Chapter One - Part Four

When everything went black a white speck of light poked through the darkness like a lone star in the night sky.
Steadily He watched it's mass get bigger ripping through the darkness as if it were a train light, Getting closer to Him with each second that went by.
He felt like He was on the tracks but finding Himself strangely floating midair and unable to move away from the oncoming light.
He would wave His arms much like a swimming motion and feeling as though He was making His way upward but when He looked He saw the light continuing to move in His direction with no sign of stopping whatsoever.
A burst of overwhelming pain shot though His body as the light came into contact with Him blinding Him as well with a intensity He had never felt or seen before that point.
He screamed out as a glimpse of a high ceiling started focusing and a high pitched beeping rang in His ears, a blurred figure came into the picture standing over Him as He scream out in pain.
A strange echo fumbled around His ears unable to grasp onto the language the figure spoke as all of a sudden the light that had hit Him backed up and shot back through the darkness to dissipate into nothingness again.
All at once He was in the void of a pitch black space again, not knowing which way was up or down, the blackness going on forever as if He was embodied within a universal mobius strip.
He looked on in the infinite darkness hoping to get a heading of something familiar, something He would recognize as being trustworthy to His sight but nothing like that existed in the place He was in.
Closing His eyes He floated in place while in the nothingness of the space He was in leaving a silence so great that sound seemed to be absorbed from the very moment it entered the atmosphere.
He would try to talk but His speech sounded distorted then it would cut off, stifle and dissipate quickly as if a vacuum were sucking up His words.
It was then He felt it, pieces of Him being taken from His body as if molecule by molecule were departing making it look like sand blowing through the air.
As the bits of Him floated away He started to scream, it wasn't because it hurt or was painful but the thought of being blown away with a seemingly non-existent wind was terrifying to Him as He did not know where He would go nor if He would come together again in the end.
Strands of Himself whist away with Hedzel grasping greedily at what was once pieces of Himself only for them to slip through His hands as He continued to unravel to His very core before His very eyes.
Closing His eyes He stopped, realizing He was fighting an up hill battle and foolishly trying to keep something that was not permanent.
He drift away into the darkness carried away by an unknown force that now held sway in the darkness with no control on the part of Hedzel.
He didn't know what would become of Him and that was what He feared the most, to be tossed and thrown with the wind.
With His eyes closed the last of Him detached from the rest of the remaining pieces and followed the rest of the bits in it's now current state of unrest, flowing as if it were a river of sand across a vast stretch of nothingness.

