Excerpt
I awoke from what seemed like a long and deep sleep, to find myself in utter darkness. There was a blank, cold feeling in my heart and at once I knew that I was dead. I found myself centimetres away from my apartment wall, staring blankly into the dark.
My eyes were wide open and slowly my mind began to fill with vivid memories of what had happened. I allowed myself a moment to begin to function again.
I lazily moved my fingers which were now pressed against the cool, dark wall. I was in my apartment, a place no more familiar to me than anywhere I could have filled with furniture and called home.
Nothing had ever seemed settled, especially with the suitcases that sat prominently around the house, still holding trinkets from my many travels. It was an apartment more often used as storage space, not like a home at all.
But this was my home, and I was aware that nothing had changed in it. The gentle hum of my computer in the background brought me back to reality and I soon realised the sense of panic rising up inside me like desperation; I cannot explain this feeling, apart from a horrible coldness in my heart.
My first instinct seemed immediately impossible, but nevertheless I began to rise up the wall. The higher I got, the more the panic seized all the nerves in my body. I knew I was scared, but I could not figure out why. When I reached the second floor, the sight of the large window looking out into the night’s sky soothed me slightly.
The silence filling my apartment frightened me, and I knew I was looking for something. A memory so far away in my mind, I heard a voice telling me to look for the bright lights in the night sky.
But there were no bright lights; I could not see the moon and all the stars looked dead: black, gone, vanished from the darkness. I absently imagined them to be dead, possibly as an association to myself. I rose higher; ascending through the ceilings that seamlessly passed through my body.
I was in a strange place now, but all the darkness felt the same, the feeling of panic, of need. I began to feel a sense of anxiety, a sudden dread of something pulling me higher, further into someplace unknown. I resisted the urge to cling to something solid.
I was on the second floor of a stranger's apartment; I could not stand the dark any longer. Quickly I reached out for the light, knowing exactly where it was. Switching it on was no problem. As soon as I had done, I felt my whole body jolt. Staring back at me was a figure in the living room.
His vivid green eyes met mine; a man in a long black coat with dark green trousers that looked more like elegant rags. He was holding a cigarette, standing against the wall in a relaxed manner.
The room around him was completely bare; not even carpet remained. The walls were marked and old, the hall that I stood in looked dark and damp, and also slightly warped. My full attention however, was on this man. Somehow I had reached an understanding that he was like me: dead. He beckoned me towards him.
Trembling, I slowly encouraged myself to move towards this strange figure. To my eyes, he looked mysterious and yet somehow beautiful, and I wondered where this creature had come from. He looked at me, then at the cigarette and smiled, amused.
“Cigarette?” His first words to me. I declined the offer; I'd always been a non-smoker.
“I thought as much, a bit pointless really. Lighting one seems to relax me. Funny how something I'd clung to as a mortal now brings an almost childlike comfort to me in these times.”
At first I failed to understand, then suddenly it came to me: of course, he could not inhale the smoke.
I did not - could not - say a word. I sat on the window ledge, completely taken in by the figure before me, his raven black hair shining in the moonlight.
We stayed like that for a while. It seemed like the most perfectly comfortable and natural thing to do. The feeling of panic was already gone, fading fast from my mind. I realised I had a lot of questions.
“I watched it happen, you know. Your death,” his voice shocked me, breaking through the silence so harshly. I turned to him, speechless at what he'd said. His green eyes pierced mine and I felt completely helpless.
Then in a litany of flashbacks and horrendous thoughts, I remembered what had happened to me in my last moments of struggle.
He continued, “I was waiting for you, hoping... you'd find me.”
The sense of loss shattered the numbness for me. I began to find the situation so horrible, so…unfair, I felt like screaming. I had an overwhelming desire to race down to my former apartment and confront my blood-drained corpse.
“You know, that wouldn’t be such a good idea…” The mysterious gentleman’s soft velvety voice filled the room adequately enough to calm me for a moment.
Turning to him, I looked him straight in the eye and spoke my first words: “Who are you?”
“My name is Magnus.”
I knew from that moment that he could not answer my questions. He could not tell me how long he had been there for, or why. All he knew was that it was always dark.