It was dark.  Is it not always dark.  At the beginning I mean.
The start. For me at least.  It's always dark, at the start, the
beginning.  Or maybe its the end.  I never could tell.
    I liked it dark though.  You never had to know what was behind
that which happened while it was dark.  I don't think I'd want to know
who was there.  In the dark, I can feel myself expand, my thoughts, my
mind, they all reach out, around me, searching, as if to make up for
the helplessness I feel.  It doesn't help too much.  I still feel it.
But I enjoy it.  After a life of walking in the light, seeing
everything, knowing what to avoid.  It is nice to be in darkness, to
be able to stumble.  To fall.  To be in a world, wholly familiar,
wholly strange.  Can you tell if you are still in the same place? I
never could.
    As it started, I would always walk, I never find out where, but
I'd walk.  Young whispers seek me from the darkest points.  Claws
reach out to me, I feel something holding my leg, but as I keep
walking, it seems to disappear.  I hear a music, I think its back at
the beginning of the hallway, where I started, back in their world,
back in the light.
    I hear a voice, it is talking low.  Too low, I don't think I can
understand.  It's calling me.  I must find this voice.  It compels me,
and pulls me deeper into the darkness.  I follow.
    Screams.  Deeper into this pit they become louder.  I had thought
this time like all the others, following the voice, till I was back
where I started, and the light was back.  But no, this time I found
it, I found the being that haunts my soul.  That pulls me through, and
it shows me what is there, in the dark.  These screams, screams of
joy, pain, ecstacy, I do not know, so many, they make one sound, so
loud, my ears cannot handle, I feel sore, I feel as though I should
not hear anymore, but I do.  I shall forever ear these screams, they
are next to me.  So close, I could reach out and feel their cause, but
I can't, I can't move, it is holding me.  TIght.  I can not move, as
hard as I try, I can't even notice an effort on my part, I can feel
I am here, but can not do anything.  The screams are sharp now,
clearer, but louder.  Then, it begins.
    Thwack. Thwawack.
    The sound in my ears, bringing me to tears.
    Thwack.
    The pain.   I once called it pain.  It is no longer pain.  It is
joy.  Even joy does not reach anymore.  It is ecstacy.  But at this
point it stops.  The burning.  My back burns.  A fire upon my flesh.
I yearn for the pain, the harsh beating upon my back, the screams that
I hear, that were from my own mouth.  But they're gone now.  Just the
burn.  They leave me, take me back to the light now.  Will this be it.
 Will this be all I find for as long as they led me home through the
dark.  How long till that too becomes routine.
    I sit at home.  My back burns anew.  It is not them now, but
myself.  Every night I cry out.  How could I do this, which once a
horror, but the dark has attached to me, given to me as my pleasure.
It always hurts, the pain is unendurable, but at the point where it
hurts the most, I only desire worse, The pain feeds itself, the desire
grows stronger as the pain goes higher.  What can be the end?  Were I
not to collapse, would I go till the muscles on my back are ripped by
my thrash.  Till my bones are shattered, my heart crushed, till I have
no more to destroy?  I think it a logical end.  I will not do it,
because I will not live.
    The dark seeks me again.  I do not fear it, it can not harm me, I
have done worse than it gave me last I went.  When the screams start,
I expect them, they are nothing.  When the pain starts, I tire of it, it
is too light for my joy. Then my skin shreds.  I see it sliced, never
so deep as to allow my blood to mingle with the air, but deep and raw,
so that my pain is great.  I do not scream, it is naught.  My eyes
glow.  This is not pain, this is death.  This is the utter horror of
the senses.  I can not see, yet I see my skin, thrashed again, and
again.  I feel the blade, it cuts slow, but sharp.  This tinged air,
it stings my flesh, the exposed blood, unflowing.  I am back.  I can
not lie on my bed and sleep.  Dark is thorough.  My skin will heal,
but will I? I can see the horrors of my night echo in my eyes.  I can
feel the pain.  I lost my tears too long ago, they can not flow, for
they are empty.  Instead I cry a dreadful wail.  My eyes are dead, I
can see only my missing self.  Only my pain.  How can life go on.  I
scoff at my fear of burning through my back.  That could not match
this.  I must die. I can not stand this.  I can not think.  I
collapse.
    Since I have decided I must die, and have decided that my last
torture was death, I will recreate it, only fuller, I shall leave none
safe, I shall slice my self into oblivion.  I say farewell.  I scream
again.  I thought screams below me, I did not know pain.  Now I know
pain, it sears my mind, it scorches my body.  Glorious pain.  All I
know next, I and flying through the room.  My blood streaks about the
walls, I can think of none but the pain.  My back will burn, my skin
will slice, my blood will flow, my body burn.  I have fallen to the
deepest pits of dark.  They have shown me their way, and I am now part
of them.  I am the dark.  I am the pain.