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(A man walks into a large abandon, dusty room, the paint was pealing from the walls and the ceiling, it appears to at one time been a study. He walks around hearing the hard wood floor creaking under his feet and kicking up dust that makes him cough at times. Coughing from the dust that was just kicked up, he can see a piece of paper laying on the floor. He picks it up and blows off the dust from the page that appeared to have been ripped from a journal as it was plainly hand written)


Time... Time is the greatest wound inflicted on humanity and it will never heal. It comes to us so freely and steels our lives away without our even knowing it. Treating us in a way so we believe we are free when we are under its control. The ebb and flow inevitable to us all and its wound is universal.

A mistake in time no matter how small can fester turning into a regret, a tragedy, a fear, a pain. These are things that should be able to be redone but time will not allow it to be, redone... I have such a tragedy that was born of the smallest of mistakes, I have something to re do but I can’t. I have to try to heal my tragedy, to repair and make it right again, because I can’t rewind time to erase what I had done or rather had not done. My oku is uneasy and cannot seem to rest, as if telling me I can heal my tragedy, to make things right again.

Time, the devious and demanding master of us all, but at the same time a sweet and caring mistress, caring at times and vengeful the next. Giving it’s self to us and them smacking us, beating us all, and it is brutal and feels unending. But just as we feel as if its all to long it ends its pain and allows the good times to come and we enjoy our self’s for a time again. I will heal my tragedy, I will cure my wound and let my oku rest once again easily as it once had…

(The page ended there, the man half wondered what the author was talking about. What was their tragedy and their oku, what are these thing? What had disturbed the writer of this page to leave it behind when there was nothing else to be found? The man now turned and slowly left the room, the door slamming shut behind him making him jump as he was shaken by it. But he did not try to open the door, he just left, hoping to find more of this page, to know what was the tragedy…)

Another Page

(The man began walking down the faintly sun lit hall after the door slammed behind him. Suddenly he saw a flash in the room to his right. He turned and saw a girl; she appeared half-transparent as if trapped in another plane of existence or possibly a ghost. She screamed out, "Victor!" He was frozen half with fear and half with something else, something indescribable. How did she know his name, this was impossible. He walked in to the room, this one was somewhat small and appeared to be a bedroom, and could it have been this girls? He walked to her, each step he took toward her made her fade more and more until she had vanished. Lying on the floor in the place she had been standing he could see another piece of paper. Victor picked it up and blew off the dust that had covered it, this page too appeared to also been ripped from a journal and as he had done the time before he began reading.)

Hope... Never give up on hope, Sleep and dream. A world of hope lies before you and all you need to do is believe it. Take its hand and never let go, hold on to it because in hope there is a dream and in that dream there is hope. With in one is the other and neither should be allowed to fade into the darkness, don’t let go. Rest easy knowing that hope will guide you with its gentle embrace, bringing you its joys and keeping you safe with one of its many gifts.

Go on ahead, go rest your head and rest easy, I’ll be here holding hope for hope is the only thing to hold once you slumber. Your dreams will hold you gently and speak to you in pictures and in these pictures will be hope. Do you see, see how there is one in the other, can you see the hope I hold is also a dream? The tragedy will be healed with hope, with the gifts given by hope. Please just always remember to hold hope and carry its dream.

(The page ended there, this page, the page of the girl seemed sadder than the one in the study. Again there was mention of this "tragedy", what happened? Had she been the author of both pages or was she the author of just this one? This mystery of a tragedy, the sadness of this girl, “what happened?” the man half thought, half mumbled to himself. He turned just as before and began leaving this room, and as he left this room the door slammed tightly behind him making him jump once again. "Why are these doors slamming shut after I leave?" He thought to him self as he began walking down the hall once again.)

Pages

(The hall way slowly loses its light from the sun as it sets it grows dark. slowly, eerily the hallway begins to light up again as gas lamps grow from the walls and light them selves. Stunned, Victor stands and watches the scene before him." This is impossible" he thinks to him self, slowly in the dim lighting he begins walking again. The faintest sounds begins to be heard as he continues walking down the hall, walking past the gas lamps that extinguish them self’s and re grow in front of him almost as if guiding him to the sound. Victor reaches the end of the hall and in front of him is another room and from it play's a type of chiming music.

