• Just what kind of Hell is this? His own voice echoed constantly back at him, a painful reminder that he is alone. A dull light shone in the distance, always just around the next corner, or beyond the next room and never coming any closer. How long had he been here? How many times had he been through the same room? Was that his third left? No no, couldn't be, this can't be the same room. Can it? He frantically looked about himself, suddenly unsure of which door he had only moments before come through, and which one he was heading towards. Were there always four doors in this room? Of course there were, doors don't just appear, right?
    Suddenly feeling light headed he loses his balance and stumbles forward, abruptly coming to one of the corners in the room. He leans back into the corner and slowly sinks down to sit on the balls of his feet, holding his knees to his chest like a child who had lost its way in a dark forest and, rather than risk becoming a meal for a bear, decides to stay put until his mother can locate and lead him to safety.
    Surely there has to be a way out of here, right? He had thought this, and many other things, to himself over the course of the last few hours, or days, or hell even weeks.
    “What do you want from me!” he suddenly cries out into the still nothing, clutching at the sides of his head with both hands, fingernails dragging sharply across his scalp. He didn't feel it though, his mind was elsewhere. “What in the hell do you want from me!” he again cries out, his voice on the verge of breaking just as his sanity surely had. Ragged sobs pulled from his chest he clenched his eyes shut and ground his teeth. An answer came then, softly following behind his own echo. So soft he was certain that he had imagined it in his own delirium. “What? Is someone there?” he barely managed to whisper.
    He strained his ears against the barely audible sound of the echoes, reverberating off of God knows how many walls and corridors. “Follow.” came that voice once more. Almost silken in quality, as though everything he had been searching for and hoping for was within that voice. “Follow.” it said again, “A new Dawn awaits.” it told him. He didn't care though. He wasn't alone and that was good enough for him. Carefully he climbed to his feet, one shaky hand bracing on a dirt covered trouser leg -the dark brown of the cloth muddied by the dust and grit of these damned corridors- as the other brushed back his thinning hair. Once he was back on his feet he could clearly see the door he had been headed for, as though it were the only door in the world. A soft blue light, tinged with wisps of gold streamers, was begging for his attention.
    He stood up to his full height, which wasn't all that much, and quickly brushed the loose dust from his loose fit denim trousers before starting towards that light. The voice came again, slowly and softly whispering into his ears and seemingly his very being. “Yes, come. Follow. Follow and you will be pleased.” the voice whispered, dragging out the words. He did as he was told, he followed.
    The light guided him out of that room and down a long corridor. The plaster walls were chipped in some areas, unadorned in others. Mostly, though, the walls had an intricate pattern of gold and blue paints that seemed to faintly hum in the presence of the guiding light he followed. The patterns ran about halfway up the walls to either side of him, and seemed to either guide him on his way at some times and at others it seemed as though they were following him. He didn't know, and he didn't care. All he knew, was the some sort of end, some sort of relief from this perpetual, timeless torture was in sight.