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I am a haunted man.

The ghosts of my past have finally caught up with me. The claws of my demons sink deep into my skin and have begun to take hold. I will fight them for as long and as hard as I can, but they have attached themselves to me. I can feel them tearing at me and dragging me back to hell.

There was a time in my life when I would have laughed in the face of my fears. A time when I would challenge them without caring what the outcome might be. More than likely I would have come out on top, a little worse for wear, but the victor nevertheless.

Those years were long past.

The brave boy was now a man burdened with responsibilities. Since leaving Texas all those years ago, I had lived my life differently. I had prescribed to behaving a certain way.

Regimented. Controlled. Orderly.

For a long time, the lessons that my cold-hearted bastard of a father had spent years beating into my psyche had kept the demons at bay. But now the darkness was surrounding me once again, blanketing me in despair on my perch in a room without clocks.

The only thing good in my life was my shining light. My love. My wife. It was because of her that I had to fix this mess and pray that she never became the wiser. If I lost her, I would lose everything and I couldn't be held responsible for what I would do if that happened. She loved the life we had, or rather the life she thought we had. The truth was even too horrible to burden her with.

I would bear this shame. It was mine, never hers. She was perfect. My angel. My heaven.

Those fucking sheep back on Twilight Place knew nothing of me, of who I was and what I was made from. I would go to their parties, to their dinners, all the while their ridiculous existence making my nightmare that much more surreal and bizarre. Their vile, privileged lives made my failure that much more disgusting. At least I had one reprieve, one mistake was being corrected without my having to deal with it. I hoped this signaled a turn for me. I needed Lady Luck to smile on me again, to wrap me in her warm embrace and set me on the righteous path to salvation. I needed her soon.

Time was running out.