Tick. Tock.

Fingers, hands. A face, a smile, a frown, eyes closed. Fingers, hands, strings. Strumming, picking. Squeals and squeaks on the fretboard. Voices, conversation, muffled. Neighbours. Fingers, hands, wild. Moans, grunts, sighs. A bed creaks, springs rhythmically compressed. Clawing, sweat, smiles and hate. Fingers, hands, intense. Violent, aggressive, angry. Gestures, yells, spittle. Creaks. A swing rocks like a pendulum, feet drag on the sand. Tears, sobs, sniffles. Bark. Bark bark bark, growl. Fist slams on the table, the tea cup jumps out of its saucer. Porcelain flies, shattered. Silence.

You're standing on the edge of a precipice. In the moonlight, your eyes stare into the impenetrable darkness below you, and your mind conjures up vivid creatures, phantasms, and soon you believe you see them. Swirls and tendrils of shade-like ink seem to creep up, reaching and clawing at you. You shiver, and desperately want to run away, but the darkness. The darkness. Your thoughts circle and spin in your mind, as you gaspingly search for that answer, that solution, the action. You're waiting, you're running. You don't know what you're waiting for, and a single thought crosses your mind, like a drop. Drip. The answer may be at the end, you think. The bottom, through the darkness. Your eyes gaze deeper into the gaping maw, trying to gleam into that end. You take a half step forward, sliding the sole of your foot through the hard and dried dirt, pebbles rolling under your skin. A soft billow of dust floats up, shone through by a silvery ray. A few other pebbles roll down the wall of the crevice, and you hear their echoing trickle. Your turmoiling mind comes to a halt, the creeping, whispering darkness that pulled you in recedes. You look up at the moon, then down at the darkness. You close your eyes. You inhale.