Entry 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/183e2rp/the_world_between_the_walls/
Entry 2
Another sleep cycle, another intermittent signal, this time our place of refuge is a dented and partially collapsed storage container, jutting from the busted wall of a rusted out warehouse interior, the vaguely unsettling faint odor of baked beans and hydraulic fluid lingering on every surface.
It’s source isn’t something I wish to dwell on at this hour, focusing my remaining energy on this update having finished sewing the lacerations to my jacket, the ones in my flesh unable to benefit from such treatment, lest infection and sepsis end my journey in short order.
Those who assume sharp fangs can only puncture and not slice are truly fortunate in their ignorance, but I’m drifting from the point, last time I had a connection I told you how I first came to find myself here in these halls of the damned, a rats warren of corridors and maze like halls without seeming purpose or end.
Tonight I’ll share with you my first encounter with one of the native inhabitants that call this place home.
* * *
According to my phone it had been over twenty three hours since I’d found myself lost in this place, the majority of it spent exploring the countless corridors and empty rooms behind the doors that lined them.
Many of the paths lead me to abandoned apartments, some with meals long cold and decaying on tables, waiting for owners that would never come home. Others were coated with a sticky dust like residue that clung to my shoes and muffled sound, but also seemed eerily aware of my passage and would extrude thin filaments in my direction, hair-like protrusions that tangled themselves into knots under my high heels and wormed their ways up the walls as if my presence energized them in some manner.
During the recent interval I had also managed to secure myself a child’s school bag, which I’d been filling with an array of various items I’d scavenged to aid in my longevity. A few water bottles, stolen from a fridge in that same apartment, the next one yielding a small first aid kit from a luxury bathroom, the Jacuzzi still bubbling with steaming water, my final prize a dented can of creamed corn looted from the pantry of cramped low ceilinged enclosure, the can opener I’d broken attempting to open it discarded in a side passage hours ago.
Far too many rooms were filled with darkness and non working lights, the void-like abyss a risk I was unwilling to take, the memory of the shadow beyond the barricaded window all too fresh in my mind.
The further I traveled, the less apartment style doors I encountered, the entrances slowly changing to be more utilitarian in nature, hard aluminum panels and steel reinforced handles replacing the wood planks and worn door knobs, polished linoleum and gray carpet degrading to ice cold gray concrete. The lighting overhead was now intermittently flickering fluorescents that nipped at the edges of my vision, worsening the pounding headache I felt growing alongside my need for rest.
The bandaged blisters on my feet from the chafing high heels were an ongoing annoyance, but I had yet to find suitable footwear in my explorations, soccer cleats and snowmobile boots equally bad options, made worse still by being either too small, or comically oversized for my own aching feet.
My thoughts of comfortable footwear was interrupted by the realization of noise, the all encompassing silence now broken by the clear sound of rushing water. I paused at the sound, trying to decide if it had arrived abruptly, or snuck up gradually, slipping in alongside my thoughts until its presence was too loud to be ignored.
With a shrug I decided the answer was largely irrelevant and I hurried forward, eager to find the source. Hopefully running water meant an opening to someplace outside the confines of this area, though my earlier encounter with the flowing darkness reminded me outside was perhaps no safer than within.
After following the noise down long branching paths encompassing two left turns and right, I noticed the concrete was beginning to crumble, giving way to the rusted grates of a catwalk underneath, the inky blackness below making me shiver in discomfort.
A few steps later I found myself stumbling, the rear heel of my right shoe slipping between the grates and nearly twisting my ankle in the process. Muttering a few choice curses about high heels and dress codes I slipped them off and secured them in the school bag, the hot pink canvas shockingly bright amid the dreary grated concourse.
Tentatively I held my breath as I felt the icy cold metal under the balls of my feet, feeling unexpectedly vulnerable without the reassuring presence of leather and rubber between myself and the foreboding surroundings.
Close by, the sound of water continued to beckon, and I found myself with little choice but to cautiously proceed, or turn back and risk yet more unknown dangers beyond the less frequent doors lining the countless corridors.
