They existed as shadowed pulses in the dead once-beating heart of that house.
5 of them.
Friends, Strangers, Lovers, it didn't seem to matter.
They flickered in each, as dashes and quick jilts within things that called themselves rooms. They existed in the living room now, speaking in a tongue harsh and unknown, then soft and caring, then angry and roaring. I flitted from room to room then, a miasma of soul upon cracks of pavements that rumbled upon each tread.
I knew instinctively what they had talked about. It was obvious. A dog knows when he is rewarded, and knows when he is to be put down.
They had invited a Visitor.
I ran from room to room, past hallways and ghosts of things that slept and would not wake. I heard him. He thundered within the living room first, and the 5 shadows became fog, filling up each hallway and each room as ghosts of things past oft to haunt.
I ran from each room but could not escape them. A friend lost in the bathroom. A kiss stolen in the bedroom. Memories faded, and ever fading yet they're smoke lingering, leaving it's aftertaste on my lips.
He was behind me then.
The Visitor.
I didn't know him. He stuck out as a deep, terrific white upon a field of gray memories. Behind him, all seemed black. He was angry. Not an anger of malice, or pain, or emotion, but the pure feeling of absolute hatred.
He hated me. In all of his brilliant being he hated. Every aspect of his existence as a contradiction of mine own.
I ran then, painting long frustrated strokes across the gray palette of the hallway as I went into the first room I saw, a kitchen.
There was a kitchen?
There was the idea of the kitchen. There was an oven, a counter-top, a fridge, but not quite right. The oven contained heat, the essence of heat. It could have been a roaring fire in an empty wood, a desert, with dunes swirling, and midday sun beating down.
The counter-top contained order, each was in it's place but what each was never solidified. It was liquid upon the countertop, shifting as a cloud shifts from a dancer to a wolf.
As I ran past the fridge, I felt a harsh winter, a roaring wind and a biting smell of frost. I felt pain, I think, and then nothing, as if succumbing to frostbite as I grasped the handle, pulling it open, and entered into the garden.
Peonies and roses filled my scent as I entered, the vast frozen tundra of the fridge coalescing into a beautiful fauna. A fence filled my vision, tall and imposing, but climbable. I ran to it's edge and jumped across.
In front of me was the house I had entered. The white figure stood in it's front-door, slowly making his way towards me.
As I opened my mouth to scream I found myself at the garden. In front of me the fence extended and divulged at 90 degree angles, extending as a tree branch, creating a maze directly across me. I followed it's path.
The cheap wood of it's sides gave way to brick, then I was again in the hallway, then I was on an empty street. A row of houses littered each direction, the lights flickered iridescent yellow ahead of me, and fluorescent white behind.
The Visitor was there behind me, but no longer human. Each light that turned white contained his hatred, as they slowly flickered towards me. He jumped from light to light, inching his way towards me.
I ran through the streets, but he began gaining on me, getting closer and closer, faster and faster.
I saw another fence between two houses and ran, this time stumbling over and falling flat upon the feeling of water.
The pool ahead of me extended, further and further with each stroke forward. Invisible currents pulled me back towards the light now encompassing me, removing all black. The harder I swam the more I was pushed back, the more I felt taken by the currents.
Until I gave up, and the water began to push me forwards.
The pool extended itself, and turned a corner, then a second, then a third, then a fourth. I let the currents drag me faster and harder, letting each motion of each wave fill and grasp me. I felt my body rush as the water pulled me down, but my head kept afloat.
A wave came, rushing down and slid me headfirst into dryness.
Concrete.
Concrete and Tile.
Concrete and Tile and
Concrete and Tile and Music.
I stood up, and thumbed through each disc. My fingers played each record. Music that I loved began to fill the room, then dissipated again like the 5. Each record my fingers ran through filled my feeling with the fog of memory.
I went rack by rack, experiencing each. Each record felt less than the previous, and I needed more. I thumbed faster, and reached the end, feeling unfinished, unsatisfied.
I saw the stairway then, and went up. A red door lunged and contorted itself towards me as I did, and I pushed it open.
I had come back then, to the landing of that house, and the Visitor in front, all encompassing, all white and brilliant and terrific and horrible. He hated.
I looked behind me, and saw the bathroom.
I pulled myself back through, locking the door, and sat there, in the empty bathroom, the tap slowly running, dripping drops of water as the knocks of the Visitor grew louder.
I sank down, and tried to forget, as the room turned white.