Then it shifted more and more. Colors drifted by me as if I was watching a masterful painter create their masterpiece, and the very world was their canvas. Finally, it settled. It settled into this barren world. A pure white sky, a cobblestone road, and a vast valley of dead grass. If that painter was real, I would be half worried about their mental state.
I look around and see nothing, just a little bit of grey from the road and the grass, and the white void.
My mind scrapes and bruises together, trying to make sense of this all. This should just be a bad dream but… it feels too real. The sound the grass makes when I step on it, the prick it gives my finger when I touch it’s tip, and this coldness that creeps around my entire body. This can’t be a dream.
I’m sure of that fact.
Other questions arise in my head. Where am I? Why am I here? Who… or maybe even what brought me to this place?
A grim feeling accompanied with fear courses through my body as my heart rate increases steadily, as if my senses are anticipating for something to happen. But nothing changed.
My mother use to always tell me to breathe deeply to calm myself.
But suddenly, a striking pain struck my brain. My body convulsed and immediately dropped on the floor. A guttural scream involuntarily exited my mouth as every single inch of my body felt like it was both splitting and being crushed at once.
And I wept, not tears, but blood. My eyes went into utter shock and the world around me began to turn into itself. Something was trying to enter my mind.
In that very next moment, my mind was truly lost. Memories and lost thoughts from the world flooded my mind. I saw images of my parents—just before they were lost for good—flicker by. Then, even more strangely, images of a calcified world engraved itself into my brain, forever remembered, forever empty.
I yell to the unfettered white void that encompasses everything in this place.
“IT’S. SO. COLD.”
Time froze. The pain, the memories, the images—melt away until there is nothing left. I lie still, my chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.
The presence entered my mind once again. It didn’t speak. It conveyed a feeling of an apology. Every word it ‘spoke’ felt like a physical force that shook my entire body.
My heart begins beating fast, faster than ever before. Something primal stirs within me—a deep, instinctual understanding that, whatever this thing is, I am at its mercy. I am powerless here. All I can do is wait.
The presence tries to calm me once again. It ‘says’ it wants to help me, that this is not a place of pain but a place of peace.
But this thing knows my thoughts. It’s terrifying. I don’t trust it. Why would it want to help me? Why offer peace when it could shatter my entire existence with a mere thought. I need to get out, but this thing seems to exist so far beyond it all. I can not run away.
It urged me to walk down the path ahead. It promised that it would be all I would need in life. That without the path, I would not live long. Walking the path would give me purpose, power, and the ability to uncover the ‘truth’.
No…. no no no no NO NO NO! This is all too foreign. How can I be sure that this thing is looking out for my safety?
IT reiterated the path and how I must walk it—for my own sake.
Please… I don’t want to be here, let me go home.
I wake up in bed—alone, cold, and, above all, confused.
My mind races, struggling to piece together everything that happened in that strange, almost otherworldly place. I still don’t know what that thing is or what drove it to reach out to me. But it was definitely dangerous.
What did it mean by me needing the path to surv-
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
My thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of nearby explosions.
I dash towards one of my windows facing the street and I’m instantly hit with a horrible sight.
My street is in complete chaos, as if a natural disaster recently treaded through. The houses are ablaze and the road is covered in corpses, their wounds still fresh and bleeding.
I look farther down the street and spot a few living people. But something is wrong with them. Their movements are erratic and inhuman. They aren’t normal.
I catch the gaze of one of them. His deep, bloodshot eyes lock onto mine; a twisted smile spreads across his face before he starts rushing toward my house. He’s running far faster compared to what his skinny frame might allude to.
My instincts kick in, and I frantically search for something to defend myself with. But the only thing resembling a weapon that I own is my cane. Not like I have any better options. It’s sturdy enough to do something, I hope.
That ‘thing’ in my dream definitely did something. I refuse it’s deal and suddenly my peaceful neighborhood is drowning in a sea of flames with creatures from hell trying to kill everyone.
I look back onto the street, but the man is gone. My eyes dart everywhere looking for him when I hear a sudden crash downstairs. He’s in my home. I have to be silent. I don’t know if I can beat it in such a small space.
I quickly shuffle into the corner of my room, between my dresser and the front-end of my bed. I can hear him down there. Moving things around. stalking for me as if I'm his prey, when suddenly I remember that my stairs have exactly four creeks before reaching the second floor.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He’s stopped moving or making any sound-
Creeeeeeek
He definitely knows I’m up here. Is he playing with me?
Creeeeeeek
My heart pounds through my chest, my ears painfully ring while sweat drips down my face.
Creeeek
This is probably the end for me….. but I wait and wait and wait some more. The fourth creek never comes. Am I safe? Did he leave?
I slowly peer over to the stairs, but I don’t see him.
I wait for a few more moments, but the last creek never came. Maybe he left?
I tip-toe to the entrance of the stairs and look down, the man is nowhere to be seen.
DRIP
I feel a few small drops of waters drip onto my head, which is strange, I dont remember water pipes running through my roof.
I look up and the man, hanging onto the roof, stares back at me. His smile reached so wide you would think his head would be split in two.
