• Leon sat hunched in the corner of an empty room. The room lay barren, clear of everything, and plain in every sense of the word. It was a square room, the dull grey of the clouds on a stormy day. There were no windows, no door, nothing. Just Leon, and his thoughts...

    [Well I've been here before. Sat on the floor in this grey, grey room... Where I stay in all day, and all that I write is this grey, grey tune...]

    It's a very important night in my life, and as I leaned in to kiss the woman I loved, I was stopped by a voice I could not recognize. As I hear the words, my world starts to change.

    I have come to realize I could very well be a focal point to most of your insecurities. Based on physical and mental interactions during a vulnerable point in your emotional development.

    That's a dangerous thing to realize. To come to that realization that someone just might be the complete downfall to your own personality, the end to everything that makes you, you. A frayed string woven within a tapestry which represents yourself. Should the string unravel, the fabric would fall apart. So while you try to hide the string, make it appear invisible , I can see it as clear as day, and that terrifies you. Which is why you're doing this mission isn't it? You're looking for her, because without her, you are simply nothing. A cowardly fool trying to create a fantasy in which you are something more than reality can produce.

    [I won't tell you a damn thing that I could not tell my friends, no roaming through this darkness, I"m alive but I"m alone. Part of me is fighting this, but part of me is gone.]

    Darkness, to some it's a comforting mirage covering the truth from prying eyes. To others, darkness is the truth in which one can not run from. As sweat drips from my forehead, clouding my vision, turning darkness into a blurred shadow. I start to wonder where exactly I am, and how exactly this nightmare had captured me to begin with.

    I heard a story once. I'll tell it to you. One day a man was walking down a path when he fell into a hole. There was nothing down the hole, but darkness, all encompassing. He began to call for help, and eventually a doctor came along, and he threw him down a prescription. Then later a priest came by and heard the calls, and he prayed for the man. But eventually the man's friend came by, and leaped down the hole with him. When asked why he did it, he responded, "Because I've been down here before, and I can show you a way out."

    I can't count the times I've leaped down that hole. Or the times I've fallen in. But here I am, in darkness once more.

    My methods were flawless, I covered , and recovered my tracks. I let no-one know of my whereabouts, which I now think was more of a mistake then I intended. But now I sat in the middle of, nothing, and watched as this horror unfolded around me.

    "How does that make you feel? Knowing that....without me you could very much fall apart?"

    A woman stands in front of me, I know her as someone I once loved. She wears a long periwinkle dress, strapless....her hair well put up, but wilting from the humidity and heat. She carries a pair of black strapped heels in her hand, and she's upset with me. My father hasn't showed up, he was supposed to drive us to her house. She has called her parents....I think she's embarrassed with me, I feel like s**t. Then again, it's not the first time I've disappointed her. Hell, it seems like my whole relationship I was never good enough for her... Whatever. I warned her, didn't I?

    "I wouldn't fall apart without you..." My ribs hurt, I don't remember them being broken....

    She comes towards me, but as she passes through the shadow between us, she changes , emerging as someone totally different. A pair of blue eyes now glare at me, no longer amber brown.

    "What about me? Would you fall apart without me? Or am I not as important as her? But then ......You might not have to deal with me much longer. I"ll be gone and it'll be all your fault..."

    [When your tears are spent on your last pretence and your tired eyes refuse to close and sleep in your defence.....]

    The world spins around me, I'm disoriented , as I fall I try to grasp something and find a small hand and grasp it tight. As the world forms around me I find myself on the edge of a rooftop, high above the city, under the light of a blue moon. I look down to see that I'm holding the hand of a woman who is dangling below me. Below me, the city looks so small, so insignificant. I have been here before, in college, I came here to think. I have many memories here...this is not one of them.

    [Took my hand and I let her go... Broke her little bones on the boulders below...]

    "Don't let me fall, god please don't let me fall!" I study the woman, but her features remain obscured, flickering like static, but every now and then a glimmer is shown, changing every time. Faces of several women flash before me, their names and voices play in my head like a haunting melody... I remember them all. I remember their eyes, their scents, their voices... I remember their embraces... And I remember how I gave my all to save them.

    Suddenly I feel a shiver run down my spine, then a piercing agony as I look down and a dark blade protrudes from my stomach. My own blade. I bite down, and try not to scream, I know this pain, I can take it. The warm breath of a mouth comes close to my ear, and I hear a whisper, my voice, but a chilling rendition of it. Looking over my shoulder I see him, a familiar demon. He's me in every sense of the word, but his smile is sinister, his eyes piercing. He holds an air of pure arrogance, and confidence I could only ever feign. But most noticeably, while I wear all black, he dons pure white.

    [There's a shadow just behind me. Shrouding every step I take. Making every promise empty. Pointing every finger at me.]

    "What's wrong? Help her... Help her, and fall to your own demise... That's how life goes after all, doesn't it Leon? You help them, they are beautiful, they beg for your help, and you help them. Every. Single. Time! And what do they do in return? They push you to the edge. Bit. By. Bit. They leave you broken and bruised. And then? Then when you need them most, they turn away, and leave you cold, and alone... And just as you begin to walk again... You meet another beautiful damsel in distress. Then it happens again, and again, and again...We can end it you know... Just let her fall..."

    I know he's lying. He must be lying. Even if not... Better me than her... Right? The pain in my stomach overthrows all of my senses, as I open my eyes my hand slides open, and instead of her falling, it's me. I am falling. Fear of death fills my mind, alongside a contrasting relief as I hurtle towards the ground. I look to the sky once more before I close my eyes, and spread my arms. I open my eyes and find myself chained to a bed, a smothering darkness keeping me from moving, from making a sound. I'm trapped in the nightmare, and Anika isn't here....Could the nightmare have tricked me all along? Could I have been following Anika deeper into a nightmare she was never in to begin with? No...

    The sudden realization fills me with a cold fear, what if the nightmare has already taken everyone else? Who was left then to save them? Would this be how I spent the last of my days? I close my eyes, and despite my own situation, try to see beyond the shadows, into what light there was left within me. I reach out and try only to think that in some way, my suffering had to be for some sort of greater good. A thought that was slowly disappearing .....