I have lived in the same house since I was four years old, and for the most part, it’s always been pleasant living here. I have many fond memories of this place, but recently things around here have started changing.
All the people who used to live around here when I was younger have since moved away or, in some unfortunate cases, they’d passed away.
When my next door neighbours moved away around two years ago, I was surprised when nobody moved into their house.
Three months had gone by and the house and was as empty as the family had left it. I wondered if they were doing work on the house, when out of nowhere, a family moved in.
They lived in that house for a total of four days, before they just packed all of their stuff in the middle of the night and swore to never come back here, and just like that, they were gone.
I never saw them again, so I assumed they’d gone for good.
There were a few more people who attempted to live in the house, and it just became known around here that, no one would stay in that house for more than a week.
I’ll admit, I was curious, but I never worked up the courage to actually go into the house, I’d thought about it several times but, something about the house just felt.. wrong.
That’s why when Mr Clark, a seemingly normal middle-aged man moved into the house, I didn’t expect him to stick around for very long.
When two weeks had passed and Mr Clark was still living in that house seemingly unbothered by it, I was surprised.
I thought about asking him how he was doing it, but I knew I’d look crazy for that, so I just left the man alone.
However, one day whilst I was talking to an old friend, Clark approached us, and asked us if we’d like to come have a coffee with him in his house, we were both hesitant to say yes, even though Clark had somehow managed to live in that house for four weeks now, the house still made me and my friend, who’s name was Thomas, feel extremely uneasy.
Despite our discomfort, we agreed to have a coffee with Mr Clark and followed the man into the house, the house was extremely cold inside, which surprised me, it was so cold in fact, I could see my breath.
Thomas looked at me, Clark turned and pointed to a door that was left slightly ajar, “Go through that door and take a seat, I’ll be through with coffee in two minutes.” He said, a slight smile appearing on his face, I nodded, and I walked through to what I believe should’ve been the living room, followed by Thomas.
The room itself however, looked like it hadn’t been lived in for decades. That shocked me, considering the longest the house had been abandoned was six months.
The wallpaper was peeling, the ceiling was covered in a dark layer of mould, the air in the room was damp and cold. The sofa itself seemed to be the newest thing in the room, it had a few scratches, originally, I would’ve assumed that these were cat scratches, except, upon further inspection, I noticed there were needles sticking out of the sofa.
I quickly pointed this out to Thomas, he looked at the needle in disgust, and carefully pulled it out of the sofa, “fuck” he said as he pricked his finger and dropped the needle, I frowned, and picked up the needle, carefully avoiding pricking my own finger.
I looked at Thomas, I was shocked when I noticed the strange yellow liquid seeping out of his finger, I backed away, the liquid slowly began to pour from Thomas’ eyes and nose as more time passed, I watched in horror as Thomas’ body began to twist and contort in the most inhuman ways, I almost screamed, but before I could make a sound, I felt a hand wrap around my mouth and felt cold steel press against my neck.
The blade began to cut into my neck, and I felt the warm blood begin to flow down my body, and then suddenly, everything went black.
When I awoke, there was no sign of Thomas, and my neck was completely fine, no sign of blood or of a cut.
I was in Clark’s basement, my back resting against the concrete floor, I stood up cautiously and looked around the room.
Just then, I heard a sound behind me and I turned around, I stood face to face with Mr Clark. “What the fuck do you want from me?” I said, but even as I spoke I could hear the fear trembling in my own voice.
“I mean you no harm Matthew, however.. there’s something I’d like to show you, if you’ll let me. You can choose to say no now, and you will wake up in your bed and you’ll forget who I am, you will forget who Thomas was, and everything will be as it was before. Say yes, and you will finally understood what happened to Thomas.” He said looking at me coldly.
I paused and thought about it, I wanted to know what happened to Thomas, but I was scared of what the answer might be, what if.. what if after I see whatever Mr Clark wants to show me, I’ll never leave this basement? What if I never get to leave this god damn freak show?
Despite my fears, I looked into his eyes and nodded. “Show me.” I said, my voice was far more confident than I felt.
Clark nodded, “very well.” He said, and with that, I found myself drowning in a putrid brown fluid, and then I was falling, covered in the brown liquid and falling to god knows where.
I landed hard on my back, I sat upright and before me stood Mr Clark, except, he wasn’t Mr Clark.
His eyes were pitch black, and instead of fingers he had claws, he stood at about 7’0, towering over me.
“Where are we?” I asked looking around, Clark just looked at me as I struggled to my feet, before finally, he pointed to a sign.
“Welcome to earth” I was so confused, what did that mean?
“What does that mean? How is this earth?” I asked confusedly, Clark frowned.
“That place that you call earth? That is hell, this is earth. When human’s describe hell, this is the place they are speaking about, but.. well, this place is much worse than any human could’ve imagined it to be.”
Mr Clark said, to my surprise, I found myself standing in the middle of what looked like a church, stood beside me was this demonic version of Mr Clark.
“Look at how they are dying.” He said, pointing to a group of people, their bodies twisting and turning, their eyes and noses leaking that same yellow mucus I’d seen leaking from Thomas.
“That’s what.. happened to Thomas..” I said in disbelief, Clark nodded.
“It is.” He replied, he frowned, “it was suppose to happen to you.. but, the chemical didn’t work in your body. So instead, here we are. Unless you want to meet the same fate as your friend, you must tell this story. Do you understand?” Clark said looking at me, I nodded quietly.
So, here I am, sharing this with you. I’m not sure what that chemical was that they were killing those people with, and honestly I don’t think I want to know. But.. death isn’t what it seems. We’re already in hell, and afterwards is something much, much worse.