Time seemed to pass outside its normal boundaries, each day sliding into the next with an indeterminable beginning or end. Nothing changed for Richard, his self-imposed exile keeping him a prisoner in a mind wrought with frailty, the bars of his prison the truth of a reality no one else would ever see. Fear was his constant companion, providing him with the knowledge that he still lived, and thus assaulting his already fragile mind with both comfort and a terrible, desperate longing to die.

It had been thirteen days since he had slept, and god alone knew how long it had been since he’d uttered a word to another person, or a real one at least. He often spoke to Aecia when she visited, but he knew full well she was no real person, more like some kind of elemental or spiritual entity, but somehow also something much more, terribly so. He knew the answer lay within him somewhere, buried deep beneath several dozen layers of bullshit and denial, but also well within his grasp, if only he wasn’t afraid of what he might find.

Richard was tired, so tired his vision blurred every time he blinked, and whenever he shifted his vision it was followed by one of those weird coronas of light that were sometimes seen in music video clips of the late seventies, early eighties. He was so tired his tongue constantly felt swollen, and he could never seem to get enough air into his lungs, but he couldn’t sleep, there was no way he could even contemplate allowing himself to go to sleep.

The Dream. It always came.

The Dream always came, and it always took hold of him, forcing him to see things he had seen thousands of time before, and never wanted to see again, but was forced to none the less, as if some part of his mind was trying to shake him a wake, a little bit of soul lost in an eternal darkness.

His awareness of time had long since left him, or so it seemed, and he occasionally saw things from the corners of his eye’s, things that weren’t there in any physical sense, things that terrified him, not in spite of this fact, but because of it. Sometimes he heard voices, and thought they had come, and both fear and relief would simultaneously assault him as he looked around in nervous excitement, only to find himself alone as always, and on such occasions often collapsed to the floor, weeping from loneliness and despair.