Stories
I started writing a story once, added to it here and there. I do intend on finishing it one day. It is greatly inspired by Silent Hill and is intended to be somewhat of a horror story, but at the same time an emotional mystery-action-adventure hybrid. Better yet, just judge for yourself.
Darkness In A Silent Dream
No. I can’t……I just can’t……..can I? Just the thought of going back to that place haunts me. It tears through me like a knife through bread. Since I left there, I’ve been nothing but terrified. Terrified of what may happen if I should return. Terrified of the change of fate it would cast upon me. Terrified of seeing the end. My end. But I feel that it’s my responsibility to go back and finish the job. The job I tried so hard to get away from. The job I now feel needs to be completed. It’s not that easy though. Nothing is ever as easy as others think it is. They don’t realize the difficulty of it until they experience it for themselves. However, unlike me, they are too afraid to even attempt it. They fear that something bad could happen. They fear that if they get involved, they would never live the same life again. Well…….they’re right.
What’s that? Oh no, not that memory again. I had to live through it once, and now I have to remember uncontrollably for the rest of my life, although I fear that it may turn out to be much shorter than expected. This haunting memory is forcing me to remember what happened, all the way back to the very day it began…..
Chapter 1
The air was thin, yet humid. The moon was retired at the moment, and a new breed of darkness covered the land as far as the eye could see, and then some. The sun had been asleep for hours, and a constant mist blew through the air, spreading slowly and gently. The air was fowl; it had an almost bitter aroma. Yet it was plainly visible. The fog was thick, deep, and very strong. The trees stood tall, towering above all else in existence. They talked too, low-pitched grumbling. They were speaking to one another, saying that I shouldn’t be here. It was a warning, telling me to turn back, that I had made a mistake by venturing this way. I should have chosen another path back when I had the opportunity, but that opportunity has long been gone, passed up unseen.
My mind felt uneasy and scared, and my eyes scanned the area constantly, looking for any sign of disturbance. My ears were at full alert, and my nose was examining the many scents that traveled throughout the foggy air. I walked slowly as my boots gently pressed upon the dead leaves and moist, abundant dirt. Twigs occasionally snapped as I made my way through the area, giving me the unpleasant feeling that someone was following me. I slowly realized what the trees had been talking about. I shouldn’t be going this way, however, I feel I have no choice but to stick to my current path. This was what I set out to do so why should I give up and turn back now? If I abandon my path, I would eventually be destroyed by the fact that I gave up the one chance to find out what really happened. This is why I must continue my journey.
I proceeded further into the unknown area, slowly building a stronger sense of uneasiness. I began to feel that I was going the wrong way, that I had ventured in the wrong direction. Just as I started to think about turning around and restarting from the beginning, I saw a building structure in the distance. It was very large, roughly four floors tall. An occasional window was cracked, some even broken and shattered completely, though they were boarded up quite a bit. It looks as if it had been abandoned for years with no trace of life anywhere. But I can’t remember……..wait……ah……oh…..no……what….the…..hell? A memory violently pierced through my mind out of nowhere:
This is the inside of a hospital. It’s very clean and nice, like something out of a fairy tale. It’s full of living beings, most of which are sick and very ill. Though there are the others, the helpers, the ones that rid the sickly of their evil curse. Then there are the sad ones, the ones that mourn over the sickly and wish only for hope for their dieing loved ones. Although there is much sickness, everything seems so bright and cheerful. Everyone is peaceful and there is no trace of anger in the atmosphere. There’s a beautiful girl, over near the large window. She’s smiling on the outside, yet she seems to be in agony deep down in her heart. She’s looking outside as if she’s looking for someone, but she knows she is wasting her time. There’s a strange being holding a fire axe, though his appearance is unknown. He’s gripping the axe tightly, lifts it high above his head, then using all his strength he plunges the axe downward. The girl has no idea he is behind her. Suddenly a scream pierces the long hallways.
I lie on the ground, sprawled out like a blanket. My head aches and throbs with a great deal of pain. It feels as if a blade is slowly slicing through my skull. I take a few seconds to regain control of my body. It felt as if my mind had been completely taken over by something else. I slowly bring myself to a standing position, then raise my eyes and cast my sight upon the building in front of me. It’s that hospital from the vision I just witnessed, except much older, broken down, and abandoned.
But that girl I just envisioned, who is she? She seems so familiar but I can’t remember who she is and what she means to me, if anything. I have to go in there and find out what my mind won’t tell me.
