The clock ticks maliciously, menacingly, taunting the irritable impatienceof her existence. Sitting upon the remote, the giant presses down slow motion and agonizingly furious she stares through the screen cursing his massive folly.

It is time now to enter the real world, escape this lifestyle subject only to the strain of grades, the enforcement of a superfluous system of rules, but time under the control of an indifferent third party drains enthusiasm, gradually removes the color and purpose of effort.

A shrieking siren beats furiously against a cooled metal bell, loosening the rope from around her neck, if only for a moment. Sluggish and dazed, she moves into the hallway, disoriented by the blur of movement crowding out her line of vision. Sparks of color brighten the outside, beyond the glass, the tree becoming vivid and surreal.

She looks away, the temptation threatening to crumble the remaining resolve left propelling her forward. Friend’s faces focus before her, coming alive with muted color, but it is there eyes that truly speak. They recede within the depths of their skulls, devoid of the bright hues which ebb in the blankness of the shortened hallway.

Slowly, slowly, her legs melt beneath her, a pool of blackened liquid, viscous and thickening. Solidifying and fusing with the speckled carpet. Soon, she lies, gazing absently at the specks. They are so similar, the specks and them, so crowded together, walked on day in and day out, and she feels heavy. Something other than fatigue begins weighing down her body, something more than her body, her soul, relinquished from the grasp of will, overtaken by the pervasiveness of the many shades of darkness.

Futility draws from all motivations now, thought melding among the soiled fabric, weaving within and coagulating in the lint.