-——————–
Thank you for all your advice and feedback on my first post. So I wanted to address some things before I begin, first of all, I am born and raised in Canada. To some of you thinking that my parents passing might somehow be related, it’s not. They died in a car crash according to my grandmother.And for people worrying about me going to the forest alone, I won’t, I’ll be going today, I wasn’t able to yesterday, and you’re about to find out why.
I got a call last morning from the police department that went something like this.
“Hello, this is the police department, am I speaking with Marc?”
“Hi, yes this is Marc, how may I help you?”
“We want you to come in today for questioning.”
“Is it about the cabin?”
“I’m afraid I can’t share any details, could you come in by 12 AM?”
“Of course.”
I grabbed my car keys and slipped out of my pajamas into something more appropriate- and told my wife I’d be going to the police station. My son was bummed out again that I was leaving so early. Usually, we played together on the weekends.
“I’ll make it up to you, okay buddy?”
While that did make him brighten up a little bit, he was still sulking.
Looking at my son like this, his dishevled bed hair, crumpled tom and jerry pyjamas. It reminded me of my own childhood a little bit. It reminded me of a bittersweet memory. The last time I saw my parents.
It was also the weekend, a Sunday. Usually we’d sleep in on Sundays and then go have fun. But they woke me up early this day. Said they had to get to work and that I’d stay with grandmother. I sulked too back then. And I remember the exact words my father told me.
“I’ll make it up to you when I’m back.”
That made me brighten up a little, and I also loved staying with grandma.
I tried thinking about them every day since, I desperately wanted to remember their faces. Their smiles. But I was young, I hadn’t made many memories. So overtime, their faces grew blurry in my mind. And now, I can only see the pictures my grandmother has shown me of them.
“Daddy?” Liam places his small hand onto mine. I was in a daze again. That’s been happening more and more often where I just lose track of what’s happening around me, and disappear into a train of thought.
“I’ll be going now Liam, we’ll play later, okay?”
His eyes sparkled like the ever starry night sky. Liam nodded solemnly, I had a feeling that nod wasn’t exactly for me, but more for him. As if he made a decision. I watched as his lips curled into a smile, and he ran off back into the living room.
I heard my wife laugh from a distance, and when I looked over, she was shaking her head in amusement.
“I’ll be going now” I chuckled out a goodbye and walked out the front door.
I tried to rack my brain during the short fifteen minute drive to the station, tried to remember the boy from my dream. But all my thinking only resulted in seeing a blurry version of my dream, that only grew more blurry and confusing the more I thought about it.
Once I arrived at the station, I noticed that the parking lot was unusually full for a Friday, and as soon as I walked inside, I was met with two large men dressed in black.
“Follow us.” They said in a commanding voice, and I obliged, falling in pace behind them. We passed through a series of corridors and a couple flights of stairs. Eventually, we ended up in front of an ellavator, which was strange since we should be at the very back of this building judging by how long we were walking.
The smaller of the two men in put a card key and the elavator door opened, the taller one motioned for me to step inside.
“The combination is 1 4 7 3”
I nodded, looking around this futuristic elavator, it had no floor buttons but a combination pad instead. I input the combination, and the door began closing, the two men turned around and began walking in the direction that we came from. The elavator buzzed to life and began descending, and what I thought would be a couple second ride, actually lasted a couple of minutes.
It eventually slowed to a stop, and another set of doors opened up behind me instead, catching me by surprise. I was met with a dimly lit hallway that seemed to have no end. Both walls were lined with doors, each one about 20 feet apart.
One of the first doors were open, and I noticed a middleaged woman with brown hair tied into a bun standing in the doorway, motioning for me to come over. My feet began moving me in her direction as I took in the craziness of my situation.
When I was within a couple feet of the woman, I realised that I recognise her. She was one of the people I spoke with when I walked out of the forest a month later, I don’t really know why I remember her so clearly, but I do.
I think her name was Laura. She stepped aside and let me enter the small room. It looked like your average interogation room, two simple chairs with a small square shaped table between them, and on the opposite side a one sided mirror, a door to the left of that.
I sat with my back to the mirror, and she sat in front of me.
“Do you remember me?” She asked.
“Yes, you were one of the people looking for me when I went missing, Laura?”
“Yes, it’s nice to see you doing well, Marc.” She pulled out a folder out of her leather bag and placed it on the table.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“Because of the cabin?” I answered, leaning foward and placing my arms on the table.
She nodded, “It is related, but not the reason.”
“Why then?”
