Eyes Open,
In a narrow corridor.
Dark and damask,
Far from bare,
Far from plain.

Blackened walls,
Festooned with spider webs.
A charred floor,
Littered,
With broken glass and shattered bone.
Torn Curtains,
Blowing in...
Wind from the outside...
Singing a sepulchral song...
Through empty, spectral windows.

I start ahead.
Limping.
Why?
Bleeding.
Why?

Reading the walls,
Decorated with a vichyssoise of verbiage,
Left by vindictive vermin past.

I lurk nearer and nearer,
Like a shadow on the wall.
Towards a rotted door,
A charred remnant of glory.

My hand extends,
My heart pounding,
War drums in the deep.
My palms sweat,
Drenched in blood.

The doorknob, aged and rusted.
Reaching inevetably.
Pushed by curiosity,
An unknown force.

The door flies open.

I wake shaking,
Wide-eyed, and petrified.
Cold.

Claws rip my bed sheets
Shredding and surrounding me.
Closing me in.
I curl up inside,
My world now red and black.

I am safe now...