Echo Night (Horror/suspense)
((This is a long one, so grab some popcorn.))
Echoing Insanity
Somewhere in the dead of night, a horrific scream broke the eerie silence. A young man awoke with a throbbing pain in his head. "Ugh... Wh-where am I?" He ran his fingers through his hair. It was caked over with blood. He couldn't see very far in the dark, but he could tell he wouldn't be going far. He was in a cage. There were weird grumbling sounds all around him. Suddenly, a light flicked on and the grumbling turned to shrieking. The room was filled with cages which were occupied by disgusting creatures. The cage next to the young man held what looked like used to be a person, or more so, more than one person.
It had both of its arms, along with two more stitched onto each of its sides. It's looked like it was cut open and then surgically closed up several times, and there was a head, a babies head, sewn onto its neck. But where the beasts natural face should have been, there was a nauseating sight. It was gone. The face part of the head, was completely cut off, despite this the creature somehow released a hideous screech.
Already wrought with fear, the young man turned his head away, only to see something more frightening. There was a huge man, or what looked like a man, standing outside his cage. The thing was at least eight feet tall and it was MASSIVE. Its skin was a grayish color and in its hand, it held a bloody serrated knife. It eyed the young man for a moment before walking over to the cage door and unlocking it. As it began walking towards him, the young man started to scream. The lights went out again, and the screaming continued. From all around the room, there were screams, until finally, only the young man's scream could be heard, and then it suddenly ceased.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes. Was it all just a dream? he asked himself. No. The blood was still on his head, and he wasn't in his house. The room he was in now seemed allot more inviting. It looked like an apartment room of some sort. The man realized the pain in his head was gone, and he was wearing something different. He was wearing cargo pants, with a cheap looking jacket and a red T-shirt underneath it.
The young man stood up from his bed and moved towards the door, hoping to god that whatever had just happened was all over. As he reached for the knob, he was startled by the sound of someone’s voice. "Hello Christopher," it said. Chris turned to see a man sitting in a plain wooden chair, sipping something red out of a wine glass. He was wearing an expensive looking white suit with eyes as red as the wine in his glass. "Who are you?" The young man asked. "What's going on?"
The man chuckled, the acoustics of the room giving it a demonic sounding echo. "All in due time Christopher." He replied. "For now, I just want to talk." He took a sip from his glass.
"When you pass through that door, you will be in an apartment living room. Search around before you leave, because once you exit this place, you will be entering a world entirely different from your own. Things will happen that will ruin your mind. You will see the most horrific things that the mind can possibly fathom. Be careful. Don't assume that the impossible won't happen. In this world, that is far from the truth. You will know what is happening when the time comes. Now, you wanted to know what’s going on. You may ask one question, but keep it simple. I have limits on what I can tell you."
Chris thought for a minute. "I was in a room." He said finally. "There were cages everywhere, with.... things screaming in them. What was that room?" The man chuckled again. "A swing and a miss Christopher. I am truly sorry, but I cannot tell you that, and you have extinguished your one question."
Chris and the man made eye contact, only for a moment. The man's red eyes seemed to pierce his mind. "Forgive me Christopher, but I have things I have to do now. I do hope we will get to meet again." He stood and began walking towards the door. "Ahh yes, your previous question. You may call me Virgil for the time being."
Virgil continued walking slowly towards the door. Chris realized that he couldn't move at all. As the strange man walked past him, the room grew dark. A shadow fell over the room. Virgil opened the door, revealing something that resembled a prison. He turned around and gave Chris a hair-raisingly creepy smile. "Good luck Christopher." With that, the door closed, and Chris fell to the floor.
Immediately, he scrambled to his feet and opened the door. The prison that was behind the door before was gone. Now, there was a carpeted room. There was an old looking computer in the corner of the room, and a kitchen to the left side. On the counter, there was a large knife. Chris grabbed it without a second thought. Strangely enough, there was a pocket in the jacket that the knife fit perfectly into without cutting it. He started opening all the drawers in the kitchen, hoping to find something useful. All of them were empty except the last one. It creaked as he pulled it open, revealing a pen. Not quite as useful as he thought, but you never know when you may need to write something down. As Chris shoved it in his pocket, he felt something else. It was a phone. He flipped it open but his hope of contacting anybody faded away quickly. There was no signal but at least it was a good source of light.
