• It wasn't every morning the sun woke him. But today it was streaming through the window, glaring at him behind his eyelids. Rolling over, he reached for his pillow, finger tips tapping lightly against a surface they didn't know.

    This was no plush twin bed, the one with a warranty that would still be going when he wasn't. The blanket his mom had given him last Christmas wasn't there either. In fact-

    He sat up slowly, the hard surface under him giving no leeway to his movements. The light that had been far too bright behind his eyelids was almost blinding once he opened them.

    White.

    That was the only thought he could assemble as he staggered about the empty space, its blankness vast reaching as far as he could see in both directions, maybe even further. It stretched out all around the sea of nothingness, the only thing that differed from the entirety of the plane was himself.

    Panic welled up in his chest, beating with wings of a wounded bird. Where was he? Where was his bed, his home, his dog with the bad breath that woke him every morning?

    “Hello! Is anyone here?” He called out, his voice pitching along the nothingness, reaching only his ears and dropping to the ground without a moment of hesitation. It had nothing it could do here.

    Raspy breathing followed as he broke into a run, following him with the pounding of each step and staying close no matter the speed he took to his pointless flight. Only when he stopped, collapsing onto the ground did he realize the breath chasing him had been his own as it lingered about still, wheezing with each intake of air. If it wasn't for the tightness in his chest or the perspiration running down his back, he wouldn't of known he had moved at all from the spot he had found himself when this nightmare started. Nothing around him had changed.

    Rolling over on to his back, he stared into the endless nothing above him. It haunted him, forcing his eyes closed. “When I open my eyes, I'll be back at home, in my bed.. When I open my eyes I'll be back at home, in bed..” He breathed the words quietly, over and over until like everything in this place, they meant nothing anymore. Just ceaseless sounds bubbling up from within him, spilling up and over his lips.

    Taking a leap of faith, he opened his eyes, giving a cry of defeat to find nothing had changed. He was still here, with nothing to mark his place in this world. He was something in nothing, standing out only for that reason, but without something to mark his presence, acknowledge it, he was as worthless as the rest of the nothing that quietly crushed him.

    The wounded bird sat heavy in his throat as he moved to his side, curling up in a fetal position. Something dug heavily into his left, making him roll back. Reaching into his pocket, he fumbled with it for a moment before pulling out the tube of lipstick.

    With a reverence of one in the presence of a holy relic he carefully uncapped it. The deep red hue seemed even deeper and more alive in this colorless place. It was all he had left of her. She had taken everything else, but somehow neglected this one item in a bedside drawer of a small house three moves ago, the last place they shared.


    He had treasured it all these years and yet also hated it, the single item able to both take him to heights of him memories joys and drop him into the depths of despair. Now... now it would save his mind and all those memories that were stored there.

    Something deep inside him screamed at him, cussing foul and awful curses, that he dare do this to what was left of the woman he loved so completely, even as he lowered it to the floor, as it dragged along the pristine white, leaving a trail of shocking red behind it.

    There had bee a fear that somehow it wouldn't make any color. But there is was, Crimson Crimes from Avon, blatantly staring up at him.

    This changed everything. Now he could seek a way out of this sterile tomb, rather then running blindly with no change to mark his progress.

    Standing on fear weakened knees, he began to turn in a circle before deicing which way to head, the choice made almost randomly as every point of view offered the same endless nothingness.

    ~ ~ ~ ~

    It screeched terribly against the floor, nothing left for it to give, color wise. He staggered back, sitting hard on the smooth surface, a dazed look upon his face. In front of him the red dashes trundled off into the distance, far as he had traveled, much much further then he could see.

    “So you ran out.” A voice said suddenly from beside him. He Jumped, crab crawling backwards as he stared in disbelief at the much younger man standing coolly at ease, a few paces from him.

    “I've been watching you for a while now.” The disheveled blond struck a match, pulling a deep puff off a cigarette as it caught. Shaking the flame dead he dropped the smoldering remains to the floor with nary a care.

    “You've been here this whole time?” He asked, disbelieving, eyes daring back and forth as if his hiding place would suddenly leap to view in front of him, provided he looked hard enough.

    “Still haven't figured it out have you?” the young man chortled with a smoke filled laugh, scratching at his eyebrow ring. “You're dead.”

    “W-what?” He asked when he had found his voice at last. “I can't be! I wouldn't have my ex wife's lipstick if I was dead!”

