, of slow, torturous deaths. My mother didn't belong in this bleak world of existence, in this realm of hatred and putrid deceit.

Did time exist here? I had almost forgotten what was important. Can time exist in places such as this, a world that can only be described as limbo? Something nibbled inside, perhaps the spider. A great, nagging feeling warned me that somewhere, time was very much existent. Nausea followed in suit, and the bile rose in the back of my throat. The spider's nibbles gradually transformed into goading bites, hundreds of warnings echoing in alien tones throughout my inner walls. Time existed here. If I wasn't careful, if I didn't watch my steps and figure a way out, I would, too.

I, too, was already beginning to fade.

--

I know it was short, but my brain is absolutely fried when it comes to writing this story. I have doubts about continuing. I'm thinking that it would be best if I just scrapped everything and rewrote it, maybe in third-person omniscient point of view or something. I've also lost some of the desire to write this, because, as you can probably tell, fan fiction is definitely not my mojo. Anywho, the revision of this entire story (five chapters, omg) is most likely going to come in the future. A big thanks goes out to all those who have read/reviewed this! And who knows? Maybe I'll think of something and bring out more chapters.