Now he checked the computer. There was nothing on the desktop. On the bar on the bottom of the screen was a program he didn't recognize; Echo. He clicked on it and quickly jumped back as it opened. It was a picture of an eye. There was nothing special about the picture other than the fact that it left a haunting image in Chris's mind. It was a deep blue color, with an almost mournful look to it.
BANG!
Something hit the door. Hard. Pieces of the door splintered off. The door was hit again, followed by something that sounded like the cross between a bull and an elephant. Blood seeped out from underneath the cracked door. The roaring sound continued, and the door took another hit, miraculously surviving the impact. Then the roaring sound seemed to get farther away.
Chris moved cautiously towards the door, realizing there was no other way out of the room. He inspected the door. Somehow, the hinges remained on the broken and cracked door. Chris extended his shaky hand towards the knob. He opened the door and gazed at something that made him gag. On the ground, there was a dog, flayed of all its skin and ripped in half. The ground was drenched in blood. Whatever was hitting the door was gone now. Chris was now standing in a hall. To the left, there was pitch black darkness, and to the right, an open window with a fire escape. Suddenly, the roaring sound returned, this time much closer. Without looking back, Chris jumped out the window, landing on the fire escape. He climbed to his feet and quickly started down the ladder. The monster continued its frustrated cries above.
He was about half way down the ladder when he heard it. The sound of metal breaking. He looked up and saw the silhouette of the beast. Without warning, the ladder snapped from somewhere above. Chris cried out in fright as he fell, only to smash into the ground. He looked up to the sky. There was no moon, no stars. He slowly faded out of consciousness.
Chris was only out for a minute. He hoped again when he woke up that it was all just a dream. No such luck. He was still lying in the alley. After another minute of sitting in the dark, he heard a loud thump a few feet away followed by the insane shrieking. Chris pulled himself to his feet and removed the knife from his jacket. Out of the darkness, he could see the figure of the beast slowly walking towards him. It was one of the creatures of from the cage room. The creature released a booming howl and started towards Chris, who instantly turned and sprinted out of the alley.
As he rounded the corner, the first thing Chris noticed was that there were no people or cars on the streets. A few dimly lit street lamps illuminated the streets. The monster was closing in on he fast. He could see a door on one of the buildings (Strangely enough, it was also the only building with a door on it.) Hoping it wasn't locked, he grabbed the door handle and swung it open, slamming it shut as he entered. Almost instantly, there was another howl. Something slammed Chris into the door, knocking him to the ground. It was another of those human-beasts from the nightmare room. This one had only one head, but both of its eyes were sewn shut, and it had some sort of animal’s legs. It wailed horribly in his face.
Before it could make its killing blow, Chris brought the knife up over his head, and jammed it into the top of the creature's cranium. It let out a shrill cry and then grew limp. Chris threw it to the side and stood up, shaking with a combination of fear and adrenaline.
It was to dark in the room for him to see anything, but he could tell something was wrong with the room he was now standing in. The air felt.... moist. Chris reached into his pocket and took out the cell phone. It filled the room with light and clattered to the floor immediately. The walls were covered with some sort of fleshy substance. The smell of the room was almost enough to make one vomit. The room was completely square with a hallway across from the door, the only option Chris had at the moment.
He walked slowly down the hallway, the phone brightening more of the stomach-like wall. Chris's foot nudged something on the floor. He looked down and saw that the ground was completely covered with blood, the source of which was a decapitated body lying on the ground. Chris released a faint yelp as he stared at the body and ran in the other direction, trying to keep the food in his stomach.
