Slumped against the wall leading into the basement, Jasper peeled back the layers of consciousness. Escape was his only hope to survive the onslaught. He glanced up and saw the rage in her eyes.

The tumult had carried on late into the night.

He thought to himself How can I tune her out?

Every second is agony. My heart lies tortured and beaten at the pit of my stomach. Her choice has inflicted pain into the deepest caverns of my being. I am empty all through this visceral shell. Every day is eighty six thousand four hundred seconds of continuous insanity. My mind endlessly imagines the apotheosis of tragedy that could ensue from this deliberate choice of exile. My waning hope to find someone that I can share this life with dwindles like the glaciers of our world. It will be my destiny to walk the earth empty as the coffin that awaits my death. But this is where it ends. The beginning is something so benevolent that its guise never prepared me for the chaos that would surround my very existence.