Hidden in a darkened corner where only darkness could reside sheltered the acts of enslavement. A man covered in sweat and his dark hair sticking to his forehead slumped in the junction, giving in to his exhaustion. He looked down at his skinny arm. Once clean, untouched skin ruined by ink paintings and a singular dotted red scab occupying the crook of his forearm and elbow. A cheap plastic tube snakes itself around the man's arm constricting the rivers lying beneath him. A countercurrent pierced through the canals and all feelings after that were numbed into submission. He no longer thought, he no longer had sensations of life making its existence known, he no longer was part of his physical being. He became an entity of matter fluid with motion. The vital source of animation flushed into the waterways through the center igniting the skeleton inside. Crawling on the wave of nerves; the optics blurred, swirled and bent in odd manners. Finally, the cerebrum inebriated with delusional fantasies caused the man to grin a lopsided grin at what the world around him became. He preferred the world like this. This is the world where he thrived. This is a world where nothing could harm him.

Reality is what made him want to fall down the rabbit hole. Reality provoked his mind with haunting memories. Reality reminded him of his upbringing.

The hitting, the striking, the pain and the violence. He remembers the knuckles from the rugged hand imprinting itself into his once supple fresh flesh. He remembered the floor his weakened body laid on as he looked at those eyes. Those eyes and blank face that watched each physical match. Lifeless drunk icy blue eyes. Even though the body that those eyes belong to, also, felt the same wrath from the same dominate fists, he couldn't forgive those dead fisheyes just watching as he cried out for her rescue. Her wrinkled hand only reached out for a bottle gulping down the liquid feverishly. Those recollections desensitized and put way, the man buzzed with a newfound sense of self, knowing this sensation wouldn't last he basked in its glory now. He pried himself off the filthy ground to rejoin the assembly feeling the positive ambiance.