Chapter One- Part Three

He was cruel to say the least, Mocking and degrading, why He stayed with Hedzel was just beyond his Grasp of understanding.
Hedzel slowly sat up pulling Himself against the already pealing and crumbling wall making it come off in pieces.
"Look at that, seems like everything is just falling apart at the seams aren't they?"
Daemon had a smugness in His voice that would stay Hidden under His monotone disguise.
"Why won't you help me?" Hedzel said propping Himself up against the wall, His head rested against the flaking paint along the wall.
"I'm helping you more than you think Hedzel."
"You're just standing there Berating me and standing there while I waste away."
"You brought this on yourself Hedzel, you say you want someone to help and yet you shut everyone else out, You depend on people and yet despise them."
"It can't be helped you know." Hedzel said with an ever weakening look.
"What? Your hatred for Humanity?"
"Look at them out there, scurrying around with their meaningless lives, selfish and greedy, can you blame me?"
"And yet you crave their acceptance."
"No I don't, why do you think I'm in here away from them?"
"Face it Hedzel, you're obsessed with them, you want to be a part of them and you want what they have."
"That is the most ridiculous notion I've ever heard in my life."
"Is it Hedzel? You're Obsessed because you can't stop talking about them, you hate them because you can't be like them and don't have what they have. Your whole life is based on the thinking that you're better then they are so you lock yourself away to escape but face it, even though you're away physically from them they're still with you. You haven't escaped a thing!"
All the while Daemon spoke, Hedzel cringed at each word that came from the mans mouth, His eyes clenched trying in hopes that if He didn't see Daemon He would some how disappear, mixing that with telling him to be quiet and failing at it.
He never seemed as bitter and empty as He did now, Nor had He felt so failed as a human as He assessed His life from His place on the floor in a poorly lit, poorly structured room that seemed to have the feeling like He did on the inside.
If anyone had looked from the outside they would have seen a pristine structure, Vibrant and lively to the eyes but dead on the inside had they looked in the windows.
Sitting with closed eyes, the suspense built while waiting to understand this place in His life, the time all the while standing still going against every notion of logic available to Him.
The sound of Footsteps clicking around the room against the floor, a stifled echo bouncing around the room, around His head in an orderly chaos.
When He opened His eyes the man was gone, Hedzel looked left, then right not seeing a trace of Daemon around.
"What do you think of all this?"
"Where are you?"
"Just Hanging around."
Hedzel followed the voice upward to the ceiling, His focus fading in and out unsure He was seeing was real.
"What are you doing up there, how is that even possible?"
"Maybe you're Hallucinating."
"Hallucinating?"
"Or maybe I know something you don't."
"Like what?"
"Like how to stand on the ceiling for starters."
"You're very strange Daemon."
"You're the one seeing a man on the ceiling and fretting about the outside world, sitting in ashes all day and you call ME strange?"
"I don't understand."
"What don't you understand?"
"This...All of this, why I'm here, why there are ashes and where they're coming from. Everything."
"It was once said that one should not think that they know or have a full understanding what it is to understand, instead know that you understand nothing."
"What does that even mean?"
"It means that you don't really understand what is to begin to understand."
"That makes no sense whatever."
"Maybe to you but then again you're the one on the floor, your perception of the way things work is only limited to your understanding of how gravity works."
"What your doing is impossible."
"What are you, the Physics police?"
Hedzel rubbed His temples finding His thoughts on the subject in disarray, as if scattered to the wind challenging everything He was taught in school.
'I'm going crazy.' Hedzel thought to Himself trying to wrap His mind around the fact that He had someone walking on His ceiling.
"You're not going crazy, I'm merely showing you something you didn't know until now."
"Are you telling me I can walk on the ceiling?"
"You? No you'll never be able to do this."
"You're doing it."
"I am but you're not meant to."
"I give up, I'm going to stop trying to understand you."
Daemon looked up at Hedzel on the floor as He stepped onto the wall and then proceeded to lean over to the ceiling and doing a handstand while walking across the room on His hands while on the ceiling.
As He walked He started loosing His Balance swaying back and forth with His legs until He was caught mid-air in the blank space of the room.
He didn't gravitate to the ceiling like one would imagine, He just lay parallel to the ceiling, floating like a feather to the floor where Hedzel was.
"What do you want Hedzel?"
"I don't know anymore."
"Well that's a lax attitude, would you even care if you died?" Daemon finally lay on the floor looking at Hedzel with His head cocked to one side much like a puppy's.
Hedzel closed His eyes resting in thought as He heard a dripping faucet in the background drowning out Daemons voice fading in and out of the distance of the room each moment the drip consolidating to a concentrated focus.
Time took a holiday as blackness enveloped over Hedzels perception of reality until He opened His eyes to Daemon within an inch of His face, eyes wide open and nose to nose with Him.
It wasn't shocking, Scary or anything of that sort, it didn't even make Hedzel jump like one would think, It wasn't that surprising to Him anymore, Nothing surprised Hedzel anymore especially when it came to Daemon.
The underlying hazard by association would by all means be a thinking point for Hedzel as His head couldn't wrap around the impending thought that He didn't understand quite as much as His mystery friend.
"Hello in there... you awake or have you fallen asleep with your eyes open?"
"How long have I known you?"
"Just now, Me on the other hand have known you much longer."
"What? How can you know me longer than I've known you?"
"I've been milling around getting to know you and you didn't even notice me until now."
"I would think I would remember someone like you walking around here, you're a little hard to miss."
"And yet you did, you missed a lot of things but don't worry most people aren't aware of us."
"Aware of us? Us who? I only see you."
"You people are so oblivious to reality it's ridiculous, you have this notion of what you have been taught that you get caught up in your version of reality but you really have no clue."
Reality was something Hedzel hadn't thought of before, He hadn't had a need to think about it, He didn't think of reality as anything more than the here and now.
Was there a whole world that everyone passed by and remained unseen? was it possible that people were so mystified with their own life that failed to see reality?
It occurred to Hedzel that if a Man could walk on the ceiling and float to the floor like a feather then maybe He had missed reality, the real reality that lay unseen to people in their life.
He lay leaning against the wall contemplating whether or not He knew anything anymore, He was so oblivious, could He trust His senses anymore? Could anyone trust what they thought they knew anymore? If they were unaware of reality did it matter?
There was no more certainty in His belief of what He thought was reality and was now filled with doubt as to whether or not what He was seeing was real or a hallucination, was the room real, was the man real? Was He real? what was real and what was a facade for the benefit of those who were unable to face the ugly truth?
Time would only tell what He would recognize as reality and a faint resemblance of fantasy, in all His life He would see Crazy people walking down the street talking to themselves or watching as people would pray and talk to God thinking how crazy the notion was talking to some invisible being no one else could see. Maybe they weren't crazy after all, maybe the one's who didn't see it were the crazy one's oblivious to reality.
Why not? His perceptions of it were challenged thus far but how would people perceive Him talking to someone only He seemed to see?
Fear seemed to grasp at the cuff of His shirt as an overwhelming feeling swept over Hedzel as He wondered if He would be taken seriously or dismissed as a crazy man and locked away for a cognitive malfunction.
Panic stricken Hedzel breathed heavy as His anxiety level rose at the very thought of being locked away with people in a loony bin playing chess with a man who believed He was Napoleon.
When it all got to be too much, His eyes rolled in the back of His head and everything went black as His body went limp, sliding along the wall to Nestle in crevice between the wall and the floor.