I try to move out of the way, but I was one step too late. He drops from the roof and lands on me, forcing both of us to the floor, the wood holding us up creeks under his weight. The man snarls and moves his head closer, his mouth opens wide as he tries to bite down on my face.
I free my arms and instinctively block his bite with my cane. Gathering my strength, I try to push the man off me but he weighs too much. Instead I try to tip him to my left, using my cane as leverage.
With one final push, I send him rolling, giving me just enough time to get back on my feet. But before I’m able to fully recover, the man swings his bloody claws at me.
I’m too slow. His claw cleaves through me effortlessly, leaving a brutal gash across my torso, all the way to my hip.
My heart instantly begins beating harder, sending adrenaline throughout my entire body. I can’t even feel the pain of the cut.
The man, one again, grins maniacally at me but the grin quickly switches to a laugh—almost like he knows that I’m on deaths door.
He lunges once more, grabbing ahold of me, and he throws me down the flight of stairs.
I brace my entire body as I’m sent rolling down the flight of stairs. Before finally stopping at the bottom of the stairs. It feels like my house is spinning, and just as it settles, I see the man jump at me.
Acting on instinct, I roll to my right. I feel his hand brush across my back for a split moment before the sound of shattered glass fills my ears.
His head had flown through the window at the bottom of my stairs, and he had rested his neck upon the sharp glass that remained. His body flailed around and strange gurgles radiated from his body. The blood from his neck flowed like a river down the glass.
The man attempted a disgusting cry for help, but was stopped by the blood filling his throat. The glass was fragile, as he tried to life himself from the window it shattered under his grip, causing his neck to sink further into the glass.
Eventually, the flailing stopped.
I look down to the now still corpse. And I focus in on his unsettling features. His nails have sharpened into claws. A jolt of pain rings through my entire body, reminding me of the situation. I need to get out.
I attempt to walk out my house, but each creak from the wood under my feet is accompanied with agony. The moving probably caused my wound to open up more, blood is seeping out rapidly.
The sight outside is even worse than my view from the window. The street is covered in blood and corpses, and almost every house is either heavily damaged or burning.
I look around and spot one of my more infamous neighbors, dead on the floor, crimson blood pooling around him, he always carried a gun with him.
That gun is probably my only chance to get out of this hellhole.
I try to take a step forward, but my injury flares with pain throughout my body once again. At the same time, a screech fills the air and deafens me for a moment. I glance to my right, down the street, and spot the source of the noise.
A group of three more bloodshot-eyed figures charging down the street toward me.
I begin running toward the gun as fast as my wound will allow.
It bleeds profusely as pain starts riling through my body. Tears start trailing down my face as I push my body to continue running.
I can almost feel their presence, getting closer, and closer.
But they’re too slow, I grab the gun, a six cylinder revolver, from the floor and quickly turn around.
My lack of practice, combined with my wound, does me no favors as I fumble, struggling to aim at the one leading the charge.
I attempt to cock the hammer, but the blood and grime that accumulated on my hands caused my thumb to slip a few times before finally setting and cocking the hammer.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I hit one leading between the eyes, the one off to the left in the chest, and hit the last one off to the right in the right leg.
Luckily, the revolver had enough ammo for all three.
Checking the chamber it seems like my neighbor couldn’t even manage to get one shot off before he got killed. It makes it easier for me at least.
Using two shots stored in the gun; I finished the last two who were squirming on the ground.
I quickly search the old owner of the gun looking for some more ammo but he doesn’t have any more on him.
I take a seat on a fallen pillar. The blood from my wound pools under me.
I can’t stay here for long though, those gunshots made too much noise to be ignored, I’m sure more beasts are on their way.
But… I just can’t anymore.
Death… such a scary word. Perhaps I had been too distracted by my daily life to really grasp what it was, but now that I am face-to-face with it….
There’s no way I can out run more of those things.
I feel a massive vibration flow through the ground.
I try to stand up but my body instantly fails to gather the strength, and I fall back down to the pillar.
This time, I look up, and see the horde rushing towards me like feral animals.
I’m cornered. There’s too much of them, and I definitely can’t run away from this position.
I did not expect my death bed to be a broken down pillar in a blazing town, rip to shreds by a bunch of inhuman monsters.
I look down to the gun resting between my hands and open the cylinder.
One bullet left.
I would much rather it end on my own accord rather than being mutilated by those things. Maybe in another life, I can take my liberties and enjoy my life. But for now…
I’m done.
I point the gun to my head.
There’s nothing left for me now. I’ve been lost for so long, but it looks like I found my way out of all this.
click
…
BANG
Then, everything went quiet.
I find myself back in this infinite white void.
I’m not sure why; I’m fully contempt with rolling over and dying. But it seems like this presence has other plans for me.
The presence truly speaks to me now. Almost like it's doing this to plead with me. And again, it wants me to walk the path.
Simple, I just don’t care about that truth. I have nothing to live for at this point.
I’m done.
And all this effort, why me?
…
Maybe, it’s not wrong.
If my parents were taken to that special hospital after showing signs of that sickness, and that hospital was burned down shortly after, then there’s something more malicious in play than I could have originally imagined.
I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly.
Then I took one step forward.
Well, if you’re going to be helping me, I need to know your name.
The Long Quiet? That’s a… unique one?
Chapter End.