John's eyes snap open yet again, his cheeks still soggy with tears.

  He feels totally exhausted from the nightmare he'd just endured. "Is it over...?" He thinks to himself.

  But, something feels off.

  He's standing this time- No pain or bruises, no cold marble floor under his back. The room around him was dimly lit, with faint amber bulbs hung overhead along the ceiling in inconsistent lines, casting long, unreliable shadows. The air smells of mold and damp wood, like the inside of a shitty hospital or an old abandoned apartment.

  Wait, no, not abandoned. More like lived in. Faked to look clean.

  The hallway he's in seemed completely normal at first glance- Until he noticed the architecture ever so slightly shifting every time he blinked... Doors that were closed before were now open, picture frames that were crooked were suddenly straight. A chair he'd originally noticed at the end of the hall was now completely gone.

  An unusually loud creak echoes behind him. John spins, expecting to see another horrific monstrosity like that amalgamation in a suit, but... Nobody was there. The silence that came after felt way too calculated, like someone was watching him, waiting for a mistake to be made.

  "Hello?" he called out, but his voice died immediately in the damp air, like something just shut it off with a remote.

  He began to walk. The floorboards groaning under each step. The sound felt exaggerated, like it was being fed into a megaphone...

  John made it three doors down the hall before he finally saw something that made his heart jump- Not with fear, but relief.

  A door marked Exit.

  He runs toward it, ripping it open.

  Brick wall.

  "Oh, what the fuck?" John groans aloud. He couldn't believe he genuinely thought the nightmare was over.

  He runs his fingers through his hair, stepping away from the fake exit, his breathing shaky.

  He hears another loud creak behind him. Yet again, he spins to find jack-nothing there.

  Another light flickered further down the hallway. A sign appeared above a door that definitely wasn't there a second ago.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "TRUTH WITHIN" was messily written on the sign. Below it, in smaller letters, "You won't like it" was scratched into the wall.

  John just stared at the sign for a time.

  It looked handwritten... Chalk, maybe? But as he blinked, the style changed- Now stenciled in gold like a fancy hotel placard. John blinked again in confusion, then it changed back to chalk. Then smeared. They simply wouldn't stay consistent.

  He stepped closer despite his instincts berating him to run. Something about the door pulled him in. Not physically, but like a thread in his eyes that had been looped around the knob and was slowly but surely reeling him in.

  Stupidly, he reached for it.

  Just as his hand wrapped around the doorknob, the wall to his left creaked violently- And then peeled like old wallpaper, revealing another hallway. A cleaner, more normal hallway. Soft yellow lights, a table with a bunch of framed photos on in... The kind of hallway you'd see in a perfect family home.

  It actually looked like his own house's hallway...

  "John," a feminine voice whispered softly from the newly-revealed passage.

  Sara's voice.

  He froze in shock. The doorknob he was grabbing felt ice cold all of a sudden. From the family hallway, faint music began to play... Like a lullaby.

  He turned his head slowly toward the sound of the music, eyes wide in shock and recognition.

  His legs moved on their own. The further he got into the hallway, the music grew clearer and clearer, gentle piano notes wrapped in something much too soft to be real.

  A woman's voice sang along with it.

  "Close your eyes, my darling boy,

  Let the stars fall where they may...

  Dreams will lie and time will toy,

  But Mama's here to stay..."

  John stepped past the first photo on the table. He was holding a baby in a hospital room, but Sara's face was gone. Just... Smudged.

  Another step forward, and the baby vanished from the photo.

  Just an empty hospital room now. Cold, and lonely.

  He didn't even get to look at the other pictures. The very pictures themselves were gone from the frames.

  As he reached the end of the hall, it opened up into a wide room. A living room, maybe, but not quite like his. Much too clean. No beer bottles or used needles littering the floor.

  In the center of the room, illuminated by soft lamp light, stood another monster.

  It was tall, and thin. It had no clothing on its body whatsoever, just.. Naked. Its joints were bent unnaturally. Its head was bald, and its eyes were just sockets with beady, dimly glowing red pupils. Its legs didn't even have feet. They were just toothpick-pointed stumps.

  And in its arms... It held Damien. John's son.

  A tiny, perfect Damien...

  Wrapped in a hospital blanket, fast asleep.

  The monster rocked him gently. Borderline lovingly.

  John's breath caught in his very lungs. Right off the bat, he wasn't even scared.

  His legs bent forward like he wanted to charge the monster. Save his son. But the rest of his body just wouldn't move. It simply couldn't. The memories of what he'd just endured at the hands of that insane auctioneer and tuxedo-wearing amalgamation clouded his mind. His head was literally bitten off, for God's sake. And he felt every bit of it.

  Trauma aside, John wanted to charge the monster, but even his own mind was whispering to him: What right do you have to protect him, after you already took his mother from him?

  The monster's head tilted toward him, like it could sense his inner turmoil, but it never stopped rocking his son.

  Just that same, slow motion.

  Back, and forth. Back, and forth.