Setting: Unknown
Date: Thursday, May 4th, 1995?
At first, the lights had been nothing more than an ambient static he could easily tune out. But as the hours stretched on, it became a drill that had started tunneling into his skull. Each step ended with a wet squelch that suctioned his feet, regurgitating a dark liquid that oozed out like pus.
“What the hell is this stuff?”
“I don’t know,” John said in a voice stripped of any patience.
Alex sighed. John was far past the point of processing humor. The architecture began to repeat. Or at least, Alex thought it did. Even the small details that made each one distinct were starting to blur together.
John stopped suddenly, fishing into his pocket and pulling out yet another pen. He promptly shoved it into the wall, a few inches above the floorboard.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m just testing something.”
John didn’t offer any further explanation, marching forward. Alex sighed and fell into step behind him, resigned to the wall of silence that had formed between them.
The thought that distance and time were so directly related never crossed Alex’s mind before he fell down here. But he soon realized that without one, you quickly lose track of the other. An exit being twenty thousand steps away sounded infinitely more intimidating than it being a few hours away. Alex was so absorbed in his thoughts, he didn’t even realize John had stopped until he almost barreled into his back.
“Why did you—“
There, embedded into the wall, was the gouge.
“We walked straight,” John whispered. There was a dangerous rumble to his voice now. “We walked straight, Alex.”
“Are you sure the halls didn’t just have a slight angle?” Alex reasoned, though panic began to rise in his chest. “For all we know, we could be walking in a circle. Plus, everything looks identical. Maybe we—“
“Three days!” John yelled, spinning around. His eyes were bloodshot. “We’ve been walking for three days!”
Alex recoiled, stumbling backwards. “Three days? John, you’re losing it. It’s been five hours. Six, tops.”
“No!” John shouted. “It’s been days now. Possibly even more for all I know.”
All the panic John had hidden so well since they’d fallen down here exploded out of him all at once. With an anguished cry, he swung his fist into the wall. It caved underneath the force with a loud crunch, and John’s chest was showered in white dust.
He stood there, chest heaving, staring blankly at his bloody knuckles buried in the wall. Slowly, he pulled his arm free.
“We should go,” John said, turning away from the wall without another word.
Alex lingered. He stared at the crater John’s fist had left behind and reached out, laying a trembling fingertip against the wall above it. It didn’t feel hollow enough to shatter like that. Alex shuddered, and ran forward to catch back up with John.
“John, slow down! We need to think!”
“There’s nothing to think about! Sarah’s waiting for me to come home. I can’t… I can’t die here,” John’s voice cracked.
Before Alex could respond, the atmosphere shifted.
Huu… ahhh
The distorted breathing of a large creature drifted from the distance, growing closer by the second. There was weight behind each step; claws dug into the carpet, tearing it to shreds. Each footfall sounded like a giant ripping a needle out of a pincushion.
Without warning, John grabbed Alex’s hand and dragged him in the opposite direction.
Squelch. Squelch. Squelch.
Their shoes tore free of the carpet with wet, sucking sounds as they ran. Alex nearly lost his footing on the first turn, catching himself on the wall.
The creature let out a deafening roar. John yanked Alex harder, and they bolted down the nearest branch without looking, then another, then another, turning wherever the corridor split in a desperate attempt to break line of sight.
Squelch. Squelch.
Alex tried to come up with a plan. Tried to think of anything to get them out of this situation. But right now, there was only one thought that he could form in the panic.
I don’t want to die.
He didn’t want to be torn apart by whatever that thing was. He pumped his arms harder, forcing his legs to move, but he could feel his energy bottoming out. He was redlining, and he wasn’t going to last much longer.
Squelch.
His shoe plunged deeper this time.
The carpet had always been damp, but now, it was soaked. The black liquid from before was thicker, and splattered against the wall with their every footfall.
Squelch. Squelch. Squelch.
Ahead, the carpet became more and more saturated, small pools forming at the edges of the hallway. And, the further down they ran, the more of those pools began to form, until the entire width of the floor was covered in it, forcing them to either run across it or turn around.
John made his decision, splashing straight through one at full speed.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The creature roared behind them instantly, followed by a burst of pounding feet.
((The other one has a family, doesn’t he? You have to save him.))
<
((Don’t listen to her, Alex!))