He entered the room and looked around. This room was well lit as if the sun had been blazing through the window, through the half torn curtains. There was nothing here, he turned and closed the door, curios of why they had been slamming behind him. The room began to change, he could now see a boy, this had been his room, scattered on the floor were wooden toys and upon a shelf was a music box. Was this the music that was playing when the door was open? The boy was playing on his four-post bed, un aware of Victor. "Uh, Hello? Little boy?" Victor said to the child, but the boy just kept playing. Un like the girl in the other room, this boy couldn’t interact with the world, as if he didn’t even know it existed. He moved to the music box and picked it up. "Hey! Put that down! That’s mine!" The boy screamed at him, Holding this box some how broke the wall separating the worlds. "What’s so special about this music box?" Victor asked the boy while opening it at the same time. "That’s special, it’s from my mommy and its mine so just put it back!" the boy shouted while moving himself to the corner of his bed where the walls met. In side the box were two more piece's of the journal, He took out the papers and unfolded one of them than turned and placed the box back on the shelf. Instantly the boy was playing on the bed again as he was, as if nothing had happened.)

Faith... Never forget faith one of Hopes gifts. Keep always faith in your heart and believe in all that is good. Don’t despair, that will only cause sadness and there is so much to keep faith in. Keep your hope and your dreams alive with faith, as long as you have something good, something wonderful to dream and to believe in then do it and never stop doing it.

Oh, what a wonderful gift faith is to us all. such a gentle embrace it gives us, telling us every thing will work out and not to be afraid. Rocking us slowly in its arms sweetly gently caressing our soul so that we can dream sweetly. Faith, the gift from hope and a dream from faith, all are connected within you, within me and in us all. The Oku must be able to rest, yours mine and every ones so keep sweetly the gift of faith.

(The page had ended, what was the significance of these pages and of this journal victor was wondering still unsure what he had stumbled into. He refolded this page and stuffed it into his pocket with the others he had collected. Slowly Victor unfolded the other page from the music box and began reading.)

Comfort... Comfort those you Love, let them know all is well and they are safe. Give to them all that you are in your comfort and know that they do the same for you while you remove there fear, there doubt and there worries and help them to feel at peace. Comfort is a most sweet things to have and most assuredly better when sharing with those you Love so you must always give comfort freely. Build in your comfort for them a fortress and guard it well from the bad things that would come for them, always remember what you had learned about all that is good and right and use those sweet things to comfort.

Comfort and care for those you hold dear and Love, Be compassionate and never mean manipulative or cruel for that is not comfort and it is not right. Be as there angel and go to them sweetly, hold them close and show them you care this is comfort and it heals wounds of the soul. Be good always and you will know what true happiness is in Love and in comfort you will know of another’s Oku. Know that for a time as you comfort them their Oku will tremble until you have shown it all that is good and been kind, only then can it has grow calm in your sweet embrace, and this is after you had taken its sadness from it and shown it peace.

(The page ends… Victor begins working these pages around in his head. “time”, “hope”, ”faith” and “comfort”, with the exception of time these things are what one would hope to find in a soul. This mystery kept getting stranger all the time. This house was getting stranger all the time. “I must continue” Victor says to himself as he reached the door handle and slowly opens it. The room flashes and goes dark and the boy, his toys the bed and the music box were all gone as was the blazing light that was there before. He goes through the door and back into the hallway closing the doorway behind him. There to his right was a staircase going down, he begins walking down the step, they buckle and creek under his weight until he reaches a foyer and begins to take a look around.)

Requiem's Dream

(He enters what looks like a living room and the air grows thick as the room gets heavy. Victor feels the weight pushing him down as he moves over to the sofa he cannot help but sit down. Growing tired he rests his head on the arm at one end, lifts his feet and drifts off to sleep.

He dreams of nothing but a black void and swirling fog within a gentle breeze and he begins to look for a way out. Victor had been walking for what felt like hours and there was nothing to be seen through the fog. Suddenly from the nothingness appeares a large mouth willed with razor shard teeth and a forked tongue beneath him, it had opened swallowing Victor whole as he screamed. As he falls he begins to see a dirty blue Neo-Victorian house and he was headed straight for it. Passing through the ceiling, second floor and landed crashing into the living room where he could see himself sleeping and in his sleeping self's hand was a page of the journal. Victor walked over to him-self took the page and began to read.)

Limitations, what are limitations and what good are they, I must know. How much pain can a man take before they break, fold or fight back? How many tears does it take to snuff out the flame of hope and once put out is it possible to re light the candle of faith or is it forever lost? How many lies can one indoor before the veil is removed and there vision is no longer obscured or should they be expected to leave the veil of lies covering there eyes?

