ACT I: BLACK SHEEP

I woke up in the darkness, trapped in this endless void and drifting silently with nothing in sight. This strange feeling was different than sleep. It seemed more permanent somehow-as if it were harder to release myself from. This was unnatural. From what I've noticed, this is no ordinary night. I haven't seen even a bit of light. It was very uncomfortable being stranded at a dark and lone place that would derange anyone. My memory is like a blank slate, I couldn't remember anything from before. I believe only my conscience is awake.

What has just happened to me?

It's dark and cold and absolutely still...I had no familiarity of this place. It confused me. What sort of area in the world would be black, and without walls?

I was here for as long as I can remember. I don't feel any hunger or thirst. My senses were heightened, yet useless in this barren wasteland. I couldn't feel anything but the cold embrace of darkness. I'm starting to lose myself for every second I count only turn into hours, and those long hours turned into days. It wasn't soon after that I begin to lost track of the days.

My life was dreary and hush even in subconscious. It seems to be my miserable end will last for all eternity in this place. I am beyond the end, where there was neither horizon nor sunset to watch. I felt like I was at the bottom of the ocean with my hands are both tied in my back. I faltered as I face these doubts. If this is what death feels like, I'm glad I could just fade away. I must've a terrible life to endure such torment. I have all the time in the world for answering my life's questions. I may have understood one thing about me: I do not remember a thing and I've accomplished nothing. I am damn hopeless. My thoughts had grown frail and harder to reach, like it was being erased of every trace of mistake like a bad poem.

Yet it still feels all surreal as if I was simply dreaming this. I tried denying the possibility, but I'm being devoured by anger and frustration due to my ill-fate demise. I was afraid that I was about to give up. In the end, I did accept what happened. It was then that I've given up on myself that I felt no fear. I paused and realized-it honestly could have been a dream, without anything visual. I felt nothing, as I usually did when I slept. But then there was that sound and I knew I had heard it before...

I can hear the beating of my heart...

---

From this point on, I couldn't give up. I've been given a ray of light. I drew my strength in this miracle, with every ounce of energy I've got. I'm giving it my all. This place drove me to the corner mentally, but I gotta keep moving forward. I do not belong here. I am alive! I do not know what has yet to unfold, but I wanted to take this opportunity...!

Then suddenly, a low growl echoed maliciously, somewhere in the distance, clouded by the blackness that surrounds me. I began to smell that of a rotten man's flesh around me. What is happening to me? It seems like the darkness seeps into my senses. Slowly, I was poisoned by the unusual stench. It only grew worse as the darkness began to speak to me:

'Are you with the light...?' A voice in the darkness said to me.

I believe I wasn't here by myself, I felt a shiver to my spine-as his words carved tension in my heart. A phantom stalking in the darkness, posing an ominous threat upon me, waits to pounce on his prey. What made things worse is that I'm still helpless. My body was in fatal position, cursed into a deep slumber.

'A light trapped in the shadows... how fascinating, eh? In a world of nothingness, you claim yourself to have a little ray of hope, but you are helpless. That isn't with light at all.' He constantly babbles about confusing things pertaining to me. I felt even more in danger. I tremble in fear, squiggling around to free myself.

"You woke me up in this darkest of night. I hear your constant weeping as you ask for help, but It was far from obvious that you are in utter despair...' it paused momentarily, only to come closer, "And then, I heard this strange noise I have no familiarity with-it was a beating. I began to envious, a hunger that could never be satisfied If I don't have you..."

Yet, all of a sudden my heart emits a piercing light from within my chest. He was disgusted by the light my heart emits. I can feel him taking a step back maybe because he was disgusted, but I can still confirm he is around.

'Is this my purpose...?' He asked himself, 'To become the being who consume your heart and your light!' he cries in anger as he charges at me! 'I am not your shadow... You will submit and take what's coming to you!' he continued.

His distorted voice made enough to make me feel the threat. He held on my right arm so tight, I began to palpitate. The light couldn't keep the darkness at bay. He strangled me, trying to break my neck! I was grasping for air as I continue to be hopeless. I paid torment to the consequences I didn't owe. Is this what the afterlife like?

I kept trying to survive while being stuck in a constant battle with the darkness until you cease to exist. As if dying isn't enough, having reduced to ashes is what I have felt on this world.

"Perhaps I could take what's yours... I'm going to crush every bone in your body just to prove I'm no puppet of yours! I will be nightmare you've ever had-I'll drive you crazy... and kill you!"

I was bended in an unnatural way, and impaled with a sharp metal-like object. He takes a fiendish delight in my torment. My body is heavily beaten and my mind stressed with every punishment he inflicted. I feel my soul getting ripped apart from my body. He held me by the neck once more and said to me in horror, "You've got no strings on me. Never forget that...!" I groaned in pain out of helplessness, hanging on the ropes, and about to faint. I couldn't do anything.

'Stop it! Don't hurt him!' A voice unbeknownst to me burst out of nowhere...