The shock my worn down sneakers absorb from the ground reverberates through my legs, rises into my abdomen, resonates into my arms, and swells within my head. The thoughts dig their claws into the frail mind trapped inside of my malevolent skull, forcing me to cease running. The sudden jolt my body experienced after I stopped running compelled me to fling myself forward in an effort to truly stop running.

My running only ended when I became parallel with the dirt underneath me. The cold ground, the spiteful insects, the sickening brown dirt, and undisturbed dead—created a sense of moral bankruptcy within me. It felt as though my reserves of morality that which I had been building since my childhood was suddenly deteriorating and collapsing around me. The rubble was crashing into me—crushing my head, allowing those wicked thoughts to escape the confines of my mind.


I propelled my wretched body from the ground by using the appendages attached to my shoulders. I was quite surprised at the strength I had in myself. Physically, anyway. Mentally, my strength had swiftly dissipated, for I had lost all hope in myself and the world around me. Cliché, you might say, but true, I must add.

I was distraught as I rose from the ground. I wrapped my frigid hands around my head to get a grasp of the spinning world. I noticed, however, my hair was significantly shorter. I slid my hands down my strangely soft cheeks, and felt the warmth of my face drain into my hands. My face seemed longer, as if it had grown since my collapse. My hands had even seemed larger than they had been prior to my fall. I heard the approaching footsteps and began to run once more.


I was faster than before, and outrunning my shadow seemed more than possible. The dirt road seemed endless. The trees surrounding me in the tunnel of black all looked precisely the same—down to every root, branch, and leaf. I was on the verge of concluding that my escaping everything I was running from would never be possible.

What caught my attention was a slight glimmer far ahead. It appeared every so often, and seemed to be the only light that kept me running. I felt its magnetic pull on my body….the attraction was so strong. I allowed it to pull me closer to escape what I was running from.


The light came closer, and closer………and closer. It continued to approach until the trees crumbled into the ground. The footsteps behind me faded. The dirt sunk into the ground, and revealed scratches and scars left behind of anyone who ever tried to escape their past, their mistakes, their lives. The light swallowed the scratches as I drew closer. I felt the energy of the light—it felt like a powerful drum, in intonation with my heartbeat.


I was engulfed in light. In paradise. I held the world. My senses of sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch were all ripped away from me, but none of that mattered. Paradise was paradise. Oh, how sweet. Oh how magnificent. Oh how wondrous.


Oh how dark.