In the dream, there was a pit in the middle of  the floor of a pitch black, empty room with peeling wallpaper of an indistinguishable color or pattern; charred fragments of paper floated on the hot air.

The pit was a giant, jagged hole in the weathered and blackened floorboards surrounded by smoldering embers. If you dared to look down, you could see traces of a winding staircase seemingly made of ancient, crumbling stone and black ash. The glow from the lava below was very nearly choked out by the ever-present black smoke that covered the walls and the floor...it filled the air in forked black ribbons.

I stared, terrified as my body hovered over the hole as if by some demonic, magical force that kept me suspended in the air about a foot above the floor. I wore nothing but a *****, tattered white gown, turned grey from the soot.

Barefoot and scarred, sunken eyes and a tangled, black mess of hair that met my ****** fingertips. I could literally feel my broken soul and my broken heart. They felt like brittle bones.

I was hovering over a pit of lost reason and lost purpose. I was ready to dive right in.