These are things I had gone to seek out as a younger man, truths I needed to know and there was never to be found a single answer to any of these questions. So many people giving and showing so many answers, some of which the same but for the most part different. Why or how so many had worn a veil of lies which clouded their vision and judgment or folded to the abuses or hid away I never understood, nor did I understand those that would fight back or even those that went with the flow as it were, I was still young, still naive. A world of questions lay before me and I the seeker would look for answers to them all until it was my own limits that were tested, then things were diffrent. In deed, that Vandal Time is as wicked as it gets for those of us enslaved by it.

This house, the house I had built and those who would come to live in it, my wife, daughter, son and my self were my limits and they, my family were the whole world to me and through their Love I learned what it was to be limitless for through their Love I was free. Whatever have I done just in my one small mistake, I should have told her about the cloak of shadows. I could have warned her and yet never did, I never thought of it as a threat until that night, the night my world ended. No longer a seeker, I had given that up to settle down and have a real family, one of my own and just in one mistake all had been lost and now I'm alone in my study. And here you are, a mirror.

(The page ends there and Victor feels himself being pulled into himself by some force and he wakes up, page in hand. What is the mistake that caused all this? He says to him self almost in a whisper, and what was this "mirror" that he sapposedly was? The page said he was in the study, the place where this all began and so Victor walked back to the decrepit stairs and slowly went back up them into the hallway once more.)

Infractus speculum quod terminus...

Victor walked fast back through the hallway that had began this mystery, now dimly lit as if catching the rays of sunrise to the door of the study and grabbed the handle attempting to open it but it was stuck fast from when it had slammed shut behind him. He jiggled the handle and tried slamming in to it with his shoulder but nothing worked. The door would not move for him regardless of how hard he tried. He let go of the handle and as a fleeting thought went through his head, almost as if sweetly whispered to him Victor reached up and felt the top of the door frame finding a skeleton key. He took the key sliding it slowly into the key hole and his hand began to tremble, "Will this work" He thought to him self. "What lies behind this door, the first door". Slowly turning the key he heard a click and the door creaked open slowly and it almost both screeched and moaned... Victor had once again entered the study; the beginning of the entire mystery was when he had first entered this room.

As he had done in the room with the boy Victor turned slowly and closed the door and as he did the room began to change as it had done in the boy’s room. The dust that had been choking on his first entering this room had begun melting into the beautiful polished wooden floor as it grew a new glossy shine. The old flaking paint turned in to a liquid state, and began crawling and re applying, it's self to the walls and ceiling. Book shelves complete with seemingly new books grew from the walls and two small Crystal Chandelier’s grew from the ceiling and candles lit them selves giving off an eery feel as it was now the only light in the whole room.

In front of Victor was a man face down on a large wooden desk, which had been painted a glossy black, his hands behind his head fingers locked on top of his salt and pepper hair and he was sobbing uncontrollably. Victor called out to him, “Hello, sir?” But there was nothing just like in the room with the boy and he thought there must be a link just as there was before, he pulled out the papers from his pockets and walked to the desk placing them on top and there was the link, the man stopped crying and looked up slowly but not nearly enough to see his face in the dim flickering lighting. “What do you want, why bring the remnants of my journal back to me? Do you come to show me that which was lost to the shroud... To the, shadows?” The man asked in a saddened voice. “No sir,” Victor replied “I just want to know what it is, what’s the tragedy and why is this place how it is. Now I’m wondering what the shroud is, and this cloak of shadows, there’s just so much to know, so many questions.” To this the man replies even more somberly “Ahhhh, I remember being so full of questions once, I was young. One day you to will no longer wish to chase after questions I..." He paused for a moment mid sentence then started anew. "Do you hold any one dear to you, do you Love any one, care for and comfort them? Do you pick them up when they are down and are you good to them in all ways, never abusive? Do you hold within your soul all the things that make a good person, even the ones you had not read from the pages of my journal?” Victor did indeed have one that he Loved with all his heart, all his soul and was very good to her in all ways and although it had felt like forever since he was at her side his feelings never dulled and he simply answered the mans many questions by saying “yes.”

