Pencils and Eyes
by northern

Part of the Never After challenge. Thank you to Kim for beta.

There's no one there. Justin turns again, to make sure, but all he can see is the generic torchlight of this section, flickering and dancing against the grey stone walls in a strange, coordinated dance.

The torches don't give off warmth. He knows. He tried warming his hands around one once, but they just passed right through the flame without any sensation at all. The corridors are full of them, except where they lie in darkness. They give off light, and he supposes that's why they're there. They look very real but probably don't exist at all. It's hard to wrap his mind around, so mostly he doesn't try.

Sometimes he thinks about the walls and floors, the huge stones so perfectly textured and fitted - that they might not exist either. But if they didn't, he'd fall and fall through endless nothing, so he shies away from those thoughts quickly. The ceiling is very high above and sometimes seems to not be there at all. The shadows make it hard to tell. He walks, because that's what he does. Trudges or runs through the corridors and hallways that seem endless. Maybe they are. He's been here for so long now. He's sure he has some sort of mission, something to accomplish, but he can't remember what exactly.

The long corridor turns to the right sharply. In the corner, there's another torch in an elaborately carved bronze holder. The stone above is blackened with soot in a long sweep upwards. There's no point in wondering why a flame that gives no warmth leaves scorch marks on the wall. He gives a final glance backwards and turns around the corner into a new identical corridor stretching out in front of him like a perfectly drawn-out map line leading nowhere.

A haze begins to form near one wall some distance down the hall. The air crackles soundlessly with static sparks. Justin knows what it is and walks faster. The closer he gets, the more the air tastes of dry golden sherry. The stone wall is seemingly ripped apart to reveal the torso and face of a man, shining in a cloud of living swirling dust. The man is beautiful and does not look at him as his lips move soundlessly. Justin averts his head and walks past quickly.

The talking man who won't look at him is a common appearance. He never understands what his lips are saying. He has a nagging feeling that he should recognize him, though.

He shakes his head and keeps walking, away from the tart-sweet smell and the hazy image.

The lighting is worse in the next hallway. The torches are high on the walls here, further away from him in the wider passage and higher up, creating a blurry, repetitive dance of large shadow shapes in front of him. He feels smaller like this, even if he knows he isn't really. The feeling that something is watching grows stronger. There is never anything there when he looks. He can't really stop himself.

There's a pebble the size of a plum right in front of him, on the floor. It's lying in the middle of a floor stone, white and almost-round and possibly slick as well. He's not going to touch it. He forces himself to step right over it instead of going around it, and feels a shudder of relief as he passes without grazing it. He hurries on and doesn't slow down until he's far enough along that he can't see it anymore when he looks back.

At the end of the hall, there's a mirror. He can't help looking into it. It's right in front of him. The mirror reflects a square of window, filled with a seething mass of yellow leaves. When he turns, there's nothing there, of course. Looking back in the mirror, the frame of the window slowly splits open with a soundless groan, revealing a shining nothing, where specks instantly recognizable as birds dart like silently whistling knives against the non-background. Only the original window still shows the moving leaves. If he looks long enough, he'll see the pattern they follow, and he doesn't want to. He tears his gaze away and continues past the mirror into a stone arch flanked by two torches, flickering in synch. The image of swirling leaves slowly fades from the inside of his eyelids.

He walks quickly down the new corridor. It's quiet here. He doesn't think about it often, but things are muted. The air is warm enough that it feels like it's not there. The movements of his body are fluid. Nothing ever hitches. He just keeps going and things flow past him. He flows past them. Never stops.

The corridors, in fact, never do end. He's not sure if he should feel comforted or alarmed about that. Maybe a bit of both. When he tries to think of a life outside of them, memories and wishes flow together until he's not sure which is which. All he's left with is a vague impression of green and openness. He tries to concentrate more and ends up almost grasping something.

In this part, the stones are a little undefined. They don't look as perfectly textured as they are supposed to. He can easily imagine himself turning around and seeing widening cracks of nothingness behind him. He starts running instead. There is an uncomfortable pressure in his ears, and a thin reedy whining is coming from everywhere and nowhere.

He needs to open his eyes now.