• He sat at his great mahogany desk, the pen shaking in his hands, angry tears slowly caressing past his cheeks as he pressed the writing utensil firmly to the paper, the tip breaking suddenly from the pressure, spraying ink forward in a miniature waterfall of black droplets. Emotion radiated from his strong, virile frame, his shoulders and hands quivering as intense frustration coursed through him. He snarled in aggravation, upturning the desk and flinging the papers everywhere with a violence that was stunning, the wood splintering under his dominating power, sobs taking him, his head lowering so that his fingers gripped the sides of his face almost cruelly. White marks blossomed, and the pain bloomed, but it was nothing compared to the mourning and suffering that swept through his soul like a hurricane, destroying everything in its path.

    Shaking more violently now, rage roared through his veins, coming from no where, a pure frustration that had grown over time with no ways to express itself. Standing, swaying, almost like he was overly intoxicated by liquor, he paused for a moment, head hung low, hands left open and helpless at his side. Because that's what he was...helpless.

    Clear, wet droplets dripped down his chin and to the wooden planked floor, and he was still, unmoving except for the slow, slow swaying and uneasy breathing that he just could not control. His face was drawn, pale, as if he hadn't eaten, or slept in days. His hair was messy, curly and uncontrollable, his fine blue eyes dim and red rimmed. His clothing was tattered and obviously days old. He'd been sitting at that desk for some time...searching for words. Searching for anything, something that would help him explain what it was that writhed like a raging serpent in his soul. And nothing. There were simply no words for it, and the more he thought about it, the more despairing it was, the more heart wrenching, the more brutal. Did life have to be so cruel?

    He moved suddenly, with a quickness and power that belied his weakened condition. His fists balled, his teeth gritted, and with powerful strides he exited the room with the upturned table and spilled papers to disappear into the basement, into the deep, dim darkness, letting it consume him, feed the fire that bred itself within his heart and veins and body. The black bag came up at him then, out of the darkness, and with a fury he didn't know he possessed, his knuckles connected with it; a bruising blow. One after another. Pow. Pow. Pow.

    Again and again he hit it, the anger, the emotion welling up in him like a tidal wave crashing over him, so that the pain blurred along with the tears, so that the hits grew faster, inaccurate, until gut wrenching sobs shook him, yet he was so out of it, so consumed by everything, that he had no knowledge of them.

    His teeth gritted so hard that it bruised his jawbone, the skin tearing open on his hands, the flesh glowing crimson and swollen in the dark, but he didn't feel it, not yet...he couldn't yet. It was just him, and this...this thing. This emotion. This nameless cruelty that ate at his soul, the bag its incarnate. So he punched it. Ceaselessly. For as long as his body would allow, until the pain was all that burned in his brain and he could do nothing else but stop. Until his body could take no more yet his mind screamed for a release that he could not give it.

    Slumping suddenly, inexplicably drained, his fingers dripping droplets of blood in tiny patterns to the floor, he let go, sliding downward. And his soul howled. His legs gave out, his fingers trailed down the firm leather, leaving crimson streaks as he fell to his knees, the tears glittering and streaming down his too pale cheeks as his head hit the floor, his forehead pressing into the cold cement. His elbows hit next, and with barely enough energy, he propped himself up on them so that they rested next to him as he rocked himself almost silently on the floor in a bent over, fetal position, his fingers knotted in his hair, mouth agape, drool slowly stringing its way onto the surface beneath him. His now frail body shook uncontrollably, the sweat cooling him and making him indescribably cold, freezing, in fact, so that his teeth chattered. Everything was just spinning out of control. He couldn't take it. What was going on here? Why was this happening...?

    A choked sob escaped him, his eyes swollen with wept and unwept tears. Blood drizzled down his arms in rivulets, his knuckles aching and burning, the flesh dangling in places where the rough leather had bitten it right off. He couldn't control his body anymore.

    Slumping even farther onto that cold, cold floor, he shivered there...exhausted...spent, alone, sobs still wracking his painfully weakened frame. His teeth continued to chatter, his body ached, his breath coming in soft, wheezing gasps as silent tears continued to trickle down an already tear stained face. Those once expressive blue eyes fluttered closed...once...twice, a convulsive shiver taking him, his limbs shaking, and his eyes closed once again as he lapsed into semi-consciousness, the darkness sweeping in to take him up on it's silent black wings.

    His exhausted body grew slack slowly, and the cold set in, licking at his frame greedily, his only friend in a place where it was either evil...or emptiness. His breathing was short now...ragged, his fingers resting listlessly against the cement, pooling blood as tiny shivers made his skin tingle and his body spasm. Some sort of object was stabbing him in the side, but he had no energy to roll off of it, so he stayed there...unable to do anything else. He felt dead...barely even alive.

    His eyes rolled slowly up into his head...he was so, so tired...so tired...With a shuddering, sighing breath, he finally gave into the exhaustion and the tempting call of darkness...And it took him willingly as he lapsed, for one last time, into blackness, defeated by a thing he could not name...