THEN CAME THE KNOCK

The world around me suddenly became dark. I began walking, unwillingly, holding her hand. I don’t remember how I got here, only that I was. Stripped of any earthly joys, any comforting feelings, I was pulled into a path of eternal darkness. There was no light to guide, only the oppressive absence of it. My eyes, useless in this perpetual night before me, gazed with a brooding stare. My head, all mangled up, throbbed with a phantom headache, unlike any headache I had known before. The silence was worse. It was a profound, echoing emptiness that seemed to claw at your sanity. Every rustle of unseen things, every distant sigh that felt too close, sent jolts of pure terror through me. I tried to move, to escape this smothering blackness, but her grip was firm, and direction held only one meaning here, just forward ahead. Each step felt like wading through thick, viscous tar, the resistance a constant reminder of my life in confinement. I stumbled, not from clumsiness, but from a sheer lack of bearings. I almost believed I was blindfolded, and she was leading me down this dark path, or deeper into the heart of this abyss; it was impossible to know. It was the relentless, suffocating weight amplified by an endless darkness and the chilling knowledge that there was no escape. No way back. I continued being forced forward, defeated. I only remember arriving, nothing more. The whispers pressed in closer, louder, their condemnation forming a suffocating shroud. There was no fiery torment, no physical pain. There was only the crushing weight of my being, existing forever in this abyss without light or mercy, and the horrifying realization that this was my eternal misery tonight. She finally let go of my hand, and I remained there in a frozen stare behind her.

Then came the knock, and the in-laws opened the door.