Chapter One - Part Two

Hedzel lay on the floor helpless to the taunts of the one keeping Him company, the room was dusty as ever seemingly collecting along the hairs of His body.
Never touching His skin, Just hovering over like a man on a wire in a circus act, flakes gathering on the surface of Hedzels hair like a snowfall.
At first Hedzel had thought maybe the paint was chipping off and He would be right but it would come from the ceiling falling around Him and on Him as well.
When He would lift His head gray smudges would cling to his face gathering more each time he lay His head back down.
"Please" Hedzel would say in a weak and parched voice.
Daemon let out an inquisitive hum to respond to the man on the floor.
"hm? What is it now?"
"Please can you clear this dust away? It's hard to breath."
"Aren't we a needy Ned.. like it'll do any good anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"More come, gather and fall again, it's really best if you stayed as you were."
Daemon squat down next to Hedzel who was choking on the stiff air around Him, Daemon grabbed a few pieces of gray matter off Hedzels hair and rubbed the course flakes between His fingers.
"My what a dirty boy you are Hedzel." He said showing Hedzel His hand which now had dark gray spots on them.
"Please, you can go if you aren't going to help me."
"Now why would I leave my favorite guy?"
"It's unbearable in here."
Hedzel started into a coughing fit blowing bits of grey everywhere as it would settle back down, drifting and floating to the floor again.
" How do you think I feel, stuck in here with a guy who lays on the floor depressed all day and gets ashes everywhere. I suppose it comes with any Job though."
Daemon remarked so casually that it took a while for the words to stop bouncing around in His head, He was weak and not in any condition to keep His cognitive skills in check.
"Ashes?"
"Yes, ashes Hedzel, ashes from fire, soot, Burt remains of once living things, The breath of a volcano... Though I must say it does have a nice feel between one's fingers."
Hedzel could see Daemons hand rubbing his finger tips together in a circular motion.
A confused look gathered on Hedzels face as His totality was in the belief that the substance around Him was Dust and not ashes that seemed to gather from no where in particular.
Weakly He pulled Himself across the floor a fraction of an inch at a time since He was so broken from the very experience He was in.
His mental scars were formed and showed as the wounds had healed over but the showing of His past stuck out seaming it's way across His memory like a zipper on a pair of pants.
What had happened was unknown to Him and blockaded under the scar tissue caused by His past and He wasn't quite sure if He wanted to know what had happened for fear of the truth sticking Him like a sword twisting in His flesh.
“Afraid of the truth are we Hedzel?”
Daemon asked rhetorically as He watched Hedzels mind racing to think back, eyes twitching in a fevered search for a remnant of the one thing He seemingly could not grasp onto.
His mind was like that of a madman throwing books frantically off a shelf in search of something important hidden among them.
Hedzel felt torn between the compulsory need to remember the truth and the constantly foreboding fear of finding it at the same time.
As His Mind reached a fevered pitch His skull started feeling as if it could burst into flames as a migraine ripped across His brain in an intensity that covered His mind in a blanket of pain.
Defenseless He lay on the floor, waiting for His time of pain to abandon it's assult His body for that of another, His body shaking in a fit of pain as if He were a can of paint in a hardware Paint mixer.

