You stumble again, as you walk into yet another mirror. Your head is spinning, legs growing weak. You spin around, unsteady on your feet, searching for a pathway. You find what you think is another mirror lined hall, and start off, hands out in front of you to prevent you from running into anything. 

And, inevitably, you do. Your palm makes contact with yet another smoothed surface, so cold. Always cold. You’ve begun to wonder if the mirrors are glass or ice. Or, you would wonder, if you had the energy to spare. There’s really no point in trying to figure it out anymore. No point, no point, no point. No point to wonder. No point to wander, to want. No point to live, to breathe, to be. No point to anything.

A broken sound cracks through your frozen chest, leavening your mouth in a kind of wail. The sound echoes a little, mocking you. Emotions swirl around in front of your eyes, all the pain and frustration, self doubt and hate. Tears sting the corners of your drying eyes, freezing on your cheeks. 

Your knees give, and you slide down the mirror to the ground, pounding on the glass. It cracks, and you see your distorted reflection. You look mad. Maybe you are. But can a madman really decide if they’re mad? Their judgment can’t be trusted if they are mad, yet an outsider has no way to decide. Maybe they are mad. Maybe the insane are anything but. And who is to judge? No one. We’ll never truly know anything because we can’t know everything. 

All these thoughts swirl in your head, chasing each other around and around and around and around. You hit the glass again. Maybe because it feels good, maybe because you need to know something is still real. Something exists outside this eternal prison. Regardless of intention, the mirror shatters under your fist. Then, for no apparent reason, the mirrors on either side splinter as well. And the one after it. On and on, you hear the sound of breaking glass, ringing through your skull, louder and louder, filling your mind. Glass rains down, deep gashes opening in your hands and arms, as you cover your head reflexively.

Finally, silence. Quiet. You uncover your ears and look up. It’s too quiet. You can’t even hear your own heart beat. You stand, observing for the first time your surroundings. You´re standing on a large concrete square, bordered by bricks piled about as high as your knees. Beyond and above, clouds streaked across a sky slowly coming to life. 

Wait - sky. Warm sky. You’re warm. The air feels nice on your skin, as a pleasant heat blooms in your chest. Some emotion you’ve never felt before, stronger than anything else. It’s like happiness. No, not quite. Something else, something more calming. You feel your mind, pulling. You see though, where it wants to go. Spiraling, down, down, down. No. A panic grips you. No. Don't start again. Not wanting to get lost in your thoughts, you turn your attention back to the sky. 

Still a pre-dawn grey, slowly turning the soupy yellow of dawn, as the first rays of sunlight cascade through the clouds in streaks of orange and blood red.  No, not blood. Red. Just red. Even as you stifle the thought, you feel something dripping from your fingertips. Sweat, you tell yourself. Just sweat. Don’t look. 

Yet you do so anyway. Curiosity, you think numbly, such a strange thing. More destructive than a bullet. A bullet would be faster than this, at least. The blood drips slowly, oh so slowly. As it does, it soaks into the ground, seeping into the cracks at the edges of the world. Spreading, across and to the sky, where it spills like watercolor. You used to like painting, once. A long time ago…

Never again though. Never again, as you step on the low bricks lining the rooftop - for that’s what this platform is, you’ve realized. Never again, as you step up onto the low wall. As you tumble down, your stomach drops in that exhilarating feeling that comes with freefall. As the ground nears you in what feels like seconds, in what feels like years. As your body registers a brief moment of pain. Pain like you’ve never felt before, pain to-