It had gotten dark.

"It had gotten dark. The bark under my fingers was rough and cold in the moonlight. I did not see much, but there was not much to see. Trees, maybe. And rocks. There was certainly no path, I had lost the path hours ago. It just kept getting darker. At first, I couldn't believe it had happened, but the night swallowed me whole, completely unexpected. Before I knew it, green was black, brown was black, all was black. Even I had become black and I couldn't find the path, let alone what I was looking for in the first place. There did not seem to be an end to all the darkness. I knew it was just night, I suspected the day would come. But somehow, something about that forest made me unsure.

Suddenly, there was a light, far away, very far away. But getting closer. I'd almost say it was…approaching. Strange enough, the light did not make the darkness go away. No, the darkness remained, only it was more so. It was just that the darkness around the light was a bit less dense, that was all. This lack of darkness indeed came closer to me, illuminating where it went. It was a light, nothing more, nothing less. Nothing accompanied it, nothing was attached. Just light, approaching. As the darkness around me drew back, I realized that I felt afraid. The darkness had not scared me before, it simply made me a bit unsure, that was all. But now, I felt fear.

However, something told me there was no need to fear. It was the light, I presume. I tried to calm down the beating of my heart, I told myself there was no such thing as fear, that there was no such thing as darkness, or light, for that matter. I told my heart that it was just me, in the night, in a forest. Maybe I was not even in the forest, maybe this was a dream, maybe I was asleep. "You know you are not sleeping." I knew I wasn't sleeping. "You know I am not talking" I knew that, whatever it was, certainly was not talking. In this night, in this forest, no speaking was involved. Then why did I have the feeling I was spoken to? I don't know why, but suddenly I could not bear the lack of sound, the lack of voice, the lack of speaking. "Hello?"

My voice dissapeared in the darkness. I had just spoken, but now, I could not speak. Then again, there was no need for me to speak, for the echo of my voice answered me. "Hello?" With every sound in the silence of the night, darkness crept a bit farther away. It was the light that had spoken. "Hello? I am your mind, giving you someone to talk to." There were a lot of things I could believe, but this was not one of them. "No. You're not." The light seemed do fade a little and I immediately felt sorry for answering. The light seemed to grow. It seemed to prepare for something. It was only after a few seconds that I realized it was surrounding me. Suddenly, there was no forest. There was no night. There wasn't even darkness. I couldn't help but speak. "Where am I?" The light grew brighter. "Did you not hear?" The fear returned. "Didn't anyone tell you?" I did nothing, yet felt the strange sensation of just having shook my head. Everything was light now and the light was everything. Except me. Although… I felt unsure again, but I had no more questions. That was probably good, because there were no more answers. There was just… light. "

The man shivered by the fire, his eyes stared into mine. They were full of questions now. Quivering, his lips formed the sound that issued from his throat into a sentence. "Are you saying… I survived?"