Fractured

Fractured

The mind is like a mirror. It reflects the world it portrays in a simplistic yet complex way. If that conception is the case, my mirror cracked beyond repair. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Rain poured down, shrouding the landscape. The dense metropolis in a storm of concealment. Crime dealings, immoral actions, and poor choices.

In one of many seedy sides of the city; ways to escape were aplenty. Drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, at the fingertips of the citizenry.

The sun shined in full force. Obscuring the contents of the glass fortresses. Capitalist tendencies at their finest. The drone of monotony at its apex.

A steel prison of the inhabitants making. An illusion of decadence and freedom concealing the truth.

Johnny Shen worked for a corporate investment firm. Day-in day-out taking phone calls from potential clients. The money was good, at the expense of his own sanity. 60-hours a week, no overtime.

Enough was enough. Shen got up from his desk, and left the office. Heading toward the polished stainless steel elevator. Not bothering to take his briefcase. His mind focused, as he rode the elevator downward.

The doors opened to reveal the lobby. Chic leather couches, marble pillars and floors, and opulent chandeliers.

Johnny Shen headed out the revolving doors into the cold wet rain. He didn't mind forgetting his umbrella. As he headed down the marble steps, he lost his footing, slipped, and cracked his head. The icy rain drops continued to fall despite the gruesome scene. Blood flowed down the steps, mixing with the rain, traveling toward the gutters.

He did not recall the ambulance. Nor did Johnny have recollection of the emergency room. All he could feel was blood leaking from his head. His heart beat frantically into his chest. Adrenaline coursed through his body, but he was too weak to respond.

The doctors began emergency surgery protocols. Shen was lost in his own mind. Consciousness shattering into a million shards of glass. He stumbled over his synapses. Shen struggled to navigate through his cerebral cortex. Thoughts appeared as an obscure figure. They were always out of reach, yet familiarly close. Emotions manifested themselves as raiders devoid of a moral compass. They threatened acts of mutual destruction.

Whispers from beyond begged Shen to hang on. He could not speak, nor reply to their desperate pleas. Electricity coursed through his incorporeal veins. He focused on his surroundings. It took some time, but Johnny was adjusting to the darkness.

He could not see anything but could imagine what it would look like. Wispy pillars of pitch black smoke filled the void, supporting its infinite weightlessness. The floors of transparent obsidian permeated through the dense field of nothingness. Buildings made of intangible conceptions, and roads formed from charcoal dust scattered the impossible landscape. Organizing the chaos of the depths into the order of the deepest pits.

He wandered for eternity, black corridors of what was and what could come to pass. Johnny realized he was not alone after a while – cold shadows breathed down his ethereal neck – it was oddly comforting to feel anything at all. He sensed they were neither friend nor foe, merely eager to observe his presence.