Title: dark
Author: Kait
Rating: PG
Date: 8.21.03
Summary: he'll never reach the light.


dark

It's dark.

It's so dark.

He can feel it around him, it's palpable, it's seeping into his lungs with every labored breath.

And it would be better if he couldn't see the light. But it's there. Just after the dark, just beyond his reach, somehow not getting any closer no matter how much he quickens his pace. He wants to get out of the dark, into the light, wants to put all of this behind him.

Behind him.

He glances over his shoulder again, for the fifth time in as many seconds. The dark is unnerving, he can feel it moving behind him, sneaking up on him, whispering, chasing after him as he strives for the light... it's so close...

The contrast is one sharp line. No blurs of shadow here, no, just dark and then light, with the tree as the barrier, the last dark thing before the light, the last but the most... the most...

He doesn't want to walk by it.

He is almost in a run now, panting, gasping for each new breath and letting it out just as quickly to get the dark out from his lungs. He can see the light approaching, he could get there faster if he didn't have to look over his shoulder so often, he can almost taste it, feel the light on his skin, feel the coolness of the air, the welcome coolness as opposed to the suffocating cold that is all around him in the dark. He wants to get there but he can't, not without walking by the tree, not without facing it.

He wants to scream. He doesn't know why, another glance over his shoulder shows that there's nothing there, nothing coming to get him, nothing he can see.

He quickens his pace again, the scream hovering just under the surface, begging to get out, pulling at his vocal chords.

He doesn't understand why. Why he doesn't want to walk by the tree, why he needs to scream, why the dark is all around him, why he's so bloody frightened of it, so frightened his blood is running cold and his hands and feet are numb and it's pushing in on him from all angles.

Faster.

Faster.

He wants to scream but, he needs to scream, the tree is so close, he can feel it, he can see it, it's looming over him, it's so close it's so close why why why get away it's too close it's too too close and the screams and oh god it's so close...

.end.