Ahead the passageway looked to stretch into infinity, the gray walls and slightly curved ceiling merging into a haze of drudgery, the grid of the grating giving me a vague feeling of vertigo as I continued forth, the semi silence all the louder now my striking heels had been silenced.
Before long I noticed a faint flicker under the grating, of something shiny a meter or so down, the light from my phone quickly illuminating the mystery. Water, the catwalk I was upon had a river of unknown depth flowing beneath it, the liquid fast flowing and sloshing against the sides of the walls below, some kind of turbulence deeper down churning the surface in places so it caught the flickering fluorescents. I tightened the grip on my phone at the sight of it, realizing in slight panic that the smooth walls offered no hand holds or other escape should the flooring give out unexpectedly.
With a shudder of unease I crept forward one cautious step after the next, an insistent suction pulling the damp air downwards around my bottom of my feet, the chill of the metal providing sweet relief from growing discomfort. The sensation akin to an endless inhalation of some great far off beast.
I nervously smirked at the absurdity of my thoughts, my attention drawn to the surface of the river ahead of me. The swiftly running deluge was no longer a meter down, but higher now, scarcely a handspan from the metal slats, and slowly, inexorably, still rising.
Biting back a stifled cry of alarm I glanced over my shoulder, feeling retreat was better than pressing onward, only to find the path behind me unexpectedly occupied. A thin patina of dark red blood darkened the grating where I’d stepped, outlining my foot prints in wet stains, the crimson liquid churned into a froth by intertwining masses of slender white whipworms that emerged from several short pale milky stalks as thick around as a man’s index finger, that protruded from the inky liquid blow to almost poke past the slats.
I froze at the sight, glancing down at my feet, screaming in horror and leaping back as I spotted those same white tubers beneath me! I noticed with sickening revulsion the blood slick imprints of my feet, the albino stalks silently sliding forward towards my new resting spot, hungry tendrils jabbing for my pierced and dripping skin.
Turning I ran blindly forward into the unknown, sobbing in terror at the realization the soles of my feet were truly numb, not from the cold iron of the grates as I had assumed, but from being fed upon, by a nameless horror.
The blanket of quiet was now broken by the sickening slap of bloodied flesh on metal as I rushed down the tunnel, reaching out to brace myself against the walls as I slid across the metallic flooring, trying not to think of the horrific trauma I had suffered, or the agony that awaited me once the abominations’ anesthetic secretions wore off.
Mercifully the seemingly endless grating gave way to concrete before my legs lost their strength and I collapsed to the floor in an exhausted heap, glancing back in expectation of continued pursuit. Aside from smeared bloody footprints; the path behind me was mercifully empty
Biting my lip I examined my bottom of my feet, the crust of oozing and drying blood obscuring the true depth of my injuries. Taking a deep breath I steeled myself at what had to come, knowing such injuries were best treated now, while numbness allowed for any necessary debriding, or the pulling of embedded parasites from my body with the med kits tweezers.
Wishing for a stiff drink to steel my nerves I slowly poured the entirety of one of my water bottles over my feet, rinsing clear the gore and laying bare my wounds. Dozens of needle-like holes pierced my callouses and arches , trickles of blood still oozing forth. The injuries seemed clean, almost surgical in nature as I tried not to think too deeply about the situation, only treating the trauma in a detached and professional manner, as I would any other patient back when I worked in the hospital.
A pair of maxi pads from my purse coupled with antibiotic ointment and quarter roll of waterproof tape from the first aid kit made for effective coverings which I hastened to apply, wishing to find a safe place to rest once the pain took hold, rather than crawling down the curving stretch of tunnel before me on my hands and knees. I just needed somewhere secure where I could sleep, and steel myself for the days ahead.
* * *
My dear companion is silently insisting I join them near the fire, a gaze of deep sorrow and loneliness that is no doubt reflected in my own, so this is where I will leave my recollections for now. Darkness willing, next time fortune favors me with a signal, I’ll tell you how I came to meet my companion, and how much we have come to depend on one another in this forgotten place of crawling shadows and darker hopes.