The Wave of Haze

A cloud.  That is what this is; a cloud.  This cloud starts as a light haze, as if someone burnt some toast.  Gradually this haze darkens and becomes smoke.  As it gets more dense, it begins to get darker.  You lose sight of things around you, and solitude becomes inevitable.  Even the ground below your feet fades away and you find yourself floating in an amorphous blob of grey.  Right before you aclimate to your new environment, this cloud turns into a shadow.  You attempt to run from it, but find that you’re paralyzed.  You watch in horror as the shadow drives forth and engulfs you entirely.  Now, in complete blackness, you can no longer feel your hands and legs.  You realize that you actually can’t feel anything.  You have gone completely numb.  In this numbness you reach a certain solace.  If you cannot feel anything, you cannot feel pain, or anger, or jealousy.  Your emotional vacation is interrupted by an uneasy feeling that this kind of apathy is not normal.  You regain a portion of your wits enough to conclude that this shadow and it’s emptiness are draining you of all things that were once beautiful.  Despite your best intentions and efforts to fight back, the shadow seems to feed off of your fear of it, and grow stronger.  Eventually you resign yourself to this new life, and allow yourself to be taken over by the shadow in your mind.