Gray Matter

She was dropped into the space abruptly and without notice.

Moments prior she had been resting peacefully in the Malasaña loft.

Now the grayness consumed her.

Gray walls, floors, ceiling, air.

Gray thoughts echoed.

Getting to her feet, she cast herself in all directions, searching.

She opened her mouth to call out, but heard only an ear-splitting silence.

She was alone, and with nothing at all to do.

Upon finding a narrow corridor which separated two gray walls, she sunk deeper into the gray matter.

The walls rose high as one corridor led to another, a serpentine nightmare.

Room upon room of nothingness and dead air began to produce a profound loneliness within the girl.

Pulse quickening with pace.

She found herself chaotic with fear. Animalistic.

An outer calm to juxtapose the inner jaleo.

Did she dream in Spanish now?

Madness melted into an emptiness as vast as the space that presently enveloped her.

Then, at long last, acquiescence.

She lied on the floor, prostrate to her own subconscious.

Which is more frightening, she asked herself lucidly, the presence of a nightmare or the absence of a dream?