It’s about two hours before midnight, and the world is waiting.

Inside a dimly lit room a man sits. The yellow light of the oil lamp does not flatter him, it brings out his age and the already forming crow’s feet around his eyes. He is only twenty five, but could very well be fifty.

There is a rhythm running through him that he does not notice. He reads over a few lines on the parchment in front of him as he breathes in, holding it there until he turns to the paper beside him and breathes out as soon as his brush touches the paper to write his response. It is something he does not think about.

A few paces away the night air and the man struggling up the steps might as well be from another world. Each breath is a battle and a victory all its own, an attempt to hold onto to the last bit of him that he can still control, and he clings to it like a drowning man. Despite the blood running down his chest and the frantic pounding of his heart he is still breathing.

Somehow his fingers find the groove of the door. It seems too heavy, and he has too little strength. His grip begins to slip, but in the moment before it goes completely under the one remaining piece of determination surges forward and into that one motion.

The door opens, and the world breathes.