He came to a fork in the hall. Neither side looked particularly inviting, so Chris took a right. After a few moments of walking, he found a dead end. On the wall, there was a dead man with a large bolt through each of his wrists and through both his feet, pinning him to the wall. It looked like whoever put the man against the wall wanted him to look like Jesus. There was a hole in his forehead with dried blood covering most of his face. Chris reluctantly moved towards the dead man. He didn't know why, but he wanted to check and see if there was anything useful on the body.
As Chris rifled through the dead mans pockets, he glanced up at the mans face for a split second. He's definitely dead he thought to himself. Almost as soon as he thought that, the mans eyes opened and stared blankly at Chris. A short moment later, it screamed. Chris fell backwards.
The man ripped his arm off the wall, leaving most of the muscle and skin hanging from the bolts. It fell forward, smashing its face against the fleshy ground. Christopher's mind wouldn't let him run. He was paralyzed with fear. The thing on the wall was struggling to pull the bolt out of its feet. Finally, there was a sickening shhhhlick. The man-beast stood up and began sluggishly making its way towards Chris, who still couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Once it was about five feet from him, the monster lunged at Chris. It wrestled and clawed at him, still screaming. Intentionally or not, the man smacked the knife out of Chris's hand. He punched it in the side of the head with all the strength he could summon under such conditions, knocking it back slightly. The monster retaliated with a fast claw to the face, leaving four bloody lines just underneath his right eye.
Chris grabbed the things face, pushing it back as far as he could before sliding out from underneath it. He grabbed the knife and rolled over, sliding the blade into the mans chest. It kept screaming. He threw his leg over him, and continued stabbing. Head, chest, arms, Chris stabbed the beast anywhere he could find room for another wound. After nearly two full minutes of destroying the monster, He stood up, leaving the knife jammed in what was left of the dead man's stomach. Chris hunched over and grabbed his stomach. After several seconds of coughing, he vomited.
He pressed his arm against the wall and panted violently. Something on the floor caught his eye. It was a wedding photo. In the picture, the man he had just re-killed had his arm around an attractive looking woman in a white dress. The woman looked oddly familiar to him, but he couldn't seem to find her in his memories. Chris turned back to the corpse. For the first time, he noticed something incredibly chilling. The man was wearing cargo pants, a jacket, and a red T-shirt; the same thing Chris was wearing.
"Who are you?" he asked, gazing at his fallen enemy, then the girl in the photo.
He wanted to leave this experience behind him as fast as he could. He headed in the other direction. A cold sweat ran down his face as he continued into the darkness...
Chris treaded cautiously through the intestinal hallway, the phone and blood drenched knife still in hand. It felt like he had been walking for hours, although it was more likely that it had only been ten or twenty minutes. Every time he blinked, Chris saw the decapitated man and the thing he had just slaughtered. Every step he took, his feet made a disgusting squish sound. Chris was already stricken with paranoia.
In the distance, something was reflecting the light of the cell phone screen. It was a ladder. About twenty-five feet up, there was a small metal hatch jutting out of the dripping flesh on the ceiling. Chris made his way to the ladder, hoping that whatever was up there would be better than this place (Although he was almost certain it wouldn’t be.)
Almost as soon as he touched the ladder, he heard a familiar shrieking coming from a ways behind him. “****!” Chris swore under his breath. He pulled himself up the ladder quickly. The screams were getting closer. There was more than one this time. When he reached the top and grabbed the handle of the hatch, it would not budge. He could hear his pursuers getting nearer and nearer. “Come on,” He pleaded with the handle, pushing against it as hard as he could.
Tink, tink, tink
Something was coming up the ladder now. Finally, the handle smashed forward, pulling Chris off the ladder and leaving him suspended from the hatch. The scream was feet below him now and closing fast. He placed his feet back on the ladder and pushed the hatch open. The light nearly blinded him, but he climbed out of the tunnel and into another strange area. He heard the screech once again and turned around to see one of the monsters crawling out of the hatch. Chris brought the bottom of his foot down firmly down on the creatures head. To his surprise, the head caved in on itself, leaving chunks of meat on his foot. The beast fell from the ladder, taking down the rest with it. Chris slammed the hatch shut, once again leaving another horrific experience behind him.
