Exerpt 3: Nigel Raskin "The Incubus"

It had still only been a few days since Nigel had arrived on Clark Memorial Station, but no longer having any interest in sleep had given him great lengths of free time, so it felt like he had spent weeks aboard.

Long after all the synthetic sunlight went out, and all the people living on the station had retired to their sleeping chambers, Nigel sat awake somewhere in the middle of the industrial region. Surrounded by towering warehouses and huge sheets of piping and wire fences made him think of his home. Something about the smell of industry made Nigel feel like a child again. He began to draw under the light of an "Employees Only" sign, flickering out a lovely red and white neon.

He dumped his empty cigarette pack, full of chunks of charcoal, out onto the ground and began to sketch. Slowly his hands traced soft round borders of shapes that could not be described. His fingers guided the charcoal to sweep and stain in dark light contrast, cutting away at the white of his canvas. The red light illuminating his paper made images appear in the tick black strokes of black before Nigel's eyes. His charcoal seemed to slip smoother now, as it went over and over its own path. It was almost moist...and the lines began to thicken. Any remaining white from the page was now completely replaced with a dark red.

He lost track of time, his hand danced and pushed excitedly at the strange embrace between the reds and blacks before him. By the time the page was all but filled, his coal strokes felt like pushing a spoon through a thick heavy paste. He felt light headed and wiped some sweat away from his upper lip and chin. His hand came back wet with red blood, stuck gruesomely to the black residue left from his medium. He realized his nose had been bleeding, heavily. The red on his paper was not the red light of the neon radiance, but was in fact his own life blood, having absorbed and spread evenly over the page of his sketchbook. The strokes felt wet and sticky, because they where. Despite it all he had to laugh. Perhaps it was a side effect of haven taken too many drugs. Perhaps his regular visits to the Penumbra were taking a toll on his body. Or perhaps the new powers he and his friends were given, were slowly killing them.

By the time he passed out he had forgotten what it was he was trying to figure out. It probably wasn't important. Now it was time to sleep. But.........Nigel didn't sleep.