“Fine, I’ll tell you all you have to know, but the rest is mine to keep.” The man say’s as he open’s a drawer pulling out a brown worn leather journal placing it on the desk then turning his large fairly modern leather office chair around facing a set of bay windows. Victor took hold of the journal and cracked it open, the faintest smell of roses wafted from it and written on the inner cover there were three words. “Love, respect and trust,” he then took the pages that he had collected and placed them inside and as he did there rips mended and became one with the book again.

“Firstly" the mans voice was no longer wavering with sadness, "my name is, is, is, well now, that's odd I can't seem to remember, never mind that for now shall we? This was once my beautiful home and I suppose you had met my family, notice any thing, any one missing? My wife was the tragedy, she is the one I lost to the shroud and this is where my tragedy was born.. slide my journal here Victor.” This half amazed Him as it seemed that the occupants in this house knew him and yet he knew none of them, non the less he slid the journal over. the man Then turned his chair to face Victor and he was shocked at the sight of a man with no face, it was as a black with no features. The man opening the journal, extended his index finger and pointed at the first page, “Time.” As his finger touched the page the words flowed to his finger and up his hand, eyes and eyebrows had formed on the man. His eyes were two colors, the left was an ashy grey and the right a striking blue, his eyebrows were bushy and full.

"And so now I’ll help you to not make the same mistake as me and keep yours safe." He said to Victor, still having no mouth lips or tongue to speak with. Victor Listened to the man staring at his eyes, they were very familiar to him but he could not place how. "The whole time, within my life that is, as you know I was a wonderer looking for truths. That much had already been explained as is how I stopped to make a family and as my limits had been tested." (He placed his hand palm down, flat on the journal and the words slowed in there movement yet did not stop.) "My tragedy Victor is the loss of my wife, family... My world, I thought by now you would have figured that out after reading these pages of my journal." (He formed cheek bones and his chin was more defined) "The cloak of shadows is a state of pain, not as limited as physical pain but far worse. Pain in the soul as its light is destroyed, a pain of the heart as torments over whelm... Of darkness far more then any one person so pure of heart and soul, so bright a being as my wife should ever have to endure!"

Things were now becoming a little clearer to Victor and not just the man sitting before him which was taking on a familiar form. "So" Victor began, "How does time factor in to this, I mean, what you should have warned her and didn't, and the shroud, is this different in some way" the man's features were slowly coming into place and he spoke more. "Listen to me Victor, there are things in this world you will not want to know, my tragedy is mine and you do not want to know why time is important, just know that love, Trust, compassion and caring... Hope and faith are the most important things for defeating the cloak of shadows, the shroud... That is a burial shroud, my wife set out to free her self of her torments in the one way she saw... I was not there, I was lacking and that is all I will say... I was a failure". he sat there in his chair as the words finished flowing up his arm his features clearly made visible. This man looked like Victor, a little older but it was him non the less, this must be why that final page called him a mirror...

The Man that had appeared as an older Victor Stood up and moved away from his Desk toward Victor and then Pushed him at the chest sending shock waves through his body. "Cannot you see!?" The man screamed, "Cannot you hear the screaming cries!? Cannot you Live You Fool!?" He grabbed a hold of Victor, the shocking Jolting feeling coursing through Victor gave way to a pinging that had a steady tone. Slowly groggily his eyes opened and there were two men standing over him as lights went whizzing by over head and he could hear his wife's cries. He was brought to a room in a hospital where he laid and his wife looked to him and said "Dear, Oh Gods we nearly lost you, do you know what happed do you remember any thing?" To this Victor could not answer her and he lay there in his bed and recounted to her what he had seen, the page's and the house, the journal and the tragedy of the other man. Hours passed for him in this other world as it had been minutes in the waking world, minutes of his near death. Victor then reached out and took hold of her and saying to her, "My Love, if ever you are sad, (Cough!) if any manner of shadow should touch your heart, your soul, if any pain that is not as limited as that of physical pain but far worse a pain of the heart and soul should come to you ever... Tell me what caused it ok? I'll make it go away from you so your light can remain, I (Cough!Cough!) will bring a torch to chase off the shadows and Comfort and care and and Keep faith always and Love and hold too Hope, these are a great light and will chase off shadows of pain. Promise me... I Promise... You" he be grows tired and begins to drift off to sleep, the heart monitor keeping a steady pace, he had merely gone to sleep and his wife was there by his side sitting in a half comfortable chair holding his hand. she lays her head on it and a single tear runs down his hand as she looks at him there she say's, "I promise... I Love You" and she too began to drift off to sleep...



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