After taking a couple minutes to regain my strength and full consciousness, I make my way to the abandoned hospital. The doors are all boarded up, as well as the windows. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to pry them off. How the hell do I get in there? Just then my eyes come across a hole in the side of the building. It looks as if it may be just big enough for me to squeeze through. The only problem, however, is that it is elevated above my height, just enough so that I couldn’t reach it no matter how far I stretched my arm. I have to find something to stand on if I want to try and make my way through that hole.
I gaze around, examining the area with my eyes. It doesn’t seem as if there’s anything……ah….there we go, that should do the trick. I roll the tire over to the side of the building, step up onto it, and surely enough, I’m able to grab hold of the bottom edge of the hole. Using all of my available upper body strength, I hoist myself up and into the hole. It’s a large duct of some sort. The odor surely is an unwanted welcome, and smells like an old carcass that had been left out in the sun for days, weeks even. Although I get a very bad feeling of what I’m getting myself into, I make my way through the duct, crawling on my stomach. If I were any larger, I would have had to find an alternate entrance into the building.
It’s disturbingly quiet in here, expect for the occasional howl from the wind lurking around……BAM!.............Ouch that hurt. The duct evidently didn’t appreciate the weight that I had put upon it, so it decided to give out beneath me. I seem to be alright, although it gave me a violent bruise on my shin. Hmmm….I seem to be in the morgue, although I am on the first floor and the morgue is usually located in the basement……wait a minute. This is no morgue. The sign indicates that it’s the reception area. But why are all these bodies lying in here?! I caught an unfortunate glance at a corpse of what seemed to formerly be an old man. His hair was gritty, gray, and crisp. His eyes were missing though he seemed to be staring right at me. His hands were stiff, still gripping onto something. It appears to be a crowbar of some sort.
After talking myself into working up the courage to pry the crowbar from the dead man’s hands, I did just that. I swiftly threw out my hand, clutched the very end of the crowbar, and yanked it right out of his hand, which snapped off and plunged to the ground. What makes it worse is that it shattered like glass when it hit the floor.
Oh no, that unusual feeling is coming back to me. It’s taking over my body, and I can’t resist it no matter how hard I try…
It’s the hospital again, the dreamlike version of it. An old man is resting on a hospital bed near the window. His smile says he’s happy, though his eyes say he’s worried. He responds to no one, not even his own son. He only wishes to lie there, staring out the window. It would seem as if he’s in a state of shock, though he seems to be functioning normally. His eyes never blink, not even once. It’s as if he wants to make sure nothing breaches the window. Just then his heartbeat stopped and his eyes grew wider than before. He was glaring at what’s outside the window. It was a child, though his skin was as white as winter snow, and his eyes solid white with no pupils. He stood with a hunch and his arms seemed to dangle as if they were hanging only by the skin. The boy opens his mouth, nearly as wide as his entire head. A screech suddenly releases from him, shattering the window completely. The old man’s heartbeat monitor indicates a flat line.
I awaken with the worst back pain I’ve ever felt. It felt as if I was lying on rocks. Ah…the crowbar…even worse. I remove the rusty crowbar from beneath my back, though I lie there on the dusty concrete floor for a good two and a half minutes. At first, my entire body feels completely drained of all energy. Slowly, however, all the missing energy begins to return to me. I regain control of myself, then stand up.
Oh……ouch…..the pain in my back. What’s going on here? Why is this happening to me? What do these…..visions……..well…..what do they mean? Or maybe they are not visions at all. They felt so real that maybe they were actually happening, here, at this very moment. Nah….that can’t be. It’s just not possible. Perhaps maybe they are not visions, but nightmares? I’m so confused right now, but I feel I must continue what I had set out to do. I have to investigate what really happened on that dreadful day.
The air is very heavy and is loaded with a thick layer of dust. At least I think that’s what it is. I had a feeling there was more to it than that. Like the air was filled with dead human skin. Wait…..isn’t that what dust is? At least partially? If that’s true, then there must be tons of dead skin flowing throughout the air….in and out my lungs with every breath I take.
Okay, I’ve got to keep moving on. I don’t want to stay in here any longer than I absolutely need to. I make my way around the old man’s body…..what the hell? Where did it go? I know my mind has been taking control of me, but I know there was a body here just a couple minutes ago. There had to have been, because that’s where I got this crowbar from! My conscious is telling me to be scared. My brain is ordering my body to tremble with fear, and to sweat all over. Scared more than ever, I start walking down the deep, dark hallway. It’s getting darker and darker as I proceed…to the point to where I can no longer see but just a few inches in front of me.
