Dark. Too dark. There are slivers of light flitting through small holes in the rock. Or is that just a reflection? A trick of your mind, perhaps? Imagining lights that aren’t there in a desperate attempt to believe you can see. But you aren’t blind. You know because you can make out shadows on the wall, even in the pitch black. They’re moving erratically, bending and twisting. They look human, but you know humans should not be able to move like that.

You don’t remember who you are. Panic sets in when you realize this. You look at your hands and they are knotted, scarred. A woodcutter? Someone of great strength, surely. Maybe a prisoner? That would explain the marks of shackles embedded into your skin. But what crime could you have committed? You don’t feel like a bad person. But, for all you know, you could have killed someone.

Whispers surround you. A caress of a soft voice passes your ear, telling you the secrets of your past, but you can’t make out what it’s saying. You know it’s talking about you, somehow, instinctually, but you still can’t understand. It’s as if you’ve forgotten your own language. But that can’t be, you can still think. Muddily, but you can still think.

The shadows are still moving. One begins moving towards you, you think, a slow crawl of twisted limbs and protruding bones. A crackling, popping noise is emitted every time it moves, combined with a low hiss that makes your skin crawl. You are somehow less scared of it than you are of yourself.

You’re sweating. Salt is trailing down your temple; slowly, torturously. A thought passes, fleeting, memories of torture where water would be dropped on your forehead until madness ensues. Every drop is like a bullet through your brain. It would be driving you insane if you thought you weren’t already.

Your thoughts grow louder. No longer completely coherent, more like drums, beating in your ears and drowning out the sound of your heart. Do you have a heart? Was it taken from you? It seems as if everything else was, so why not?

Suddenly, it is quiet. Your thoughts slow, then stop. Your breath stops. Everything. Stops. Nothing is left but the low buzzing in your ear, because true silence is nonexistent.

You are gone. You’ve receded into yourself. You are nothing but a shell, a husk of a being left to die. There are not even vultures to eat your corpse, here.

You don’t exist. You don’t exist. You don’t exist. You don’t exist.