Alex ignored the voices as they continued to argue. All he could think about was the fact that there would only be one person upset if Alex died. But they weren’t waiting back home for him. They were running side-by-side next to him, even though he could easily leave him behind.
<
John let Alex’s arm go, and stopped in his tracks.
“We can’t outrun it!” John shouted, pushing Alex ahead. “I’ll see if I can distract it.”
<
John’s chest heaved, his bloody knuckles flexing as he turned back toward the dark corridor they had just fled from.
((Are you really going to let him do this?))
The heavy footsteps of the creature thundered around the bend. Alex looked at John, thinking about the crater John had punched into the wall out of sheer desperation to see his wife. And then he remembered the desperation he felt of surviving, just so he could return to the empty apartment waiting for him back at home.
But it’s comfortable.
Alex’s footsteps slammed down the hallway as he left John behind. Voices cackled in his mind, while others pleaded for him to go back. But Alex had made up his mind already.
He sprinted straight ahead, not daring to look back, taking the first sharp turn he could find. The heavy thud of the creature and John’s ragged breath should’ve faded behind him. But it still sounded like John was standing on his right, and the monster didn’t sound any further away. Alex rounded the next corner, and slammed into the back of the man he’d just abandoned.
“What are you doing?” John hissed. “I told you to leave.”
How… how am I back here?
John cursed under his breath, and pulled Alex into a dimly lit section of the hallway as the footsteps came to a stop at the beginning of the corridor. And just as they pulled themselves into the darkest, wettest part of the corridor, they saw their pursuer stumble into the hallway.
It was enormous. Its face resembled a human’s at first glance, but the longer Alex looked, he noticed its features looked like they were being stretched across a surface far too large for them. Its mouth was fused shut. A thick black thread had been stitched through the lips, looping over and over. But the stitching wasn’t straight. It curved upward, forcing the lips into a permanent, ear-to-ear grin. The flesh around the needle holes was pulled taut, white with tension.
A black, viscous liquid bubbled up from the throat, forcing out between the tight seams of the thread. It oozed over the lips, dripping down the chin in heavy globules that splattered onto the drywall inches from Alex’s face.
Yet somehow, the eyes were the worst part. They were bloodshot. The same black thread from its lips also pierced the eyelids, stitched upward into the brow, forcibly holding them wide open. And from the corners of those unblinking eyes, the black ichor swept down its pale cheeks like tears.
The creature’s shoulders jerked violently.
Up. Down. Up. Down.
Huu…uhhhh…uhhh…
A sobbing wail bubbled through the liquid in its throat. But as Alex stared at its wide, manic eyes and the forced grin, the sobbing didn’t register as sadness. It looked like hysteria.
“John…” Alex said, his voice trembling as he slowly backed further into the darkness.
The creature tilted its head. It didn’t rotate smoothly. It snapped to the side, then lolled loosely, then snapped upright again as if an invisible wire attached to the top of its skull was being yanked.
The sobbing grew louder, vibrating the walls of the tunnel. The black liquid poured faster, weeping from the eyes, drooling from the smile, pooling on the floor of the corridor.
Each rigid step the creature took seemed to be against its will. It moved like a puppet fighting a losing battle to escape its strings. Before it was upon them, the invisible strings seemed to pull taut, holding it in place. It stood there just a few feet away, perfectly frozen, like a statue of rot.
A minute passed. Then two. Its body continued to writhe, and a large pool of the black liquid began to spread across the ground, slowly creeping toward their hiding place.
How long is it going to wait?
Alex scanned the area, looking for an escape. The next hallway was more than twenty feet away from them, and they wouldn’t make that distance before it was on them. Alex then looked across the floor, the carpet was covered in trash, but all of it was out of reach. All of it except for a pile of shattered glass.
No. Why was it waiting?
Alex’s hand hovered over the shards of glass. His heart hammered against his ribs so hard, he was terrified the creature could hear even that.
He stared at the creature. It remained perfectly still. A thick globule of black ichor gathered on its chin. It detached, falling through the air.
Plip
It hit the pool of liquid spreading beneath the creature. The ripples moved through the puddle, until they hit the edge of the carpet. But even long after the ripples died, the creature remained fixated on the floor, searching for something. It looked up, toward their general direction, before growling and looking back at the floor.
Plip
Another drop, but this time, when the creature looked up, it was staring directly at them.
