A lone street. A lone, desolate, isolated street. I looked down on the silver coated watch on my frail wrist as it looped around me like snake wrapping itself around its prey. The small, black hands inside the clock pointed at 2.45am. Inhaling as much air as I could, I let out a deep, resentful and loud sigh, the air being sucked out of my body harshly.
Looking in front of me, I stared at the darkness as I watched it stare right back at me. My body felt a chilling, unusually uncomfortable sensation slither across my nerves as it rooted itself right into the middle of my brain. It almost felt as if I was being watched and my body slowly being touched as I stood in the middle of this endless darkness.
Anxiously, I took my first step, my leg rising up, cutting the air in half before it emphatically dropped down with a thud. The shockwaves echoed inside my body like a symbol being struck. Gathering up the courage, I lifted my other leg, the same motion as before as I came down with another intense thud.
The wind was cool. It struck my back softly as I waved its protection all over my body. Continuing my valiant effort, I ambled heavily further into the darkness, a singular bead of sweat rolling down my forehead, mapping out the outer layer of my cheekbone, sliding down my chin before dropping down and hitting the concrete floor beneath me. I grabbed my ears in pain as I fell into a crouched position.
The drop rung in my ears like bells as I let out a small gasp, struggling to grab any air around me. My body shuddered and shook as I clutched onto my soul with all the strength I had.
So loud. So very loud. Why is it loud? Why is it loud? Stop the ringing. Please, the ringing is oh so loud. Thinking, ringing, fixing, shouting, biting, hating, dying, dying, dying….
In the distance, I heard a faint whistle. It was incredibly quiet, easy to miss, yet the enhanced sensations I was feeling at the very moment allowed me to pick up the low calling. It was...comforting. A familial whistle. One that brought me great ease. And yet, at the same time there was a terrifying feeling brimming deep within my heart, a sense of danger and fear flooding my brain and an unrelenting amount of adrenaline pumping in my blood as the whistle grew louder.
First a whisper, then a steady volume and then a loud screech. Louder and louder, it rang in my eardrums, splitting the very atoms in the air with its vibrations.
Pop.
My frail finger raised up and planted perfectly onto my earlobe as I left a wet liquid slowly seeping its way out of my body.
Warm. Warmer than anything I had ever touched in my life.
Softly, it made its way out, following the pattern of my ear before dripping down onto the floor. My entire right side went numb. Silence fell. Tranquillity arrived. On the other side...all hell broke loose. My body jittered and shook impulsively, as my arm contracted and relaxed simultaneously, something I was never able to think was ever possible. It grew louder.
The whistling. The familiarly terrifying whistling. As if it was on a mission to destroy even my left eardrum. And yet, my body weirdly yearned for freedom. It yearned to lose the noise. The awfully, loud and constant voice. And so, I brought no attempt in trying to protect my precious sense. My arm continued its otherworldly movement as the whistling became deafening.
Silence. Peace at last.
It felt as if every weight and burden on my body had finally been stripped of me and I was able to rest after all the struggles and problems I had went through in my life. I loved it. I loved the silence. It allowed me to distance myself from the world. To have my own small, claustrophobic bubble that no one could enter, and it brought me peace. Peace that I would never have gained from living.
My breathing stopped. My body froze. Slowly, I picked myself up, my hands falling lifelessly to my sides as I tilted my head stiffly towards the darkness. I closed my eyes, my mind and thoughts disappearing as a darkness swept over me. I let out another sigh, this time one more content and filled with relief.
Opening my eyes, the once hazel colour had morphed into a greener shade. Shifting my entire body towards the uncertain path ahead, I mindlessly walked forward, the loud thuds replaced with soft and silent footsteps, the shuddering shockwaves replaced with cool sensations of lifeless peace and my heavy breathing replaced by lighter inhalations and lovely exhalation.
I continued walking, a small, crooked smile being painted onto my face. And from a small smile, a larger one grew, and another one grew, and another, and another, until my face had been stretched and shaped into one beautiful smile that spanned the entire width. I continued walking, my mind blurry and my thoughts unanswered. The path in front got darker and darker whilst my brain got blurrier and blurrier.
And then, I laughed. A laugh that I had never heard before coming out of someone like me. A laugh filled with every emotion that I could possess. A slow, hateful, happy, cheerful, gloomy, half-hearted laugh erupted out of my body like a volcano yet also slowly slithered out at the same time. Before I knew it, I was laughing and walking. Laughing and walking into the darkness.
Laughing and walking into uncertainty and then, I disappeared. Engulfed into the darkness, my laugh being the last remnant of me as it echoed in the lonely alley.
And then it stopped. Everything came to a stop. The entire world stood still in that moment, and I felt my body collapse. I felt my nerves and atoms ringing and bubbling, the very existence of who I was shattering and falling apart. All of my life came crashing down and I zoned out. Engulfed in an eternal blackness, my own meaning had been completely lost.
I felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing, smelt nothing, tasted nothing. Except for the darkness around me. The darkness that seeped into my veins and replace my blood. The darkness that filled my lungs with its air. The darkness that sung harmonies of its despair into my ears. The darkness that fed me every negative emotion it could ever possess. The darkness that now replaced my heart.
And before I knew it, I shut down. My body dropped and I became lifeless. My arms falling onto my heart in the shape of a cross. Tangled and scattered, my hair lay among the floor in a pattern of a demonic symbol. My eyes blanked out, all life sucked out of them as it was nothing more than a black and silent vessel of whatever soul previously inhabited it.
And that was where I lay.
For eternity.
Forgotten.
Alone.
Emotionless.
Peaceful.
Free.
On a lonely lane.