Rhythmic clicks break the eerie silence of the abandoned streets. Normally filled with a symphony of hustle and bustle as people and vehicles cram every corner of the city center during the day, at 3:30am all is deathly silent. Silent aside from those clicks, the sound reverberating down an alleyway just a block away from an office complex were a lone shadowy figure hastily makes their way home. I am that figure, clicking along in my work shoes, a pair of glossy black high heels, exhausted from another night of unpaid overtime....just trying to make a name for myself. The dutiful intern, fresh out of college, so eager and determined to be noticed and praised by a corporate entity that only knows me as a number at best. I stop briefly and light up a cigarette, I never used to smoke before, but it helps calm my nerves when traversing the pale-lit corridors that act as a shortcut to my tiny apartment uptown. Nights like this make me dream of subway tokens, but as an unpaid intern I have to stretch my money as far as possible, so life's little luxuries just have to wait. For now, my heels click on down concrete alleys moist from air-conditioning units and old rain water. An ominous feeling weighs down on me, making me feel much like a rat in a maze maneuvering into a trap. The dark windowed buildings stand above me, gazing down in judgement like a row after row of stoic spectators anxiously watching a convict walking the last stretch to their execution. Despite the warm moist air of the night, I hug myself and shiver, icy chills enveloping my spine as something about this night just feels...off. I notice a light pink glow at the end of the alley, where it makes a 'T' like intersection between the buildings. I know it well, the neon sign behind The Body Shop gentleman's club. A sense of tension washed away as I approached the turn, as I'll see Saul, the doorman at the back of the club and feel the only sense of security I get during my daily trips. I pull out my pack of smokes, ready to offer one up to him almost as an unspoken payment for his services in keeping me safe during this leg of my journey. We will exchange a little small talk and I'll be on my way content in knowing he is in earshot for a time, just a scream away if there are any ne'er-do-wells that try to take advantage of me. I round the corner and start to let out my usual greeting as I hold out a cigarette for Saul and I freeze. There in the glow of the neon pink sign is a metal door, vacant and alone, just as I am. The previous weight of tension returns to me ten-fold as a new sense of eyes upon me grows. I toss the pack of smokes back into my purse and begin speed walking up the alley. The shadows cast by the jagged edges of the buildings and dumpsters seem to begin to grow and shrink at random, undulating as if they were full of monsters ready to explode out and grab me as I scamper passed. Every inch of the blackness staring daggers into my soul, mocking me with their silent laughter, drooling inky darkness for the tenderness of my soft flesh, the deafening sounds of the absolute nothingness crushing my thoughts as I break into a sprint and squeeze my palms over my ears. After a few yards, I trip and fall do to a piece of discarded pipe and the fact that my now watery eyes were squeezed shut in terror.
 
 A few moments pass going unmolested, I reluctantly open my eyes once again. I push myself up onto my hands and knees, reckoning my surroundings and seeing nothing. Nothing out of place, no shadows dancing, no eyes of creatures waiting to pounce, no villainous beings coming to rob me or worse, all was normal and as it should be. I clamber my way slowly to my feet, brushing some of the dirt off of my stockings and straightening out my skirt. Looking down I curse under my breath, realizing my purse's contents were strewn along the ground around me. Squatting down on my heels, I begin placing the contents back into their home. Some of my dark brown hair dislodged itself from the tight ponytail I wore and cascaded down over my face as I worked. Finishing up, I noticed my lighter sitting just out my reach at the edge of a particularly dark shadow. I reach for it while trying to balance myself from falling forward and my finger tips are just barely out of reach. Suddenly the lighter slides ever so subtly into my grasp and I feel the air rush out of my lungs. It seemed as if the shadow stretched itself ever so slightly, pushing the lighter into my hand. I stay frozen in my position trembling for a moment before I start to calm myself down, laughing lightly at the absurdity of the situation. With lighter in hand I push myself up with my aching leg muscles. Still facing the shadow where my lighter was resting, I brush my hair out of my face and look forward into the darkness, into the glowing red eyes directly in front of me. My purse clatters to the ground once again as I let out a blood curdling scream. The eyes stared back at me, unblinking, unmoved by my shrieks, boring deep into my mind. I hold out my lighter and flick it on as my only meager defense. The shadow lit up in a dim orange vibrance, except for the shape around the glowing eyes. It was tall, just hunched over so that it could be face to face with me. It slowly straightened up to it's full majesty, at least eight feet or more. The being was completely black, made of void itself, I couldn't make out anything within its darkness except for those two red eyes. From the silhouette it looked like a tall man in a fedora style hat and a long trench coat, but everything within this outline was pure darkness that swallowed up the light of my tiny flame. A sudden breath from within the being puffed out and extinguished my light source and I screamed again. This time I attempted to flee, this brilliant plan of action cut dramatically short by the same piece of metal pipe that foiled me once before. I hit the ground hard, bouncing my head off of the concrete and slightly dazing myself in the process. I quickly start to come to and flip over just in time to blearily look down my body at the being as it glided effortlessly forward from the shadow.
