The door slammed behind him. So unlike the silent sliding doors of his home. The echoes of his heavy steps were unusually loud in the empty corridor he had entered.
They beat in time with the steady thumping in his chest. With each step down the hallway it grew louder. With each step it grew slower.
The corridor ended in another door. He reached awkwardly for the handle, knowing that this way led only farther and farther in the wrong direction. This marked the beginning of the end. But he couldn't turn back. He had to keep going. He needed to continue; to leave the noise, of this hallway, of this consciousness, behind. Slowly, one final thump of his hard heart ushered him through to the other side.
Nothing. That's what it was like on this side of the door.
Emptiness. Soundlessness. Heartlessness.
Cold. Dark. Isolated.
Peaceful.
It was quiet here. No uncomfortable, intruding visions of the stationary past or certain future. No sights. No sounds. No one. Nothing.
He owned this building, this structure that existed elsewhere from time and space. He owned everything in the city beyond it. Anywhere he might find himself, it belonged to him. Whatever the circumstance might be outside the city, he was in control within it.
He hated being here; hated what this cold, earthbound building represented. It was not his home. He didnt belong here. It was an illusion, and this illusion should not have been a necessity.
Yet it was a necessity, and would forever be. Ryan needed this place to escape from the horrors of his life. No ordinary sleep could offer him the comforts of this self-indulging building. One, two pills, maybe, and he was free. Free as any tortured soul could pretend to be. Free from the nightmares, at least.
There was nothing here, in his drugged mind. In this quietest city.
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