If only my head would stop buzzing… I raise my weary head and gaze slowly around the bare room. The only piece of furniture is the rusty metal chair on which I’m currently squatting. The walls, once a cool, pastel green have been dulled by years of grime and misery… mucus peeling of the walls. The room’s previous inmates have all left their marks. The walls are dotted with splotches of rust-coloured spitballs; trails of reddish-brown goo dribbling down to the floor. Dried blood on mucus. Come to think of it some probably is blood. My stomach clenches. An ancient ceiling fan creaks along reluctantly above my head, doing nothing to alleviate either the stifling heat or the stench of vomit and the sharp, metallic odour of eons of spilt blood. The one, tiny, barred window in the corner is no help either. I’m caged.

I breathe in slow, shallow bursts of the stale air, resisting the inevitable. The sour, decaying atmosphere seeps into my every pore, penetrating and violating me. My insides are restless. Even if the buzzing stopped there would still be that other feeling… As if my very soul was trying to wriggle its way out of my body. Silly, slippery worm; don’t you know you won’t get far? You’ll catch more flies with sugar… or maybe some honey… I feel like I’m covered in it. Thick, sticky, golden brown orange-blossom honey. I can smell it… sickly sweet and cloying. The smell is blood and grease. I wretch, pouring out the contents of my already empty stomach onto the concrete floor.

There is a child. Calling out for help. He’s not sure what it is he needs to be saved from… its something in the darkness just beyond his grasp. Something not entirely tangible, but he knows that he needs to get away. The darkness presses in all around him. The pressure of the unknown is almost too much to bear. He feels lost and alone. He curls into himself and breathes in his own familiar scent. Tears sting his eyes and the lump in his throat is becoming painful. He croaks out a last, desperate plea and is silent. A chill runs up his spine and he looks around in the darkness trying to find his abstract enemy but sight is useless in the gloom. The sound of his heart beating becomes louder as imaginary forms flicker around him, dancing to its primal beat.