A fine plan: I got done with homework (after much nailbitting on what the format for the outline is, I just printed out about 7 different formats, and will have someone show me which one is correct) so I decided, fair is fair, let's write. Better yet, let's listen to "Rabbit in Your Headlights" by UNKLE and Radiohead on repeat until something is induced! YAY!

Note--this song could induce so much more. I may play with it later, this was just the image for tonight. *shrugs* It's not my usual fare either--this seems pretty emo here.

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It was raining. The sound of it was eternal against the glass, the constant drum of it agrivating.

This wasn't any different than usual, though, this rain. If it ever stopped, if it no longer pelted over the thick pane of the window, the world would become so strange it would be unbearable.

Skin damp from the humidity of ill-cycled air, pale with the fact that light never came in, he lay on the bed. One hand stretched over the edge of the bed, fingers splayed outward, as if he was once trying to grasp a hand, but had now grown weary, and was giving up all chance of being pulled back to safety.

He was nude. It was cold. His skin was purple from it, white and purple, and he looked like a cadaver, so much so that were one to go in and see him with his eyes closed, the only indications he wasn't one would be that he didn't smell of the chemicals, that his body was not bloated, and the rattling breath emitting from his narrow chest.

Eyes glassened, he was staring at something, something in the shadows. A pale light hung over the room, but one corner was always dark.

He coughed. Something dislodged, but he made no motion to spit it on the ground. If he moved, perhaps it would.

"Please," he whispered, voice thick from lack of use. "Please. Who are you? Why are you here?"

The shadows bore no answer to him, and made no indication if they ever would.

He shook his head. "Why? Why do you stay here, and not answer? I..."

Coughing again, violently, the man fell silent. His eyes closed for a moment, eyelashes a second layer of darkness over the circles under his eyes. In that moment, there was a sound in the room, gentle like the rustling of skirts. His eyes flew open, and, when he looked at the room once more, he saw that the darkness had extended further. The corner seemed bigger. Whatever it was, it was taking more land.

The light bore on overhead. The hum of the flourescents, like the pounding of the rain, was always there. It was the hum that the room's more obvious occupant was terrified of loosing. Looking up at the light, as if to reassure himself, then looking back at the shadow, he moaned weakly.

It had all started when he had first truly fell ill. He didn't know how long he'd been there, and honestly, it didn't matter. He no longer knew life before this room. But one day--he supposed in the winter--he'd caught pneumonia or bronchitis or something (there was no telling what it was, but the name mattered little.) He slept for a long time when he first got the disease, and, when he awoke, he saw the shadow in that corner flicker. Since then, it had been growing. It made him sicker, day by day, as he was too frightened to close his eyes.

Right now, though, his fear for what was going on overwhelming. The room was colder than usual, he thought. The room was wetter, was darker, was more horrific. God, what chance, what chance in hell did he have here?

Once more, looked up, weakly. He bore his eyes into the shadow.

"Who are you?"

A movement. A flicker. Reckognition in that darkness. Feet came out of it, delicate and bare, like his own.

He would have screamed, had he the energy, had he the person to scream to.

"Who are you? Fuck, fuck, what are you?"

Shift of wings, and a balance on hooves--delicate and bare. Its fingers reached out, in a mockery of the man's outstretched hand. Trying to withdraw it, he sobbed. It smirked.

"Why? Why me? What have I done?"

The hands, claws apparent, were on his chest.

He coughed, shook his head.

The entire being was on him, warm, wings blocking the cold of the room.

When he opened his eyes, he was no longer afraid. He had only one question, now.

"Why now?"

It smiled.

If you're frightened of dying, then you're holding on. You see devils tearing your life away.

If you've made your peace, the devils are really angels.

Freeing you.

From the earth.