Stone Shadow

The Pathway

The pathway is very dark but not so dark you are unable to see. You can see shapes there along the pathway. It would appear differently to each person. To the frightened man it exists in his mind as a literal path that becomes a room (it is often seen as a dark room by those who can see it), and the room becomes a series of rooms like a maze, with the rooms interlocked by an illogical but nevertheless real-appearing set of circular corridors. All of the walls are of gray stone and the floors and ceilings are cold and featureless concrete. The light comes from bare bulbs which hang from the concrete ceilings every fifty yards or so. In between the bulbs the ever-curving corridors of stone are mostly in black shadow.

It is cold and still along the pathway and the man is so afraid of what he knows is coming that he must suddenly urinate and his bladder and prostate problems cause a spreading wetness even as he is unzipping his trousers as quickly as he can, and he cannot get it out in time and soaks the front of his pants as he feels a not-unpleasant warmth drench his front, and finally he finishes urinating along the wall of the corridor, pissing in the darkest part so nobody will see it, and he goes ahead moving down the ever-curving concrete pathway under the glare of the raw light, moving through pools of strong, harsh light and puddles of scary darkness, moving closer to the thing that he knows is coming for him.

When he awakens it is deep in trauma and shock and in a netherworld of terror-stricken, paralyzing fear as the shadow behind him moves, releasing him.

The sense of coming to is not the same as waking or regaining consciousness after blacking out, or of feeling the effects of anesthesia wear off. It is more a sense of being able to shift one's thought again, an awareness of control returning.

And the frightened man moves carefully, moving back around the awful curve of the stone and concrete chamber, and as he turns in his mind it is the same as if you had backed out of a darkened tunnel and as you turned you were out in bright sunlight and fresh air again and his face is wet with streaming tears of gratitude and relief at being alive and he winces at the residue of real pain as he unbuckles his pants, still soaked in urine, pitching them as far from him as the cell will allow.

Soon, he thinks, his breath coming in big gulps. His hands are shaking badly. Very soon now. And William “Ukie” Hackabee, as he is known, will do what he must. And pray that it will allow him to survive. Because when you get down to the basics nothing else matters. Survival is everything.