I don't remember when or how I fell asleep, but I did. Somehow, I managed to block out the screaming that persisted in my head even after vacating the town of Nipton and heading further down what I thought with all my heart was the Southwest. Knowing what happened next, it really didn't matter what direction I went. What was important was that I managed to put everything I saw behind me, put the screams behind me, and just went to sleep. I still don't know how I managed that, but what I do know is that I really do wish I hadn't.
Remember when I said I was going to have nightmares? Well, that part never failed.
I would reckon however, that this was a little more than just a nightmare. It felt real- no, it was real.
Where's my proof? My reason for believing this?
I'll get to it later.
Anyway, I guess there's no use stalling now, seeing as how I brought it up.
As I said previously, I don't even remember falling asleep. I do however, remember waking up in a bed, not too strikingly unfamiliar from how I found myself in the world I did at the beginning of this recounting, but right away I noticed that things were vastly different. For starters, the room I found myself in was rundown. Wallpaper peeled off the wall and scraped against the floor, and one look at the doorway that led out of the room revealed there was no door. In its place were two 2x4s, nailed to either end of the doorway. I got out of the bed, looking down at the mattress to find a circle of dried blood caked onto the bed where I was lying. Shitty, stupid jump scare? It didn't matter, I jumped. Gasped. Shoved my open palm damn near into my mouth. I backed away from the bed until my back hit the wall. Sighing, my whole body tense, I slowly turned around; hoping I wouldn't see what I thought I would.
And to my surprise, I didn't. The blood on the bed wasn't mine. I put myself at ease with that revelation, until of course logic caught up with me and the question I should've asked the second my previous one was answered weaseled its way into my brain: if the blood wasn't mine, whose was it?
"What are you doing?" Anna? I put the previous inquiry to rest for a moment, opting instead to aimlessly scan the room in hopes of finding her, but alas, as was the case with most times I've heard her voice while standing in dilapidated rooms teeming with horror cliche and "nightmare fuel," she was nowhere to be found. It struck me as odd however, that my brain would pick right now of all times to remind me that "oh right, I have a fiance that's likely worrying about me. Maybe being is this world of insanity where I could possibly be murdered by a fucking crow isn't the best way to spend my time!"
Get a grip, I reminded myself.
I brought my attention back to the doorway, walking towards it slowly, ever slowly. My heart pounded for no explicable reason, and my hands trembled on the walk to the pieces of wood that confined me to this small cell of a room.
When I finally made it to the doorway, my hands fell atop the uppermost 2x4 and for what felt like an eternity but in actuality didn't last any longer than a few seconds, my hands were shaking too much to even grip the jagged, splinter inducing wood. I took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm my nerves before grabbing a hold of the top of the board. As could be expected by the fact that it's me, one of the shards of wood broke free and embedded itself in my palm. Ignoring this, I dug my nails into the wood further and pried with all of my might. After a few seconds of determined yanking, it came (double entendre totally not intended). Just a little bit however, the nails held it to the doorway tight and though parts of the nails were now sticking out of their former holding place, they were still stuck.
Another sigh, another tug.
The board flies out of the wall, knocking me off balance and to the ground. I toss the board at the floor beside me and get up, before turning attention to my palm where the splinter stayed. Without a second thought, I brought my hand to my mouth and bit deep into my skin, trying to pull the piece of wood out with my teeth. A trickle of blood met my tongue first however, though my teeth clenched on a thin, little shard. The blood mixed with my saliva in the time it took for me to go through with it. I pulled my head back and out came the splinter. Spitting it across the floor, I paid little attention to my now bleeding hand and instead went right back up to the boarded up doorway.
I don't know if it was anger, adrenaline, or just a burning intensity based on the rushed to conclusion that I was merely wasting time prior, but in a sudden burst of strength, I kicked through the second board. It snapped and the now two pieces fell vertically to their respective sides, held up only by the one nail. Without so much as a second thought (though I wish I had thought twice), I stepped out of the room and found myself in a narrow, seemingly endless hallway. Nothing adorned the walls but more of the same tacky, stained and peeling wallpaper that seemed to coat the floors moreso than their intended target. The blood dripped from my hand slowly, landing with a splash every other step I took. The floor below my feet sounded hollow; each step I took echoed endlessly down the hallway of bleak nothingness. Wait, is it too late to sprinkle a bunch of arbitrary adjectives into this recounting and talk about how an empty hallway crushed my soul with the weight of a fucking anvil?
It is? Dang it.
Regardless, I proceeded on down the hallway, unsure of whether or not I was making any real progress, due to the sameness of each square inch of wall and floor.
Then, I heard a footstep. Not my footstep of course, that would make a lick of sense. A loud, thundering footstep in front of me and to the left.
I froze. My heart was already still pounding without reason, and it was just given a reason.
Body tense, I trudged a few feet before coming to another door. There were doors all throughout the hallway, but none of them caught my attention until now. I could hear thumping from behind it and the faint whimpers of a person, though I couldn't tell whether it was a man or woman.
With ice cold blood and a tinge of heroism, I put my blood soaked hand on the door handle, and turned it. I pushed open the door, and a skeleton popped out.
Oh, right. I'm supposed to be telling what actually happened, not what I wished happened.
No, a skeleton didn't pop out, nothing popped out actually.
I walked into the room to find the source of the thumping, a deformed, vaguely humanesque thing kneeling on the bed, driving what looked to be his own hand into the chest of the source of the whimpers: definitely a person. Their face was mutilated beyond recognition and the thing's body shrouded most of its victim's. The air around me seemed to grow thinner and thinner and I struggled to retain whatever oxygen I could force into my lungs.
Apparently, I did this rather loudly, as the thing turned its deformed, mutant head to me, snickering like a mental patient hopped up on thirty pounds of cocaine laced with ginseng. It pulled its hand out of the person's chest, pointing a crimson finger to me and shouting in a frantic, wild tone: "Fresh, fresh meat!"
I couldn't even breathe. I just fell. Fell slowly but surely out of the room before catching myself, turning around and broke out into a sprint for only two feet before making it out. I pulled the door shut and booked it further down the hall, where I hoped I wouldn't run into it but just before I could make it out of earshot of the room, I heard it call out in a much more composed, calm voice: "You can run, but we'll find you. We always do."
As I took off, I couldn't help but focus less on the possible demise at the hands of that one, I had to constantly remind myself that it said - we.
There were more of them?
Did the universe have some sort of vendetta against me or something?
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