Natalie was sleeping now; no matter how troubled that sleep might be, by the time the candle burned down, Braiden knew that she would be sleeping the most untroubled sleep imaginable. As the candle neared the end of its life, so would his wife: Natalie would finally achieve the peace she had desired. The peace for which, at the end, she had all but begged him for. She would be able to rest in peace, for the rest of time. And good riddance! The struck match produced a sudden explosion of light in the darkness of the room, momentarily blinding him and imprinting its image onto his retinas; the acrid smell of the match-head chemicals assailed his nostrils and caused his nose to flinch. Orange starbursts kaleidoscoped his vision and Braiden’s eyes reluctantly fought to focus on the thin sliver of wood now slowly being devoured by the flame. The rich patina of the quality rosewood dining table mirrored the matchlight and sparkles of the fiery glow winked back at him from sterling silver cutlery meticulously arranged around two placemats and from the green glass of the half finished bottle of red wine. Crystal wine glasses - one immaculately clean and the other containing the residue of his recent drink - twinkled their delicate gold inlay motifs, as the flame flickered and threatened to die. Moving the match towards the pristine candle, the wick’s waxy coating indignantly spluttered before eagerly accepting the fire he offered. Shaking the match into obsolescence, its job of work now done, Braiden’s eyes followed the fall of the charred matchstick he carelessly let drop onto the table. With perverse satisfaction, he watched it smoke awhile, pock-marking the table’s hitherto immaculate surface in a final act of defiance as its heat quickly dissipated. Slumping into the carver chair at the head of the table, Braiden allowed himself the previously unknown luxury of placing his elbows upon the table. Running both sets of fingers through his hair, he watched disinterestedly as a few flakes of dandruff drifted down to settle on the placemat in front of him. The candle brightened, as the flame that had once been the sole province of the wooden match took a full hold of the wick. Feeding greedily from the wax, the flame eagerly devoured its nutrients and exhaled a shimmering heat haze. The light it produced pushed, with only marginal success, at the blanket of darkness that otherwise surrounded Braiden and threatened to render him as imaginary as the walls of the room he could no longer see. Were the walls even there any longer? Did they only materialise when there was light enough to see them by? If a tree falls down in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it in fact make a sound? If no one can see you, do you actually exist? The flame mesmerised, its continuous movement endearingly hypnotic, drawing Braiden’s vision deep within its glowing form, pulling at his very being and coercing him to become at one with it. Offering sanctuary, security. Making promises it couldn’t possibly fulfil and yet making those promises so convincingly and with such compulsion, that his yearning to be consumed by the fire became almost overwhelming. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, I’m not made of metal, so at least I won’t rust! Resting his chin on his hands, his elbows undoubtedly further blemishing the table’s highly waxed and polished surface, the flame continued to entertain Braiden’s eyes, leaving his mind to its own devices. “Should you really have done that?” The voice, with which the question was asked, was a stranger to him and, although it could only have emanated from within his mind, his eyes momentarily left the flame and searched around in the darkness for someone who might have spoken them. Of course there was no one there. How could there be? The house, if it still really existed beyond the reach of the meagre light emitted by the candle, was shut up tight. Every window and door latched and locked; he had checked them all, less than an hour ago. Not that he had been expecting anyone; you just couldn’t be too careful now, could you? The darkness, the silence, gave birth to questions that would never have been entertained in more normal times. Had someone gotten in and secreted themselves somewhere within the house? Was Natalie still upstairs? Or had she somehow managed to escape? Escape? Her escape? That was a laugh! As if to reinforce this thought, he let out a chuckle that reverberated uneasily in the otherwise stillness of the room. It was, after all, he who was doing the escaping. Escaping a world that Natalie had somehow been able to drag him into. He may not exactly have been kicking and screaming on the way in but he sure as hell had had to fight his way out. She had tricked him into a world that he’d had absolutely no control over: a world that he had no wish ever to see again. “You fell for what was offered,” the voice taunted him. “Lying, deceitful little bitch,” Braiden muttered. The lies had been good and, if he was honest, he had been more than a little intrigued by the mysteries that he had been offered. Enticed with promises of the exotic; he should have known that it all had to have been too good to be true. He should have left it well alone, left it on his wish list. Be very careful what you wish for. He knew that now.

MARCUS LYNDALE