The pool of black slime was spreading rapidly, oozing through the carpet fibers. It was less than an inch from the toe of John’s shoe. And Alex could sense that once it came into contact with him, the creature would know exactly where he was.
Alex had tried to abandon John just moments ago, but John had still tried to save him.
You’re disgusting.
Alex closed his fingers around a jagged cluster of the broken glass. The edges bit into his palm, warm blood trickling down, but he ignored the sting. He caught John’s eye. John looked ready to charge again, and Alex frantically shook his head.
Wait, he mouthed.
He wound back his arm, aiming for the far corridor.
The creature’s head snapped toward John as the liquid touched his shoe, its mouth stretching wider, the stitches tearing.
NOW.
He hurled the handful of glass with every ounce of strength he had left. But that remaining strength wasn’t enough. Instead of sailing down the opposite side of the corridor like he had meant for it to, it clipped the ceiling, and landed against the wall a few feet away from the creature.
The creature’s head didn’t turn, still focused on the ground. But as the glass rained down from the wall, splashing into the puddle, its shoulders twitched and it glanced backwards at the sound.
Splash.
Alex’s foot landed in the center of the puddle. The liquid surged, rippling outward from his shoe directly to the creature’s feet. The creature’s head jerked away from the small waves the shards of glass had made. Its bloodshot eyes locked directly onto Alex, and in an instant, the sobbing stopped. Its stitched grin stretched further against its face, and a low growl emanated from its chest.
“Run!” Alex screamed.
Alex bolted down the corridor, sloshing through the liquid. The creature let out a pained shriek, and lunged for him.
Alex tried to turn down the corridor to escape, but his foot slipped on the ground. And before he even had the chance to stand back up, the creature was on him. The stitching of its lips began to snap, as its mouth transformed into a wide, gaping hole.
((You deserve this…))
A heavy weight slammed into the creature from the side.
John had thrown his shoulder into the creature’s midsection. It was like tackling a brick wall. The creature barely stumbled, but the impact was enough to divert the claws from Alex’s face.
“Get up, Alex!” John roared, grappling with the thing.
John’s hands gripped the creature’s wrist, the veins in his forearms protruding as he somehow managed to hold it back. The creature’s body trembled, writhing as it tried to free itself from John’s grip.
The creature’s other arm slammed into John’s midsection, sending him staggering to his knees.
“John!”
“Go!” John grunted, the veins in his neck bulging.
John was lifted from the ground as the creature slammed its hand into him once again, sending him crashing into the drywall. He crumpled to the floor, dazed, blood pouring from a gash on his forehead.
The monster growled in anger, raising a pale foot as it attempted to crush him underfoot.
Alex searched the floor, looking for anything he could use to distract it. But there was nothing.
The black liquid pooling beneath it began to bubble violently, making an outline around John’s body.
A small object wrapped in cloth sailed from a nearby hallway and hit the center of the black puddle beneath the monster’s legs.
A cloud of fine, purple dust exploded outward on impact, coating the floor, the monster’s legs, and the black liquid.
The moment the powder came into contact with the liquid, it began to hiss. A cloud of smoke rose from the surface as the two substances mixed together, and it slowly started to solidify.
The monster screeched, stumbling backwards and yanking its feet free from the crusting surface. It slammed hard into the wall, and it crunched underneath its heavy weight.
Alex’s head whipped backwards to the place where the object had come from. Standing in the shadow of the adjacent hallway was a girl. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old. She wore a faded yellow dress that matched the wallpaper, her hair matted and covered in drywall dust. She held a finger to her lips, her eyes wide and serious.
She pointed a small, dirty hand toward the narrow gap behind the thrashing monster, then jerked her thumb toward the darkness behind her.
Move.
Alex scrambled over to John, hauling him to his feet.
John groaned, blinking the blood out of his eyes, but somehow managed to keep on his feet. They bolted down the hallway, leaving the sound of the shrieking creature behind them.
Alex reached the opening of the hallway, ready to thank the girl. But the hallway was empty.
“What happened?” John asked, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Someone saved us.”
There was a small, plastic bucket filled with multi-colored sticks of chalk the girl had used to draw an arrow, pointing further down the hall. And right below it, circled three times in aggressive yellow chalk to make sure they didn’t miss it, was a final instruction.
A drawing of a shoe stepping into a black puddle with a harsh yellow ‘X’ slashed through it. And beneath it:
DONT SPLASH!