“You went missing for a month in a forest, as an eight year old, and came back completely fine, better than fine actually.” She began going through her folder.
“The forest is around 709 square miles, there were over a hundred volunteers that were looking for you, some going as far as a dozen miles deep into the forest.”
I leaned back and took a deep breath.
“Yet you weren’t found, isn’t that strange?”
I nodded.
“Then, a month later, you just walk out of the forest, looking perfectly fine, as if nothing happened, with no memory of the past month.”
She pulled out a picture from the folder and slid it to me across the metalic surface of the table.
“We searched this cabin a dozen times, the basement too, there was no sign that you had been there.”
My eyes grew wide. “I recalled something about that cabin yesterday..”
Laura stopped going through the folder and looked me in the eyes, urging me to go on.
“When I was taken..”
“Taken?” Laura interrupted me.
“This is going to sound crazy, but I didn’t wander off into the forest, someone or something that looked like my grandmother took me to that basement.”
She began writing something down.
“I remember being fed some sort of soup, and then promptly passing out. When I woke up I was tied to some table, naked and cold.”
I swallowed my saliva. “I remember having this stinging feeling on my chest.”
“I don’t know how long I was there, but at some point I heard voices. People calling my name, they were in the cabin, I tried to scream and shout, but nothing came out.”
She stopped writing and looked back up at me again. “Can you remove your shirt?”
That request caught me by surprise. I stood up and pulled my shirt off. Laura stood up to and walked over to me. “There doesn’t appear to be any scarring.. Can you point to where the stinging pain was at?” I moved my palm and placed it on the left side of my chest, near my heart.
“Somewhere around here.”
She examined the area some more and sighed in disappointment. “You can dress again.” She walked back to her folder and sat down, beginning to write again. I put on my white shirt and sat back down too.
“What did you see in the cabin yesterday?” She leaned back, holding a pen between her fingers, her legs crossed.
“Shelves full of glass jars with various human remains in them, a pile of dead bodies, some rotten beyond recognition, while others appeared to be newly deceased, there was that god awful stench of rotting bodies too.”
She began writing again. “Why did you seek out the cabin?”
I crossed my arms and sighed. “I had a dream about the stairs leading down into that basement, so I decided to check it out.”
Laura nodded, but she wasn’t looking at me, she was looking behind me, at the mirror.
“Did you see, hear or feel anything strange in the forest?”
“How did you know?” I was baffled. She knew so much. All of this was so strange, had I told this story to an average policeman, I’d be admitted immediately. But Laura seems to believe me, she seems to know more than she’s letting on.
“What was it?”
“I felt a presence, as if something or someone was following us.”
She began writing again. “What are you writing?”
“Merely docummenting our conversation.” She answered in a monotone.
“Then what is that camera for?” I pointed with my chin to the top left corner of the room.
Laura stopped writing and looked towards it. “It’s broken.” Then without missing a beat, she asked another question. “Do you remember anything else?”
I leaned back and thought about it for a moment. Do I remember anything else?
“Last night I had a dream of that cabin, and that basement. There was another boy, maybe my age, that came to help me.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Another boy?”
“Yes. He looked all dirty, with messy brown hair and torn clothes, but it was just a dream so I don’t kn-“
Laura interrupted me with another question while sliding another picture to me. “Was this him?”
The picture showed a young brown haired boy, wearing red overalls and a big, wide smile on his face. His eyes were obscured, as if blurred out, I couldn’t make them out.
“I’m not sure, I didn’t get a good look at his face in my dream.”
Laura was simply looking at me, looking into my eyes, it felt like she was looking into my soul.
“Who is he?”
She took the picture back and placed it into her folder. “Another boy that went missing during that time period.”
“Did he return like I did?”
Laura shook her head, and continued writing. The silence between us was defeaning. I was tapping my foot on the ground in a nervous tick.
“What is going on here? How is my disappearance relevant to the dead bodies discovered in the basement of that cabin yesterday?” I finally let my curiosity get the better of me.
Laura continued writing, not looking up to face me. I slammed my fist on the table in anger. “Dammit, tell me something!”
That short outburst of anger made her look at me, or rather behind me, she looked at the mirror and nodded. And then, a lock clicked, then another, and another, and soon, the door beside the mirror was beginning to open.
A man a little taller than me, wearing a black suit and a black top hat, with a wooden cane in hand stepped out. But what caught my attention the most wasn’t his atire, it was his eyes. They were a captivating red color. He wore a smirk on his face.
“Nice to meet you, Marc, my name is Lucifer.”