    “Wonderful logic. After all, death is like a dream, is it not? I'm sure you've had more then lipstick in a dream.” Another thick plume of smoke was released to freedom “I know I have.”

    He crushed the remains of his addiction out on a tick button of his jacket before shoving it in his pocket. “I must say, following you was amusing.” The thin youth grinned as his body began to fade out, leaving behind only his smile, ala Cheshire Cat.

    “Dreams can be controlled.” spoke the floating mouth. “Death is nothing but an endless dream.” With no theatrics he came back into view “least thats the way I always saw it.”

    “But.. I'm not dead..” he muttered, trying to wrap his brain around all of this and finding it too small to even begin to cover it.

    “You don't remember it do you? The car crash. A wicked good one I must say. Tires screaming against the pressure of the brake pads, the other car swerving to avoid you at the time you you tried to do the same. Only made it worse you know. There is nothing like the sound of glass shattering.” His wallet chain clattered loudly as he sat on the floor next to him. “I use to break bottles all the time just to hear that sound.”

    The chain's song echoed about them layered with sounds dragged from his recent memory. The radio was blaring Steve Millers the Joker, heartless to the danger he was in as he fought the wheel, his horn blaring, the other cars horn honking in reply, reminding him for a surreal moment of the back and forth calls of mating geese.

    The punk was right. The sounds had been something, the crash more so. Metal crumpled with shrieks of horror, the hollow explosion as his air bag deployed, the taste of blood slammed to back of his throat as he nose broke with the safety measures impact.. it went blank after that.

    “I'm dead..” He sat numbly, the empty lipstick tube dropping from his limp hand and clanking to a floor before rolling a scant few feet away.

    “Hey, congrats! You figured it out!” He oofed and rocked forward as the younger man smacked him in the back with a blow on the verge of being unfriendly. “So, now what are you gonna do?”

    “I-I don't know..” He mumbled, brow creasing as a whisper of a scent crossed his senses. “Do you smell smoke?”

    “I was just smoking you know” the pierced eyebrow rose.

    “No, no it's..” He sniffed carefully, sampling the smell which had grown stronger. “It's burning paper- look! Up there!” He laughed at the tongue of flame licking along the edge of the white, leaving it dark ash as it passed. The death of the nothingness almost made him forget his own.

    “I don't see anything.” His companion commented, digging a finger into his ear. “Nothing's there. You've lost it.”

    “No! No I haven't! There, its up there! Fire is eating the whiteness. Take that whiteness!” He cheered, standing.

    “Fire?” The blond examined his finger before wiping it on his jacket. “Huh.. maybe I was wrong.”

    “Wrong? Wrong about what?” he took a step back, the scruffy face of his companion flickering back and forth between his and someone else's features, like a badly tuned TV.

    “Wrong about it all.” The face spoke, more and more this person he knew less then the kid. Even his voice was changing.

    “I don't understand!” He yelled, choking in the growing smoke that seemed to not effect the other man in the least. He struggled to see him through the dark plumes, his face entirely taken over by the strangers features.

    “Breath! Come on! Breath!” The new voice yelled from the melting shape of the punk as the whiteness through the smoke blinked on and off in a frantic manner, the new world taking over the nothingness plains.

    “Guess I'll catch you some other time old man..” The younger mans voice seemed to whisper in his ear as everything halted then snapped into place.

    Red and white lights blinked and lit the shadows on the face hanging over him, the face the man in the whiteness had become. A smile curled along it before the head turned. “He's breathing, He's alive!” The man shouted to the drizzle washed horde of people and service vehicles behind him.

    “Don't try to move.. You're lucky just to be alive. That was one hell of a crash. Can you tell me your name and address, person to contact-” He stopped, seeing the victims eyes were locked on the sheet covered form not far off from them. “The driver of the other car wasn't as lucky..” he said softly, nodding to the EMT's to move him into the waiting ambulance.

    He laid back against the gurney, looking up to the gray heavens until the harsh lights of the vehicles interior were all that was in his view.

    He hadn't needed to see the wallet chain or the motionless arm clad in a jacket with large cuff buttons, to know who was under the sheet. The answer was the only thing that made sense, if any of this could have been said to make sense at all.

    “I'll catch you later too kid..” He whispered to no one as the doors were shut and the ambulance wailing pulled away from the scene of the most amazing and painful thing to ever happen to him.