The hall he was in now was a lot brighter. The ground was covered with about an inch of snow. The first thing Chris noticed was an open door near him, revealing a roofless hallway, again, the only option he had at the moment.
The snow crunched beneath Chris’s feet. He rounded the first corner, to see the man in the white suit, Virgil, sitting in the same plain wooden chair smiling at him.
“Not bad Christopher. You’re doing quite well so far.” He said darkly. “I have been allowed to answer another question, but make it quick. I have other ‘guests’ to attend to.”
Chris’s immediate thought was to ask him about the other guests, but he felt he had a better question. “I came across a dead man pinned to a wall down there.” He started. “Who was he?”
The smile faded from Virgil’s face. “Perhaps you aren’t doing quite as well as I thought you were. I’ll give you one quick tip.”
Suddenly, there was an unbearable pain in Chris’s temples. He fell to his knees gripping the sides of his head. The world around him started swirling. Soon everything was black.
It felt like a dream. He couldn’t command his own body. He could only watch. It looked like he was in an unfinished church. There were power tools and pieces of plywood scattered across the floor. Chris thought that he was floating in the air, but he soon realized he was stuck against a wall. He was nailed to a wall, just like the man from before. There was a dark figure standing in front of him. Again he couldn’t help but feel that he had seen the man before. “Why are you doing this?” Chris asked weakly (and involuntarily). The man pulled a pistol out of his back pocket. Chris could hear the sound of a door opening. He and the man both looked to the left to see a shocked looking construction worker. “Wh-what’s going on here?” The man aimed the gun, his arm wobbling as if he were drunk. There were two shots and the construction worker fell to the ground, releasing a pain-filled moan. The dark figure moved slowly towards him. Rather than shooting the wounded laborer, the man grinned evilly. He picked a circle saw off one of the pews and smacked it against the ground a few times before the blade guard shattered, then he turned on the saw. Everything was blurry, but Chris could vividly see the man holding the victim up and forcing the saw through his neck. Seconds later, the figure was in front of him again. He raised the pistol to Chris’s head and fired. Everything went black.
Seconds later, Chris snapped back to the snowy path. Virgil was gone now. Part of the wall was missing now, revealing a large snowy field. He could see a small compound off in the distance. After a few moments of trying to figure out what the hell just happened, Chris took his first step towards his next test…
After ten minutes of walking through the oddly warm snow, Chris made it to a walled off building. The front gate was broken down and the bars were twisted and mangled. The building, no more than a seven by seven block of cement with a door, was a dusty beige color. Chris stepped over the remains of the destroyed gate and moved towards the door, opening it with a familiar, cautious motion.
Chris now found himself standing outside of an elevator. The button panel had a bloody handprint smeared down the surface of the wall. Reluctantly, Chris pushed the door open button. A bell sounded from somewhere in the room as the elevator doors slid open. There was another monster sitting in the elevator, gnawing on the remains of what was probably once a person. It had it’s back turned, and didn’t seem to notice Chris, who was now sneaking slowly up behind it with the large knife pulled over his head, ready to strike.
Squish
He stepped on some part of the annihilated corpse, attracting the attention of the beast just less than a yard in front of him. It turned and lunged at him with ungodly speed. Chris’s hand lost grip of the knife, leaving it lying in the elevator. The monster had him pinned to the ground now. With all his effort and strength, he quickly flipped the monster backwards, sending it rolling out the door. Chris slammed it shut, ran into the elevator, picked up his knife, and hit the ‘down’ button. The doors closed and he could feel himself descending into the earth once more.
Then there was a crash from up above; the door to the building breaking off it’s hinges and falling to the floor. A few moments later, another sound could be heard; The sound of the unholy creation above him tearing through the elevator doors. After a few more seconds, the roof of the elevator was smashed inward. Chris could hear the beast grumbling and screaming atop the remains of the elevator. One of it’s sewn on human hands clawed through the broken roof, followed by two more. The sweat trickled down Christopher’s cheek.