Had I not known better, I would’ve assumed that he’s the devil himself.
Before I could get another word in, he spoke again. “The bodies and body parts you speak of.. they’re all gone. By the time a team of investigators got to the cabin, the remains of it had collapsed into the basement, and the only thing that remained inside from what you have described was the stench of dead bodies.”
I swallowed my saliva. “You mean someone covered it up?”
“We do not know what happened, the only evidence piece of evidence we have is the collective report you, your grandmother and the two officers have provided.” Laura answered.
“Where are those officers now?” Lucifer spoke up and asked Laura.
“They were questioned today, and both have asked to stay home this weekend.”
“Send someone to check on them.” Lucifer commanded.
my eyes were fixated on his. Those eyes, I remember having seem them before.
“Have we met before?” I asked Lucifer.
“I don’t believe we have.” He answered, not bothering to look at me.
No, no, I definitely have seen those eyes before.
My memory started playing out in my head, the basement, me being tied up, scared of the heavy footsteps sounding above. And then that disheveled boy, his wide smile. His red eyes.
I remember how he climbed down and undid my chains. He handed me my clothes which were laying on the ground and I dressed myself up. The boy took hold of my hand, and we ran. We ran out of the cabin and into the woods, I remember it was dark. I tripped over and fell, getting a deep bruise on my cheek.
“Come on, it’s following us!” The boy yelled at me as he held out a hand to pick me up.
I heard an inhumane scream or maybe a howl sound behind us.
We stopped running and hid in some bushes. I remember feeling an intense pain in my chest, I felt like I was dying. The boy held my mouth shut so I wouldn’t scream in pain. I looked down to see my clothes stained red. Everything was red, and it was still flowing.
“You’re free to go, Marc.” I felt a hand on my shoulder, Laura was dismissing me.
What was that? It didn’t feel like a memory, I wasn’t remembering, it was like I just was there. I placed a hand on my chest.
“Marc?” Laura was waiting by the door. I looked around, Lucifer was gone.
I walked past her and back into the elavator.
“The code is 8 4 7 3” Laura informed me and gave me a half smile.
I input the code and then spoke as she turned around to walk back. “Those red eyes. I remember the boy had the same red eyes.” Then the elavator doors closed.
I don’t know why I told her that. But she didn’t chase after me, I was led back to the front of the station by the same two men dressed in black. When I went outside I noticed that it was dark. That made absolutely no sense, the interview, interogation, or whatever you wish to call it, it didn’t take longer than 30 minutes, then how did it get so dark so fast?
“How long was I down there?” I asked one of the black men waiting for me to leave the station.
They both looked at each other with wary eyes. “Nine hours.”
“What?” I whispered under my breath, in disbelief.
How did I lose 8 and a half hours of my time?
This was too much, I took a deep breath and walked to my car. I still needed to go buy my son something to make it up to him. I barely got to the store in time and had a couple of minutes to run through, I decided on a cheap lego set, he loves legos.
When I got home my son was already asleep, and my wife was watching something in the living room.
“Where have you been?” She asked me in an angry hushed whisper.
“It took longer than I thought at the police station.”
“You missed all of my calls and texts!” She snarled at me.
Huh? I pulled out my phone, there were indeed over a dozen of calls and texts. “I’m sorry.” I apologised, giving her a kiss on the forehead.
“Liam drew something for you, its on the kitchen counter, also dinner’s in the fridge, you can microwave it.”
I nodded and apologised again, walking over to the kitchen.
I placed the lego set on the counter and looked around for Liam’s art, it was upside down. I turned it around and I got chills all over my body. I took a sharp breath, trying to proccess what I was seeing.
There appeared to be two boys, green all around them, one of the boys had his hand on his stomach, and the stomach was all red. The other boy had red eyes and held his hand over his friend’s mouth.
Liam drew what I had seen in my vision just an hour ago. He drew me and the red eyed boy hiding from whatever was chasing us. It was a child’s painting done with crayons, so it was hard to make the details out, but having seen this scenario just a little bit ago, it all made sense in my head.
I shuddered in fear of what this could mean. Is Liam in danger? Are we all in danger? What the fuck is going on?
I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about everything that had happened the day prior. Nothing made sense. How could I have bled so much when we ran away, but have no scars now? Why did Liam draw that picture? Where had he seen it? Who is Lucifer? Why does the boy that saved me have his eyes?
I’ll be going to wake up Liam as soon as I finish writing this post, I need some answers and his painting might be the key to everything.
-—————-