I walked forward, and the wind blew against my face, a humid, hot air unnatural for this hour of the night, wondering for a minute if this was the infamous miasma that came from the sewers, or if it simply was the road steaming off the sun's accumulated heat.

  Looking to both sides, I realized that it wasn't like this place was empty just because it was night— it was as if no living being had come for the past decade, maybe even more.

  The buildings themselves appeared covered in black moss or some sort of grime that no one deemed necessary to clean, but it's a given that less-trafficked areas of the city receive less care.

  As I wandered, I kept wondering where I was. The signs became illegible the farther I walked, and no avenues were to be found – just ever-narrowing streets.

  The cracks in the tiles no longer revealed the earth beneath them; instead, it seemed that even below the ground, there was only more asphalt. The tiles themselves were hard to distinguish, as they slowly but surely gave way to others of darker shades. Eventually, I couldn't tell where one tile ended and another began.

  The houses' windows were sullied, and I couldn't see inside. The doors were all dusty, as if they hadn't been opened in twenty years. I struggled to discern whether this sector of town was becoming increasingly decayed or not, for each time I looked, a different piece of the panorama was replaced with an almost identical one – but made of dull, pure basalt.

  As I advanced, the city became eerier. The few lamps that weren't broken seemed to absorb light rather than shed it, and I wished for at least starlight to guide me. Ahead, only shadows loomed, making me feel light, ethereal, and floating. I knew I was moving only because the buildings, black like onyx, advanced as I did, contrasting slightly with the dark grey sky.

  A pulsating black moon appeared on the horizon, shining over the city, darkening it further, and I began to see something in the distance, like a brewing storm, but not quite, liquid clouds running like petrol.

  The silence became overwhelming, and I couldn't hear myself breathe. Panic set in as I tried to calm myself, focusing on my chest swelling and contracting.

  Breathe in, breathe out. This isn't normal.

  The air feels dense, like mist, slipping into my lungs and absorbing the light within me, trying to snuff out my life like a candle. I recall reading that when people die, a film of shadows covers their faces like a curtain closing with their last breath.

  I started to run, but I couldn't hear my footsteps. I didn't know if I was in the middle of the road or against the wall; I only knew I had to keep moving forward. Something shifted in the darkness; their scrutinizing gaze stung like the eyes of wild panthers stalking their next victim. I sensed danger pulsate around me like the beat of a rotten heart as they circled me.

  My chest swelled and contracted. Was I still breathing?

  I cried, thinking my last words were "I hate you!" casually thrown at my parents. What would they think as the hours passed and their son didn't return? It had been hours since the darkness closed in; now I had no idea how much time had passed.

  I imagined them calling the police, standing in the department, holding back tears, and telling the officer, "He's fourteen, short brown hair, very pale because he only goes out at sunset..." The cop would silently nod, thinking of other, more important cases. Who cared about some missing kid who ran away from home? They'd be back eventually.

  "He likes to get out at night, and pretend to get lost, going out for days and days to the point we call a rescue party." The cop would then drop all papers and just say, "Ma'am, missing reports can only be made after seventy-two hours," knowing full well that in seventy-two hours I'd be... God knows where I'd be!

  Or what if they actually came after me? How would they find me if even I didn't know where I was? "Just keep moving forward until the city unwinds, and the sun turns black, and the darkness swallows you whole. That means you're close."

  The tiles beneath me became sticky, muddy, like I was walking on tar, and the fumes got even thicker, the sickening heat made me feel dizzy, and the nauseating smell just made things worse.

  Where am I!?

  Finally, a sound broke the distance: the tolling of a bell. Shadows swirled around me like slippery snakes, unhindered by gravity or logic. Even the sky became plagued with them – flying nightmares born out of the skulls of dreamers, exploding silently as they left their dead hosts' grey matter splattered on walls.

  They came from every house -or what I guessed were houses- and swirled around the black moon, taking more material and substantial shape, only to nosedive towards me.

  What did they want from me? Why was I here?

  I kept running toward the bells; perhaps someone was there. Perhaps this was all a dream. Perhaps when I reached the bells, I'd wake up.

  I'd had nightmares before, and just when things appeared like they can't get any worse— because this can't get any worse— that's when I woke up, because this was only a bad dream, right?

  The darkness became total, devoid of all sounds but the silvery, rhythmic bells and the void's nightmares. I no longer knew if I was moving forward, but I couldn't stop.

  Have you ever felt yourself dying? At that point, when your soul is ripped between two horses, one urging you to let go and the other clinging to life like mold on a rotten wall? I felt pathetic; there was no final clip running through my eyes as impending doom approached. My life wasn't worth telling — no tragedies, just another vain existence dispersing like smoke into the ether.

  I clashed upon a hard surface; the bells remained distant. I felt the walls, searching for a way past them, as something viscous crawled up my legs. I touched desperately, seeking something, anything. I screamed, but no sound emerged; my shaking hands kept trying to find that salvific something.

  The bells turned sinister, merry, and faster. As I scrambled sideways through the walls, the jingle of a doorknob sounded, followed by blinding light burning the crawling thing out of existence with a terrible shriek.

  I dropped onto the wooden floor under the warm light, still agitated. What had just happened? I couldn't even collect my thoughts as the tolling of the bell, now silenced, continued ringing in my ears and my mind.