Oh God, hurry up, please hurry up
Ding
Finally, the elevator was at it’s destination. The doors opened and Chris ran out a few steps, only to stop and stare in a shock that was unessential after everything he had been through so far.
There was a room with computer terminals on every wall, each of them displaying the same picture of the eye that Chris had seen in the apartment, only it was a little….. different. There were several red lines surrounding the iris which now carried a black outline all around it. The mourning in the eye had now become anger. Every screen stared blankly at Christopher, followed him, penetrated his soul. He couldn’t stand to look at the screens, so he just tilted his head towards the ground. The floor was covered in blood and pieces of flesh and bone.
Again, there was the sound of metal tearing, and the beast landed behind Chris, growling ferociously. As he turned, it was already lunging at him again. He reflexively jabbed the knife into it’s once-human face. The dead pile of sewn-up human parts brought Chris to the ground and lay lifeless on him. He rolled out from underneath it, trying to ignore the blood that was clinging his shirt to his body.
I wonder what made these people like this...
From where Chris was, there was the computers in front of him, and a door to both his left and his right. He took the right first. He knew that the Latin word for left was sinister, and that didn’t really sit well with him at the moment.
Upon entering the room, he immediately regretted his decision. There was the body of what was apparently a police officer lying in the center of the room. Around it’s waist, there was a can of mace, a radio, a pistol, and two clips. The gun was the first thing to capture his attention.
When he was near the body, he bent down and pulled the belt off. The mace was empty, not that it would have provided much help anyway. All the clips, including the one in the pistol were fully loaded, which was good, because Chris hadn’t fired a gun in a very long time. Next, he was going to try the radio.
“Hello.” He said. “Can anybody hear me?” After a few seconds of static, a familiar voice answered him. “Keep up the good work Christopher, but please, do try to remember why I put you in this position.”
Chris had no idea why he was put in this position. Before he could reply, the static ceased, and the radio went dead. “****…” As he turned back to search the body for more supplies, he was startled to see that it was standing tall, staring at him. He immediately raised the gun and trained the sites on the dead man’s head. The man swatted the pistol out of Chris’s hand with little effort. As he reached for his knife, the man grabbed him and threw him against the wall, sending the knife once more out of his reach. He looked up at his attacker as it approached him. It’s shadow engulfed him. It was at this moment that Chris realized that there was nothing he could do.
The massive structure that was the dead cop bent down and lifted Chris off the ground. He threw him ragdolling at the wall to his left. He hit the wall at such a speed that he was dazed for several seconds afterward. The police officer lifted his leg, prepared to bring it down onto Christopher’s nearly lifeless body. It took all the will in his soul for him to roll over to avoid the crushing blow. The monster bent down again, but this time simply smacked Chris, although still sending him flying face first into the concrete wall. By some miracle, He managed to make it to his feet and face his attacker, only for it to grab his right shoulder and the back of his head and slam him into the ground.
The wall on which the knife lay against was less than two yards to Chris’s left. He dragged himself towards it. Suddenly, he could feel the man grab his leg. He curled his fingers around the large knifes handle, just before he was flung to the other side of the room again. This time when the large abomination made it’s way towards him and grabbed him by the shirt, Chris plunged the knife into it’s wrist, completely impaling it’s arm. It let out a loud, deep, pain-filled roar.
It let go of Chris’s shirt and held it’s wrist in pain. This struck him as odd. The other creatures he had fought didn’t seem to feel the pain. This one seemed more… human.
Don't be fooled. he told himself. This prick is just as much of a monster as anything else in this place.
Once again, Chris was gripped by a deep urge to stand and fight. He swung his arm forward, slashing the knife across its face. Again, it release it’s cry of pain. It was DEFINETELY something different than the man he had fought before. Finally, Chris jammed the knife through its heart, which was a surprisingly anti-climactic killing blow. After what that thing had just done to him, Chris didn’t expect it to go down as easy as it did. The body pounded against the floor, once more a dead shell of a former person.