CLANK!.......I hear a noise not but several feet in front of where I am standing, completely still and frozen. What the hell was that? No….it was nothing. It was my mind again, playing tricks on me. I shouldn’t listen to it. I shouldn’t let it control me. As I begin to take another step…..CLANK!......3 seconds later……CLANK!.......2 seconds…..CLANK!.....1 second….CLANK!.......CLANK!....CLANK!......The noise repeated itself faster, as it began to get louder and nearer. I was in a state of shock and did not know what to do. It sounded like heavy footsteps coming near me…..closer and closer with every passing second.
I know…..I should run……but I can’t. I physically could not move my body. I was as helpless as a statue at this point. Just then I felt a heavy gust of hot breath in my face. The stench was so fowl and strong that I felt like I wanted to vomit. I felt a gag start to come into my throat, but I held it in…..swallowed it. Maybe if I didn’t make any noise I would be okay. Yeah, right. I felt several more repeated breaths flow through my face. At this point I’m shivering so bad that I couldn’t keep myself from moving uncontrollably. I then heard a low grumble…..a growl. It was so strong that the resonance caused the metal pipes above to shake and produce a disturbing rattling sound. It even caused the crowbar in my hand to…..wait……that’s it! This is when I realized I had a weapon. This is when I realized what I could do to remove the…….creature, or whatever it is, out of my path.
I tightened my grip towards the bottom of the crowbar. My arm lifted slowly and quietly. I pulled back, as is I were about to swing at a baseball bat. I inhaled a deep breath…..a deep breath of fowl and bitter taste, which came from the breathing of the…….thing……in front of me. With all my strength, I swung the crowbar, from the right side of my body, following all the way to the far left…….nothing. I hit nothing but air. It couldn’t have moved….I never heard it make a sound, or felt the wind of it moving out of the way. How the hell did I not hit it?! It was at that point I heard the growl again, though it was no longer in front of me. It actually came from directly behind me. This is when I realized that my path was no longer blocked. I could run and try to close and brace the door at the end of the hall to trap the creature in the hallway…..that is, assuming there is a door there
.
But my overwhelming incompetence….or perhaps it was curiosity…..told me to turn around and try to get a look at this thing. So I turned slowly. I don’t know why I’m moving so slow anymore, because I’m sure it knows I’m here……after the swinging and trembling and what not. This time I could actually see something. The faint light from the small hole I crawled through was just bright enough to show a large figure standing in front of me. Holy shit! It’s the man that I had taken the crowbar from! But wait….no….how can this be? I know he was dead. He had no pulse when I examined him earlier. He’s dead. So how can he be standing……and moving…..and breathing?! He…..or……it…..stared directly at me, though it had no eyes. There was nothing but empty eye sockets, filled with heavy darkness. It stood like an old man, hunched over and knees bent slightly. Its skin was dead looking, very wrinkly, yet very thick. It looked as if it had been burned severely. Its arms dangled with no apparent control.
Oh no! It was running at me. With only a split second to think, I swung the crowbar directly in front of me, with a stabbing like motion. I then heard a crunching sound, like the sound you here when a piece of paper gets crumbled. I had stabbed the creature. I then quickly pull the crowbar back and out of its chest. About six seconds pass by, then I heard a loud THUD!......it had fallen to the ground. Had I won? Had I defeated this ungodly…..thing? Just as I begin to turn back around and continue where I had been going…..I hear that low growl again. Yet this time it seemed much louder and more aggressive. Uh oh, this isn’t good. Apparently it’s not dead, and more than likely it’s even angrier than before.
This is when I finally came to my dulled senses. I quickly made a dash down the hallway, hoping not to trip over anything….or myself. I ran as if I were competing in a marathon, though perhaps I was. Perhaps I was running to compete with this creature. Maybe if I win, and outrun it, I would be awarded with staying alive.
Hmm……I kept running but there appeared to be no end to this hallway. I felt like I had ran half a mile already. I felt as if I were running into the end of existence, or perhaps it was the beginning of nowhere. The further I progressed, the heavier the atmosphere around me became. I felt like I was overtaken by an evil force….or feeling of some kind. I then began to feel the fatigue set in. I’m getting tired…..oh so tired. Is it even following me? God, I hope not. I have to stop…..I…just….can’t….go…on……..
I dropped to my knees, panting furiously for fresh air, though I did not find any. The only air here is fowl and bitter, and tastes spoiled and….somehow….dead. Sweat is pouring down my face; down my entire body. After I manage to keep my breathing level to a low, controlled breath, I listen for……well….anything. I don’t hear anything behind me, following me. I turn around and glance around, though it does no good, as all I see is a thick blanket of darkness.