 
 The creature was now standing over my aching vulnerable body, staring down at me. I couldn't see any features on its face, but subconsciously knew it's stare was a mixture of intrigue and malice. I was not safe. Tears begin to swell clouding up my already blurry vision as the sheer terror of the situation takes hold, I meekly beg for it not to hurt me. Silently words appear in my brain, as if the being was speaking directly into my head, 'too late'. The mid section of the shadow begins to expand out as if it were a flasher opening it's coat to expose its shame upon me. The dark edges extend further and further until all of the dim light of the alleyway before me is snuffed out, then in a flash they snap shut around my body leaving me in absolute darkness. A weightlessness washes over me as I feel as though I'm floating in the void. I lift upright with just a thought and look down at my hands. I can see myself, but cannot notice any source of light in the endless black around me. As I stare bewildered at my hands, strips of darkness begin to hover over my wrists. As the black fingers tighten down onto my flesh, I feel and icy burn across every surface they contact, I scream out in agony, but there is no sound. My arms are pulled outstretched to the sides, and my legs receive the same burning fate around the ankles, I'm stuck floating there pinned in place by the darkness, paralyzed by pain and fear. The eyes return, as a disembodied head floating in front of my face, taking in my pained, terrified expression. Though the face is just as black as the void around me, I can see the pleasure on it, I can feel it's smile. Suddenly I'm surrounded by faces, all different from the red eyed host of my torment. These faces are locked in silent tortured screams, they begin smothering me physically and mentally. Wherever they touch, I feel horrible frozen biting sensations, though my skin remains undamaged. The voice in my head asks, "Do you like my collection? You will soon join them." in a voice dripping with menace and sweet honey. More black fingers and hands grasp at my body, each touch exploding with sensations of pain and pleasure. I bucked and pulled, trying to free myself only to notice that could not longer move my extremities. My hands, I could still see, were no longer a part of me, where the black fingers gripped me, my physical body was dissolving away, absorbing into the darkness, becoming one. slowly they were engulfed fully as the inky black washed up and over them with the same icy burn. Although they were absorbed into nothing, I could still feel every inch of them, I could still feel the onslaught of sensation, burning pain and tingling pleasure, the darkness began to flow up my arms toward my chest. My legs were suffering the same fate as my feet disappeared from view and my calves began to follow. Tears ran down my face as I stared into the mocking redness of the being before me. Every nerve ending in my body was being mercilessly assaulted as it disappeared into the nothing. My soft thighs dissolved as the darkness reached for my sex and up my torso, to my wildly heaving chest. Soon I was just a face, staring at my captor in a mask of torment, silently screaming like the countless victims before me, that surrounded me, that filled what was left of my unbroken mind with their own screams of torment. The darkness fully enveloped my face and I was gone.....but I wasn't. I was still there floating the endless black, my physical body gone, consumed by the creature, but still feeling. The icy burn, the tingling pleasure, it didn't stop as my flesh melted into nothing, it actually seemed to grown in intensity. My shadowy screaming face joined into the chorus of countless others within the void of the being as it shrank back down to it's normal size. The alleyway now slightly more illuminated as the sun was cresting the tops of the smaller buildings. The shadow creature slid backwards into the corner where I first noticed it and the twin red orbs blinked out of existence. Sunlight poured down illuminating the now empty corner, washing over a metal pipe, a spilled purse, and a single black high heel.