I woke up with a terrible headache, followed by blurred vision. I couldn’t discern anything in my environment, and I stumbled upon a broken wheelchair, hitting my head on the floor. As I got up and started to regain lucidity, I quickly observed my surroundings.
I was located in the reception room of the town’s hospital. There was an absurd mess everywhere, with medical equipment laying on the floor erratically.
The place was desolated. It looked like the people inside rushed out to leave as quickly as possible. It didn’t make much sense, as there weren’t any signs of a hurricane or other natural disaster hitting the hospital. They must have ran from something that was inside.
As I started to look for clues to find out what was going on, I found a note left on the reception table. I could feel the blood run cold in my veins after I picked it up.
“To whoever reads this note, you’re not alone in here.
There are creatures roaming the hallways, hungry for human flesh.
If you want to have a chance at getting out, pay attention.
All of the doors leading to the outside are stuck, and they won’t even budge. Do not bother trying to break them, as the sound will attract the attention of the creatures in the dark.
I’ve marked a path on the back of this note. I’m not sure exactly where it leads, but the others said that it’s the way out of this abyss.
While traversing the hospital, bear in mind the following rules.
Good luck stranger.”
For a moment, I couldn’t even lift my gaze from the piece of paper. What the hell was that?
I decided to follow the rules, as I didn’t want to take any chances.
I hastily went to search for a flashlight, as it was my only salvation in repelling those abominations. Luckily, I found one laying on the ground in a pile of syringes. I lit it up to check if it still had some juice left in the batteries, and quietly headed into the void in front of me.
I planned to follow the path indicated on the back of the note, as it was the only one I had.
I quietly opened the doors leading into a hallway and started walking through the seemingly endless desolate hospital.
The ground was littered with pieces of medical tools, and I had to watch each step I took, trying to muffle the cracking sound of the glass shards.
I could feel a lingering hospital smell as an undertone to the smell of decay, of a place of pestilence and suffering.
As I headed deeper, I noticed the air slowly vibrating around me, like this place sending me a message.
Do not go further.
Not long after, I noticed whispers coming from all directions. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I recognised the tone of an incantation. Slowly, the whispers transitioned into voices, and they got louder and louder. I quickly covered my ears with the palms of my hands, trying to block as much noise as I could and continued my journey. After a few minutes, the voices disappeared.
With each step, I could feel the atmosphere around me getting heavier and heavier, to the point of being suffocating. Each breath was a struggle, each step felt like a burden. Deep down, I had the feeling of walking to my doom, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life trapped inside this nightmare. It just occurred to me how fast my life has changed.
It all started last week, when a thick fog settled over the town, engulfing everything in its cold grasp.
As the days passed, things started to go out of hand. As the days went on, good signal was harder and harder to come by, until you couldn’t get reception anywhere, and when I turned the radio on I just heard static.
Things just got worse as the time passed by.
My neighbours started to act weird, and they began knocking on their walls, banging on the doors and smashing their windows. Soon after, the whole town was on chaos. People also started screaming late at night. I could feel the hatred and hunger for blood in their screams.
Oh god…those screams. Those screams weren’t human.
I was too scared to investigate, and instead barricaded myself inside my home.
Some days later, after I woke up from the god awful screams of my neighbours, I noticed something wrong outside.
I looked through the window in my room and saw that it was snowing.
“What the actual fuck. It’s the middle of summer. How the hell is it snowing outside?”
Just as I was trying to grasp the absurdity of whatever that was happening, I noticed a fire growing in size. The town’s church, located on the other side of the street, has been set on fire.
In the distance, I could hear a loud siren, followed by static voices, chanting.
As I snapped out of my own thoughts, suddenly the lights started flickering. I knew I had to hide. I ran to one of the bathrooms, hiding inside a stall.
Not long after, the lights stopped working completely, and I heard loud blood curling shrieks coming from the hallways.
I knew those creatures could sense my presence, feeding off of my fear and despair. It’s almost like they know what’s inside of my head, and how helpless I feel. It can’t be any other way.
As I was hiding in the stall, I heard a loud bang at the bathroom door and something came inside. It growled, and started searching for me. I thought I was done for. As the creature got closer to my stall, I felt a deep sense of dread in my heart, like I was suddenly stabbed with a dagger.
