Grey Hair, Blue Shirt, Pink Shorts

The walls are thick with grime. The air is taut, stretching itself around the incessant billows of choking black smoke. The floor is cold and hard – ripe for the slip of a boot…the crushing of a head.

In this room, away from the false glare of the artificial sun, paranoia is more than a feeling, it’s a force. When your hands are slick with muck, when your lungs erupt with smog and the echoing footsteps surround you in the darkness…it’s hard to resist the temptation.

The temptation to be safe in the corner with a knife, to use your paranoia as your hope; your light at the end of the tunnel.

Grey Hair, Blue Shirt, Pink Shorts

Paranoia isn’t the urge to run, it isn’t the craving for violence, it isn’t even the longing for safety.

Paranoia is the empty space.

And what

fills it.

A new set of footfalls enter the room.

Click.

Clack.

Through the gaps in the miasma you see it. Grey hair.

Click.

Clack.

Your eyes race to fill in the gaps your brain is scared to.

Click.

Clack.

You process as much information as you can. A blue shirt.

Click, clack.

Your eyes rush further down for a glimpse of the figure’s final piece of clothing.

Click, clack.

Grey Hair, Blue Shirt, Pink Shorts

Then, a plume of smoke.

Suddenly the opaque murk is forcing its way into your eyes, your mouth, your nose. The cacophony of paranoia subsides to the cascade of grinding metal, creaking valves and gushing smoke.

Fear is replaced with instinct.

Choking, spitting out the darkness and collapsing against the grotesque walls you stay half-standing. You shuffle forwards, deeper into the onslaught.

Closing your eyes seals the darkness in. Your fingers begin itching and tearing at your face. Closing your mouth makes your throat scratch and writhe as your lungs desperately try to expel the fumes. It’s inside you now. There’s nothing to do but force yourself forward within this agonising cloud.

Your body is consumed in the fog, your mind devoured by panic.

The people you’ve seen flash through your mind. You need to remember the details.

What did you wear today?

Grey Hair, Blue Shirt, Pink Shorts

Coughing and spluttering you fight for life, fight for survival against the darkness. A globule of muck and puss retches from inside you, painting the wall an even murkier black.

There’s no way of knowing how long it’s been. Seconds? Minutes?

Through streaming black tears your senses are overwhelmed, save for one sound.

Click.

Clack.

A figure is moving through the darkness towards you. There’s a shimmer of light in their hand.

Click, clack.

A glimmer in the dark.

Grey Hair.

Click, clack.

A shimmer in the void.

Blue Shirt.

Click, clack.

A light at the end of the tunnel.

Pink Shorts.