Nightmare in hell

I have to win this

I didn't know what to expect when I walked into that room. A battle of hell? Monsters so terrible, so deadly that I would be wiped out in a matter of seconds? A room full of technology, a thousand screens showing the game, a list of monsters to throw in just to make my life that little bit harder? No. Instead what was there? Just a man, a man sitting at a table, one single table, a giant map spread across it with a controller in the middle, poring over it, his hands clenched shaking so violently I thought he was going to die of a seizure until he turned to face me and his eyes, his eyes looked like he was in hell. There was no light but no darkness either just insanity, a deep desire to escape, to run, to hide, to destroy everything in sight and most of all blood. I was standing in a dried up puddle of it. I gagged, placing a hand to my throat before recovering myself and stared down the man in front of me. If anyone else had seen him they could have mistaken him for a completely ordinary man. A blue and white checked shirt, blue jeans, but as my eyes travelled to his head I noticed the snapback. A snapback? What was the snapback doing on the head of a fully grown man. A man, judging from the frown lines on his forehead, a man in his 40s or so.

"Lara Shay! Thank god your here!" I tilted my head to the side still giving him a frosty glare. He was not to be trusted, I recognised that voice. That voice was the one from my vision. That voice had brought that boy into the game that had died. That man was as evil as any monster in here. That man was vile, so why was he staring at me like I was the best thing he had ever seen since the beginning of time?

"Who are you?" I asked, stepping to the side, no closer to the man that I didn't trust but out of the blood puddle that smelled too familiar.

"I'm the boy." Had this guy seen himself lately? A boy? But then I paused for a second and took him in again. The too tight clothes, the high tops, the snapback, how time was irrelevant here. We had no idea how much time passed. To us, time had no meaning and immediately I actually felt a stab of sympathy for this man who thought he was a boy.

"Look at your skin," I whispered nodding at his wrinkled hands that had obviously aged with time but he had never noticed. He rolled his eyes at me, like what kind of thing was that to say but then he actually saw his hands, I saw him take in the wrinkles, flipping his hands over several times to make completely sure.

"No." He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut, pressing his clenched fists to the sides of his head. "No its impossible, NO!" The man turned and ripped the map from the table and threw it on the floor jumping on it screaming and screaming and screaming. "THIS CAN'T HAVE HAPPENED, IT'S NOT REAL IT'S NOT REAL, IT'S NOT REAL!"

I reached out to, I don't know comfort him? To yell at him to get a hold of himself, but then I saw it, the list in my vision with my name inked in red at the top. The list of names, it was completely identical to the sight I'd seen in my head. I dropped my head, all sympathy gone. I couldn't forget this was the man who had killed that boy. He was responsible for Mark's death, for Caleb's death, for Alicia losing her own mind and for me. He was responsible for every bad thing that had ever happened in this game. He was responsible for this never ending nightmare and I was not about to comfort the one man who had turned my world inside out, until I noticed the hourglass sitting on the corner of the table, the hourglass that only had a drop left in the top half, the hourglass that I had learned was the one thing you shouldn't mess with. The last drop wobbled dangerously close to falling.

"STOP, STOP, STOP!" I grabbed the man by the shoulders, shaking him violently. "You will not give up, you have to tell me everything that's happened because Mark, he didn't die for nothing and that boy didn't die for nothing, I will not let you turn into a monster because you have to explain everything to me, EVERYTHING or I swear, I swear I will torture you till you can't breathe and you will BEG for death, I swear it, I swear it on Mark Adler's grave, I swear you will wish you were long dead before I'm through with you if you don't SHUT UP!"