Chapter 1 – Chap 1

This is a story. But it also feels like it’s something more. I had a dream last night, that I was someone else. A man. I don’t know his name, or what he was like, but I know that this is what he experienced. It doesn’t seem real, I know. But strangely enough, I feel like this story must be told. So here it is. My dream. My nightmare.

Run.

All there was to do. Run.

Heavy breathing echoed down the hall. Constantly flickering lights above made the hallway nauseous to look at, like someone playing a film strip far too slow; movement then darkness, repeat. A fun-house of madness that seemed to swallow him whole. Nevertheless, he stumbled through, with purpose in every haphazard step.

He had to get there, had to shut it off.

But then, time had run out. The door ahead of him was no longer a normal door. It seemed to pulse with life. Covered in slimy tendrils that dripped with dark liquid, the door tensed as he approached. It saw him. He regretted ever seeing it.

Behind him, far down the hallway, came a noise. Not like anything he’d ever heard. He knew, he was definitely out of time. His shambling run broke into a full out sprint as he raced for the door. The tendrils tightened their hold around their new home as he approached, nearly full to bursting. He grabbed hold of one and ripped it away with all his might. It felt rubbery in his battered arms, and the cut on his forehead seemed to pulse more blood into his eyes with the exertion.

As he reached for another tendril, the noise behind him stopped.

Run. Get away. Where? Nowhere to run, but behind the door of nightmares. Nowhere to hide.

The noise began anew. Softer this time, but much closer. Almost tender, like a mother, his mother, kissing him goodnight. Always getting closer. He ripped away the final tendril blocking the door. It saw, and it leaped.

Flashing lights. The color red, everywhere. Something sharp bore into his flesh; teeth. So many teeth.

He kicked away feebly, just enough to reach the door. Just enough to turn the handle, to pull himself in. It latched on to his upper legs, creating deep gashes in his torso and legs, but he began to slam the door shut on it’s skull; once, twice, he soon lost count.

A new noise emerged, a terrible screeching that pierced his head, but he kept going until it, grasping its oozing head, tumbled off of his ravaged body. With a final surge of strength, he pulled himself inside and slammed the demon door shut behind him. It began to bang, screeching, on the door behind him.

This room had evolved into a jungle of pulsating tendrils, moving like a nest of snakes on a lazy day. Hardly the stark white laboratory it was this morning. Machines hummed, and the tendrils beat like a heart out of sync, faster, faster. He held his stomach closed with his arm as he scanned the room for the switch that had caused this whole mess.

It sat in the very center, two tendrils wrapping around it like a twisted bonsai tree. He stumbled up to it.

Two things happened at the same time. As he reached for the metal switch, the ceiling above him opened up like a mouth. A swirling mass of tendrils tumbled from the opening, and in a second, the creature fell from the mouth.

It’s body seemed to ripple as it fell, and out exploded extra limbs from it’s torso, like an insect emerging from a cocoon, it’s jaw unhinged and dripping with fluid.

He laughed. Time had long since passed him by.

The creature slammed into his body, already tearing into him, already turning his body around to face it.

As he yanked the switch off, the last thing he saw were jaws opened far too wide. He barely noticed the small proboscis that shot into his neck. He felt it begin to pump as his vision went black.