I like to think that I'm waking up. They're different....waking up, and thinking you're doing so. Waking up is reliving; remembering what happened before you slept, wiping the spit from the corner of your mouth, restructuring memories, and relaxing to the present.(damn. I'm boring. Meh, who cares?) Thinking that you're waking up is closing you're eyes after opening them and falling asleep again. (Can I get on with the facts? I can't believe that I'm that annoying...) the ceiling fan rotates slowly, making the irritating grinding sound ceiling fans make. The door to my room is half closed. (Sorry...half open. optimism works in weird ways.) The other half reveals a bleak wall, probably leading to a bleaker hallway. My vision's blurry so I rub my eyes. No bedside table. No fake Victorian furniture. Not a hotel room. There are ink black drapes over two windows. The filtered sunlight shows me grey walls. I struggle out of the...wait...joy, no bed. I was lying on a hard mattress set on the cold floor, and I have no idea how I've ended here. I get up and hastily pull back the drapes. A mirror and a sink appear in my field of vision. They're nicely tucked away in the corner. I examine myself. Hmm...there's a little cut on my forehead. A fresh wound. I rub my hands and put them in my trouser pockets. And feel something that wasn't there before. I take it out. A playing card. The Queen of Spades. With something scribbled over her face. I read. 'What're you called?' neat handwriting, neater words. What am I called? Probably a prank. Suspicion towards yester night's car driver. What am I... called... my head hurts now. Sudden. Sharp. I don't know my name.

I notice an image appear on the mirror, beside me. "Slept well, Zero?" that voice again and that face. He's the one who led me here. The one with the raincoat. "Who's Zero?" I ask. He smiles. His lips curling just a bit more upwards on his left than his right. "Why," he says, "you are." "Thirty-ish, awkward at handling conversations..." he grinned. " Come on, they're at the main hall. He drags me by the shoulder, and out through the door. 'I'm a number,' I realize. I'm not a person, but a number. I can feel the card cutting my thigh, and can almost see the Queen smiling her paper card smile.

I don't remember the fading brown carpet my feet step over. Nor the fading paint of the metal handle of the cheap marble staircase. I don't remember so I take in every detail. Every burn mark on the wall, every name scratched on the metal paint, obscenities scribbled on the carpet with chalk.

As we go lower, the noise level increases. "Don't talk to a lot of people out here. Stay to..." "Who are you?" I interrupted. He smiled. I heard him smile (it's kind of a short burst of air from the nose cum the mouth. Not really a laugh.). "I'm me, Zee. Don't remember the cards? I'm the king. You're the dead seven."

"And", he continued, "the people here can be a little drastic and strange, but...well, the world has got to be stranger. Adios, amigo." Terrible Spanish accent.

He walked on.

I walked on in a different direction.

The hall opened all around me. The first thing I saw was the mass of grey. Grey...uniforms? I looked down at me. I was wearing grey too. A loose grey shirt and grey trousers. It does make you think of a prison. Only prisons don't have actual rooms for inmates. An asylum, maybe? No. I won't believe it. These are decent people. But what if you can't tell decent from insane? Nope. I don't think it's an asylum. And that would definitely mean that it is. Ah, nice to find out that you're sick in the brain, huh?

Assumptions.

Are shit.

One of the best things to do in such moments is to keep walking.

I look around again. Hoping to find a place to sit. I notice people. A woman was smiling to herself. Kids (Kids? In an asylum? Kids. In an asylum.) Kids playing tag in the crowd. A man smiling to himself, his left leg jittering up and down. He was staring at someone. I followed his gaze.

You might be wondering – 'when the hell does this thing even begin? All this guy is blabbering about is shit.' Well, pretty language. And you should stop reading.

To answer your question, this is where the story starts. This is exactly where it should end, but would drag on nonetheless. I can't tell you about the past cause I don't want to. For except for a few bits and pieces, the past is a perfect picture in my head. Well, not that perfect. A bit dark in places. Darker in others. But what can anyone do?

The night is dark and the day darker,

For oh, your soul is bound to me.

I won't speak till we travel further,

And that'll be the day you won't live to see.

The thing is I'm not too outspoken. I don't remember too well, but I guess someone called me an introvert once. I like to say I'm just observant. And hence, I won't be telling you secrets that build up in our tomb. Her tomb. Wait...who are you?

The story (sure, to whoever you are, all my life's just a damn book) begins with a complex and un-understandable emotion.

It begins with a woman.

It begins with two lame insults, feet, and the maddening crowd.

Oh, and it also begins with someone dead.

A million ways to begin, right? Only one way to end it.