Although he won, Chris was far from unhurt. His nose was undoubtedly broken. His left cheek bone hadn’t faired well either. His right knee already had a dark purple color to it.
Chris retrieved his gun and moved back into the computer room. This time, he was greeted by the smiling face or none other than Virgil on the screens.
“Well done, as usual Christopher. However, it is unfortunate that killing all of our pets doesn’t bring you any closer to your goal.”
Chris slammed his hands against the panel. “What IS my goal!?” Virgil ignored the question.
“It seems that I may have made an error in judgment when I chose to place you here. Do not fail me Christopher. Everything depends on it.”
Now Chris was more confused than he had been throughout his entire journey. He thought he had done quite well for himself. Suddenly, there was another sharp pain in his temples. Everything became blurry as he fell to the floor. He was seeing from somebody else’s perspective again.
He could see that he was running out of a dark alley, a Glock held tightly in his hand. He emerged from the alley to see the dark figure from the other vision running down the sidewalk. This time however, his features were slightly more distinguished. Chris could tell by the back of the man’s head that he had light brown hair. His skin was lightly tanned.
“Get on the ground!” Chris (or the person who’s perspective Chris was watching from rather.) shouted.
The man turned, revealed a pistol, and fired three times at him. All three of the shots went wide.
“This is officer Gomez,” He said into his radio. “I have shots fired on West Layton and Diamond, requesting back-up.”
Chris realized now, that he watching from a police officer’s point of view. Is this the thing that just attacked me? Chris asked himself.
The cop took off after the dark figure, who fired a few more times, missing once again. Officer Gomez raised his gun and fired. The bullet burst right through his target’s leg. The man fell to the ground. As the officer approached him, there were two loud gunshots. Gomez fell to the ground, blood seeping through his bullet-pierced vest. His senses began to fade. The last thing Chris could hear was the far off police siren and the sound of a screeching car…
Chris awoke with his head lying on the blood crusted floor. When he stood up, he realized that the picture he had found on the man from before was on the panel next to one of the screens. The pen from the apartment was there as well. The words Do you remember yet? Were scribbled across the front.
He hadn’t thought about it for a while, but the woman in the picture looked VERY familiar. Chris felt like he knew who it was, but he just couldn’t put a name to the face. One thing was certain. He had met that woman before.
One of the computers was missing as well, replaced by a hole in the wall. Nowhere else to go Chris thought to himself as he reluctantly climbed onto the panel and crawled into the hole, cell phone in hand.
Almost the second Chris entered the hole, the smell hit him. It was the worst thing he had ever smelled. It was like the combination of old eggs and dead fish; it was the smell of rotting flesh. He could see a light flickering several feet in front of him. When he entered the dimly lit room, Chris started to feel light headed. It was the room from his dream. There were cages only three feet apart from each other covering the floor and two more hanging above each of them. There was only one difference between the room and his dream. The cages were empty. All of them.
Chris walked cautiously through the room. He passed the cage he occupied in his dream. He could see the door that the huge grey man had come through. The pistol was shaking in his hands as he moved closer to the door. There was the sound of someone (Or more than likely someTHING) moving around behind it. The screams from his nightmare and his journey all returned to him at once. The massive grey man with the knife, the person who was pinned to the wall, each and every one of the creatures he had seen in the past few hours, all roaring in his mind at the same time.
Chris opened the door. The large rectangular room was lit with two small lights several feet away from each other. In the corner, there was somebody huddled against the wall. The shadows hid most of their body and all Chris could make out was their silhouette. He took a few steps into the room, the gun trained on the person in the corner. As soon as he entered the light, the person gasped and bolted out of view. Chris fired out of sheer surprise, putting a small hole in the wall where the person had once stood. He could hear a door open and then quickly slam shut so he immediately took off towards the door, hoping to catch the person (For what reason, he didn’t know.)
