You stand there in front of the door. It is like any other day, you got up, went to work, ate some lunch, and now you’re home. Though now, as you stand there looking at the stern face of the door, you feel it. The door is warm as if there was a fire on the other side. You reach slowly for your keys and as your fingers wrap around them you notice the peephole start to turn ever so slightly. You move your hand with keys equipped towards the key hole, and as this happens the peephole bursts open, allowing a thick black paint to start to slowly drain from the inside. You clench your teeth tight as you drive the key deep inside the keyhole. The black paint continues to pour from where the peephole used to be, now spilling and pooling onto the floor beneath you. The key turns, and with a small push, the door swings open.
The door reveals to you a work unseen before. Twisting nether and unstable rifts spit uncontrolled demons into the place you’ve called home. Your first step is your last step loved as your foot sinks into the deep muck mixture of turning blood and black paint. Those same demons swim upstream towards yet another door, though this door was wide open already, the demons had no problem slithering in. You take another step forward, your feet sinking deeper and deeper as you do so. The waves of pain and blood push against you as you continue your crusade towards the open door.
The demons watch you as you push through their pools of doubt and devastation. You refuse to acknowledge them and focus your gaze on the turning cries of an injured soul that terribly manifests through the open doorway. As you continue to press through the muck, the world starts to turn on its side. You yelp and jump forward hardly able to pull your legs free of the thick. Your hand holds tight to the door frame and you struggle to pull yourself up as the waves of running darkness make contact with your face as the floor leaves the room.
Once up in the room, you take a few deep yet hollow breaths. Your eyes plagued by the darkness search for the source of the madness. You call out for the every growing evils to stop, yet to no avail. In a panic you look up as the cold drop of a lover’s tear grazed your cheek. You see them, held upside and constricted by a snake whose skin was a mixture of reds and dark purples. Frustrated, you start to make your way up the slick black covered walls, pulling up on the remains of burned and turned over furniture. Once close enough, you lung forward, wrapping your hand tightly against the snake's head. You grind your teeth as the snake curses with your loved one still crushed. You lose your footing and now dangle with both hands wrapped tightly around the snake’s body.
You look down only for a moment to see the remaining room and demons has compacted into one large swirling mass of mistakes and regrets. You focus back on them, as they look at you with hollow eyes. You smile, for even stained in darkness their face always brings you joy.
“I am here for you,” you whisper to them through the loud banging sounds of a world haunted by fear.
They look at you with bleeding eyes and give a small nod in your direction.
“I love you,” they whisper with their shattered voice.
