Sweat slides over my forehead as though my scalp is raining. My ears ring and the only sound detected is the replication of the same hollow breath I take when my stomach loosens to give energy to other muscles to inhale. Sight is blended and borders blur; the dark outlines of trees swell together into a mass of portentous statues, looming from every direction. Adrenaline pumps head to toe. My feet lumber over frozen forest floor, scraping to escape cement filled legs. My head and heart pound in uneven prodigious collaboration, I stop running and sway from sudden loss of momentum.

Voices overcome my mind and envelope all thoughts. “How are you really?” “There’s something wrong with you.” “I told you she’s weird.” “They’re here.” “Don’t come further.” “I just warned you, stop!” “Please don’t touch me!”
My temples throb with scoffing mockery, bursting the seams of my skull. One burning voice rises in surly authority above the others, “Run.”

I run… Like a track star from the blocks, the pent up energy obtained from a momentary stagnate position propels me forward like a rifle shot. My legs fling themselves forward, out of control, sprinting over murky terrain. Bursting through branches and thorns, I stop when I feel the cold tinging my shredded legs.
The knees beneath me fail with a smash to the frozen earth shrieking to one another, and I to them, an emaciated corpus buckled in infirmity. I lay with my drawn cheek on the ground which was visibly asleep in the chill, but thriving safely unaware beneath me. My watery eyes sat still in their sockets, watching the sideways world sleep silently. A shallow countenance lay next to mine murmuring cruel nothing in my ear. Its wretchedness is alike with mine in which we are differently the same, and contrasted similarly. It glares into my soul and whispers the heavy silence like being submerged under the surface of a frozen pond.
My eyes drain in submission to the ghastly apparition floating before me, and through the haze was a door through which I was to enter. Though horizontal upon the earth, I feel I am standing vertical on the ignited floor of a solitary glass house. Though in a transparent abode, I cannot see out and none can see in through the iridescent curtain of fog. The lone door is engraved in front of me, outlined with surrounding crevices of light that shine brighter than the boldest of gold and fiercer than a breath of thunder. The door calls with the voice of nothing, similarly different to that of the cruel face that had been in my nearsighted vision previously.
The mist surrounding me presses closer, but I feel lighter the longer I remain. Walking to the door, my whole body sweats drops of blood which curdle over my spare skin. As my cadaverous hand hovers over the handle, the only voices reassuring me are not my own. As I open the door, I know that all is right.