The creature stopped in front of the stall where I was in, and I leaned back into the wall, holding my breath. My heart started racing, as that thing scratched at the door, sniffing around. After a few moments, a loud siren echoed through the hospital. The creature rushed through the bathroom door, and for a moment, I was safe.
As I regained my breath, the lights turned on. It was time to go forward. I exited my hideout, and went back on the road to salvation.
Something was…off about those hallways. As I walked further, I felt like time suddenly stopped existing, and had the sensation of walking into nothingness. I glanced at the note, in order to make sure I was still on the right path, but I couldn’t know for sure.
Then, out of nowhere, I saw a woman sitting in the middle of the hallway. She was sobbing quietly, and couldn’t resist the urge to check what was going on with her.
As I rested my arm on her shoulder, she turned her head around and looked at me. Her eyes were so full of pain, and I could feel we both shared the same despair of being trapped here.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“I guess so. I know how to get out of here, but I’m too afraid to go alone. Do you want to accompany me to the exit?”
I agreed.
As we walked together, she pointed her finger at a rusty metal door at the end of the hallway.
“That’s the way out”, she said.
Just as we got close, the same loud siren from before could be heard outside, followed by the lights flickering.
“We need to hurry”, she whispered.
I rushed to the door and grabbed the handle, but it wouldn’t move.
The lights ran out, and I started to kick at the door, in an attempt to break the lock. I could hear loud growls throughout the hospital, and loud steps coming towards us.
“Come on…come on! Just open!”
I couldn’t bear the thought of being disembowled by those creatures right at the end. I was so close to getting out of that abyss. I had to find a way to open the door.
One of the beasts came rushing towards me, and I pulled out my flashlight, directing the beam towards its skin. The beast screamed in pain, and ran away.
The woman suddenly came with a crowbar, giving it to me. I didn’t waste any time in cracking the door open, and without any hesitation, grabbed the woman’s hand, as we got out of there.
The light coming from outside was so powerful it blinded me, and I recall passing out.
Suddenly, I woke up alone, in an empty and cold valley, engulfed in a cold, unforgiving fog. As I looked around, I saw a woman dressed in a white gown, with long, black hair blowing in the wind.
She slowly walked up to me, like a corpse dragging its feet. As I caught a better glimpse of her face, I quickly noticed her eyes … bloodshot and full of sorrow. Staring into them made me feel a deep sense of dread grasping every inch of my soul. She was so full of pain and hatred, and I could notice she was crying. Tears of blood streamed down her cheeks as she got closer and closer.
“Hello?” I uttered.
There came no answer. She just stood in front of me, still as a tomb, like I was looking at a picture from ages ago.
Suddenly, she started shaking uncontrollably. I could hear the bones in her arms and legs cracking and snapping, as they got longer and longer, with razor sharp claws at the end.
The pale, dark haired woman which was sitting in front of me became unrecognisable. Her head malformed into an abomination, with jaws full of sharp teeth like knives protruding forwards, and empty, dark sockets replacing her eyes.
She twisted her head and growled loudly, the sound echoing and distorting constantly. I felt so powerless, trapped with whatever she was into a realm of agony.
Her screams were so loud I could feel my eardrums shattering, and everything went dark.
As I woke up, I found myself to be inside my home, lying in bed.
Was it all just a dream?
I got up from bed and looked outside. The fog was gone, and it wasn’t snowing anymore. I thought it was over.
I could have never been so wrong in my entire life.
It suddenly hit me. The last rule.
Don’t trust everything that you see or hear, as this place will try to deceive you. If you fall for its tricks, you will never get out of this hellish abyss.
I froze in terror. I just broke the last and most important rule.
I didn’t have time to think about what I just did, as the loud siren pierced my ears and I passed out.
I woke up in the same hospital as before, but everything was changed.
Everywhere I could look, there was blood and human remains.
I panicked and started to run through the hallways in order to find an exit from the hell pit I found myself in.
I could hear a mix of human screams of death and otherworldly growls coming from each direction.
I could get a glimpse of a figure in the corner of my eyes. I’m pretty sure that what I saw wasn’t human.
The thing started to run after me on all fours, hungry for my flesh and shrieking in anticipation.
As the ear shattering screams echoed through the hallways, I felt the putrid smell of rotten flesh in the air.
The electricity suddenly stopped working, and I was left in the dark abyss with whatever was out there.