Chapter One/ Part one: Dirty

Dirty, everything was dirty and the smell matched everything else too, a burnt smell as if someone had cooked meat too long into a charred black coal.
If you were to cough a flood of dust would rise to meet the air and settle back to the floor where it originated from.
One lone light bulb stuck out hanging from amid the room looking as if it were a man in the gallows and the cord from which electric pulse came from were a noose around the dimly lit and dirt covered bulbs neck was wrapped.
A low flicker of the bulb was the only constant in the room as every second the room itself would seem to change around Him seemingly swelling in and out as He Himself lay in shallow breath feeling as if He were dying on the floor.
Unable to move except maybe to eat a cockroach that might scurry in His path or near His still hand waiting for it's prey to foolishly wander near it.
He had contemplated what brought Him to this bleak place so Dirty and Dank it would make a torture chamber look cheery.
It wasn't a prison and it wasn't like He wasn't allowed to leave, It was His guilt and reasons all His own that would keep Him in this place.
No reason to fight or to leave and no reason to go out into a world deemed darker and more diseased than the filth He was laying in.
He had saved Himself from a life He thought was disgraceful in order to live in a world of self hatred and degradation.
Not one person would be invited to His company and despite their cries for Him to come out and assurances of safety He would not heed their pleas for His company.
He was safe and yet not safe at the same time, though His mind stay comforted His body withered away.
A world so deceptively welcoming Kept Him in His place and happy about staying so apathetic to His own plight leaving no room for that of others.
One sympathetic ear stayed with Him as He lay in silence listening to the sound of nothing crossing the threshold of His door.
"Do you hear that Hedzel?"
A slight hum of acknowledgment crossed the barrier of that which was Hedzel's lips.
"It's the sound of silence, No one has come for a while now, see how much they care Hedzel?"
"How long had it been ?" a weak and tired Hedzel said letting out a groan.
"Poor poor Hedzel, I'm here for you, I've always been Here for you."
A hand genteelly rested on Hedzel's head as Hedzel looked up squinting the entire time trying to gain focus in His blurry state.
The figure got up and walked over making imprints of His bare feet in the dust across the floor.
The sound of water could be heard from a faucet that was filling a glass Held by the figure no more than a grey blob to Hedzel's set of blurred eyes.
"I bet you're really thirsty aren't you Hedzel?"
a mix of a hum and crying left Hedzel's vocal cords tiredly trying to contend with His parched throat.
The figure stood over next to the body of Hedzel drinking the water looking at the poor man laying on the floor licking His dry cracked lips.
"I have the water for you Hedzel, now all you have to do is say 'Daemon I want some water please.' remember please is the most important part."
Daemon crouch down as He talked, all the while holding the glass in front of Hedzel's face, a slight grin making a crack from only the right side of His face.
Hedzel reached for the glass only to be taunted by Daemon who frequently pulled it away from Hedzel.
"uh ah mind your P's and Q's Hedzel."
There was a mocking tone that protruded from the statement Daemon gave, seemingly cruel and arrogant knowing no bounds.
a hopelessness would be the only way to describe it as a few tears fell from Hedzel's eyes and rounding His cheeks, Hedzel waiting for the only liquid He would know in what seemed like ages.
His tears would abandon Him as Daemon brought His hand near to scoop them up and taste the bitter sadness in the tears.
Hedzel licked along the crooks of His mouth to no avail as only a damp streak formed a line where His tear had once rolled.
"Needs more salt and a bit more despair." Daemon said jokingly having a slight chuckle to himself.
A pained and agonizing sound of moaning came over Hedzel as His head lay softly on the ground.