Chris swung the door open. His prey was nowhere to be found. Now he was standing in a room that looked like a prison. Off to the right, in a shroud of pitch black smoke, there was more shrieking, and the sound of feet hitting the ground. Chris turned to go back through the door, only to find a thick, solid wall. He turned back to the dark smoke, pistol aimed into the cloud, the creatures drawing nearer with every second…
One of the beasts emerged from the dark shroud. Chris pumped two shots into it’s torso, which only slowed it down for a second. Another ran from the smoke. He finished off the first with a lucky head shot. It fumbled forward and flipped over onto it’s back. There were more creatures coming from the smoke. The second reached Chris, only to receive a swift kick to it’s distorted face and a shot in the head. He began backing away from the shroud, firing wildly at the abominations moving towards him with every second.
Finally, his back hit the wall. He counted five, and could still hear more coming. The creature closest to him lunged at Chris, holding him against the wall. The feral beast swung wildly at him, beating the side of his head. It opened it’s mouth and shrieked angrily. As it began moving it’s head closer to Chris’s, he pushed the thing to the ground and fired point blank at it’s temple.
Three more had emerged from the smoke, and the other four were almost on top of him. He shoved another clip in the pistol. There was a shill cry to his left. He kicked out the monsters leg (or arm rather) and shoved the knife deep into it’s face. One grabbed at him, swiping his legs off the floor. It bent down and seized Chris’s left arm in it’s mouth. Chris released a cry of both pain and rage. The creature ripped out a chunk of his skin and reeled back onto it’s hind leg like a horse, roaring ferociously. Chris fired four shots, one went wide, two hit the arm and the torso, and the other smacked into the monster’s face.
There were still five more and he was already on the ground. There was a sharp pain in his left leg, another starving beast had clamped it’s jaws onto his leg. He swung his right leg at it, not only removing the best from his leg, but a piece of his calf as well. As he fired once more at the beast, killing it, another grabbed his arm and threw him backwards (unknowingly saving Chris from his fate). He slid across the smooth stone floor, stopping just outside the cloud of black smoke. He looked up and was greeted by the eyeless face of another monstrosity and a mixture of blood and saliva dripping onto his forehead. It tried to bite him, but Chris pushed it’s head away, and forced his knife into it’s throat.
The other four were almost to him. He emptied the few bullets remaining in his clip into one of the beasts running at him. The others were at him before he could reload. He dropped the gun and raised the knife. Chris stuck the knife into the first one’s chest, just as it grabbed his jacket with one of it’s many arms. It jumped back on it’s hind legs like the other had done, this time pulling Chris up with it. He pulled the knife out of the monster and continuously jabbed at it until it fell to the ground, landing on top of the other two and dropping Chris back on his feet. Although the pain that shot up his leg was extreme, he managed to barely stay up.
Before the two remaining beasts could get out from underneath it, Chris grabbed the gun and popped another clip in. He shoved the gun to the head of the closest hellion, blowing pieces of it’s head onto the other corpse. The other had pulled itself out from underneath and unleashed a familiar scream. Chris took aim, and fired. The bullet hit square between the eyeless sockets. The beast tumbled over backwards. In a berserk rage, Chris continued firing, over and over into the lifeless body.
The pistol clattered to the ground. Blood was pouring out of Chris’s wounds. He removed his jacket and used the knife to cut off both of the sleeves, which he then wrapped around both his arm and his leg. There were smears of blood all over the floor, both his and the hellspawn’s. His vision was blurry due to loss of blood. His senses started fading. The next thing Chris knew, his head was slamming against the ground.
After several hours, Chris awoke. His whole body ached. He could feel his sleeves clinging to his dried wounds. The smoke was gone. In the hall beyond, he could see the person who led him there, the woman from the photograph, with her back against the wall and a terrified look on her face. Chris limped forward a few steps.
“No! Please, no!” The woman shouted in fear.
“It’s okay,” Chris said weakly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No! Don’t!” she replied.
