I turned the page and confronting me there, staring vacant eyed and tired seeming, was a man I could have been. He stared not at me but at a small door, set solid in a drab white wall. The door was real to my eyes yet strange, edged by a faint dark haze and perfect fitting yet not obviously there. It had no handle, and that was significant to me, but I could not understand why. I edged away from the thought as if it would claw and chew. The flesh on my arms and scalp went cold and small, and I shivered. I could not look away, though I longed to be anywhere else, under sun or in black; just not here in this time.

The man who could be me turned to look from the page, and as his eyes met mine they narrowed and sparked. A line was formed between us, and I could not break it, could not stop the current of thought and hope that arced between us. His solemn face was a grey mask for the scream that he shared with me. Such a rending, terrible scream that the air rejected it; sending it through some ugly deep place to claw straight at my mind. I felt, or saw, his lips draw back slightly from his teeth, as if the scream had claimed life and was prising open his stubborn jaw. He trembled with the strain of this imprisonment, and a tear swelled in one tired eye. I realized he was inside out, an eggshell eating its twitching bird.

I strove to pull back from this man and his obscene sound. I could neither turn my head, nor close my eyes; a body clamped hard in the vice of his struggling scream. I thought I might lose conciousness or die, I did not know or care which would save me. The scream rode me, dragged me across plains of broken rocks and thorns, and I bled horror. Then he turned away. The muscles attached to my spine all at once spasmed, bending me backwards over my chair, rigid and near broken, neck bent painfully to stare at the book. I was a wire taut and live with a current of release, and my mind sparked and spat fire in the aftermath of his gaze. I could feel that he still wanted to share his song with me; for a song it was I realized now, and songs are a message. I could hear or see it still, the faint metal edge of that wail stabbed out in sharp waves from his white lipped face.

The man who could be me was looking again at the door. For a long time there was nothing but this steady vigil and the faint song. Still my terror grew, pungent within me, for I knew that the door was wrong. That small dark haloed door, so wrong in my eyes that I thought I might grind my teeth broken as I looked upon it. I swallowed back vomit. Blood trickled from my nostrils and ran warm across my cold lips. His face betrayed nothing but his contest with the swallowed song. I was forced to watch, a compulsion strong like hands around the neck of a cat.

The door jumped, a rhythmless vibration that cracked the wall and spat bits of blackened air. Again it jumped, and remained open a sliver when it stilled. Harsh light was expelled roughly from the opening, a light which sent only shadows across the wall in the page. The shadow angles were broken and strange, as if the door was anywhere but where it appeared to be, or perhaps nowhere real. I could see decay in the shadows, the knife, the noose, and the grave. Other more tortured symbols hid their meanings but burned in my eyes. The book man reached for the edge of the door. One of my bottom teeth cracked audibly as I willed him to stop. I did not want that door open. I did not want to see beyond that small threshold. Blood ran fast down my face and dripped to my chest.

The man who could be me grasped the edge of the door, for it had no handle. As he touched the frame a deep metallic clang echoed through me, as if something had been locked away, nailed to stone. Slowly he opened the door, and though light and shadows fled into the room, there was only darkness through the door. I was moaning low and hoarse like a failing animal as a shape began to come together within the black.

The mouse thing was dead, like something at the end of a long dry trail of blood. I thought at first it was a mouse, but as I watched unwilling, I could see that it was the vicious joke of something wearing mouse as a name, or mask. It was tied all around with wire, the dead flesh pushing out between the strands. It walked on its hind limbs, one leg broken and dragging. Strange that I could hear the little bones scrape together as it shifted weight, every sound it made was loud and too real. The little head lolled obscenely to one side on its shattered neck. The eyes, horrible flat and dull, were fixed on mine. The little mouth opened, and I could see the teeth, so small yet so intricately detailed, slick with gore and blood; more teeth and more blood than could possibly fit in that tiny mouth. As it slouched into the room it seemed to grow, monstrous and hunched, though part of me could see it was not bigger at all.

The man who could be me watched as the mouse thing grew closer. It seemed to feed from his song, his tight lipped scream. The little head flopped back in ecstasy, and the dead eyes rolled with pleasure. It fixed those vacant eyes upon me again, and spoke, a child choking on gravel. "Taste", it said. "You". "Soon". Each tortured syllable was a blunt razor through to the bone, and I cried out then, in a wordless rejection of the thing. I had a sense of something done again, recorded and replayed, looping to no end. There was a sudden blur of movement on the page.

I woke in my chair, with no concept of time passed. The book was closed before me. I realized that a sound had woken me. Trembling and groggy, I felt the air throb as if something had just broken through from somewhere to here. I giggled high and brittle and there was no humour in the sound. From the corner of my eye I could see darkness forming a shape, low on the drab white wall of my room. Soundlessly, I mouthed a single word; my prayer, my mantra, my syllable of denial. Through tears I watched my hand reach for the book, and open it to a new page.