Conundrum

There was only one rule: don't open the door. For six months, Abraham Wilkes struggled with those words creeping through the labyrinth that was his mental state. He'd spent 11 1/2 years of his life working himself to the point of exhaustion and a mental breakdown. Growing desperate for it all to end, he'd tried everything from absinthe to prescription pills. The last episode involved him taking a broken bottle to his neck.

He'd now found himself surviving on unemployment inside a homeless shelter. This was no decent place to die, he mused. A hotel room would be better. At least he'd die with dignity inside an actual bed. The shadows were showing their presence more frequently now. He was nine years old the first time Death himself appeared. A man he did not know had been murdered right in front of him. Even now through the foggy haze of pills in the bleak hotel room he could recall the vision. The man lay in the puddle of a gripping cold sweat. His lips cracked with bleeding desperation, as his heart marched with the impending doom of that long kiss goodnight he's nearly fantasized about.

First, the swelling of his palms, drenched in sweat from the tension. His breathing once relaxed, now intensified. He began to see the reflection of himself as a child in the mirror. Staring back at him, the innocent, cherub-like vision could have been no more than nine years old. The child, his younger self smiled back at him, eyes as black and hostile as night. He reached out for the child's hand as his heart pumped for the last time. He took his last breath as the room surrendered to the blackness of forever.

There was only one rule: don't open the door. Too late.