She continued her frightened babbling as Chris drew closer to her. “I’m not here to hurt you!” Chris said. When he was close to the woman, close enough to touch her, she said “Stay back!”. Chris opened his mouth to once again, tell her he was not going to hurt her, but was halted. The woman raised a gun to his head. He ducked down, and heard the explosive pop of the gun. Without even thinking, not even a single thought telling him to stop, he rose up, and slid the knife into the woman’s stomach, removing it immediately. He could barely comprehend what he had just done. He had just unconsciously killed a woman he didn’t even know. But he did know her. He had somehow always known her, and yet, he still couldn't identify her.
“Please…” she said in the weakest of voices, before falling to the ground. Chris dropped the knife. The last of his sanity had just died with the young woman. Rage began coursing through his veins. He cried out.
“Where am I!?” He could feel the world spinning around him. “Why did you bring me here!?” His voice echoed in the empty room. “Why the **** am I here!?”
“Where are you!? Answer me god damnit!”
The room went black.
“Christopher!” yelled a voice sternly. Suddenly, Chris was standing in air, above a waterfall. A lush forest covered everything as far as he could see, a beautiful contrast to the places he had just seen. Virgil stood in front of him. Chris tried to speak, but his body wouldn’t follow his commands.
“I thought you would be able to achieve your goal.” Virgil said darkly. “I thought you could save yourself. But you have failed Chris. You have failed, and for it, you are lost.”
Chris suddenly cried out. “What is my goal!?”
Virgil glared at him through his red eyes. “Your goal Christopher,” He began. “Was only to remember.”
The pain returned the Christopher’s temples. The picture of the eye from the apartment flashed in his mind, along with the sound of a woman’s scream. The forest was swirling below him, and again, all was dark…
The car pulled up to the fancy looking resort in the early morning. A dark figure stepped out of the vehicle, pulled the slide back on a pistol, and shoved it in the back of his pants. The man walked slowly in the darkness, towards the entrance. He passed the front desk, pushing the elevator button. The doors slid open, and he entered, hitting the button for the sixth floor.
The man walked down the hall, stopping at a door marked 113. Slowly, he knocked on the door and removed the pistol. As soon as it opened, the man slammed the handle of the gun into the nose of the man who opened the door.
He pushed him into the room, the gun aimed at his head. There was a woman laying in the bed terrified. “Chris!?” She said. “What are you doing here!?”
Chris didn’t answer. He pressed the pistol against the man’s stomach and fired. The woman in the bed screamed as loud as her lungs would allow. “No, please, no!” She cried in terror.
Chris stood over the bloody form of the man laying on the ground. He turned his head to the screaming woman. “You were supposed to be mine.” He turned the gun to her and fired four times. The screaming ceased.
Somebody was standing in the doorway. Chris quickly grabbed the man off the floor and pointed the gun at the figure in the doorway. The man in the doorway looked terrified. “Get out of the way.” Chris ordered. The man took off down the hallway.
He dragged the man out of the room and to the elevator. The few people brave enough to come out of there rooms to check dared not interfere with the psychopath’s plans. Down the elevator and into the parking lot, Chris pulled the barely alive man back to his car.
As he drove down the empty street, headlights turned off, he pondered on what he was supposed to do with the man laying unconscious in his back seat. Far in front of him, he could see red and blue lights moving in his direction, moving towards the resort. Thinking quickly, Chris pulled off into a parking lot. He knew this part of the city. The parking lot he was in was for a church that was burned down months ago and was currently in the process of being rebuilt. Chris drove the car behind the unfinished building and dragged his hostage inside.
There were pieces of wood and power tools scattered all over the main room, which was dominated by a large decorative crucifix. An evil grin spread across Christopher’s face. He pulled the man closer to the cross, and looked around the room. He found a pile of large construction screws on one of the tables. The man moaned as Chris lifted him upwards, placed his hand on one side of the cross, and started hammering the screw through his wrist and into the finished wood.
He finished attaching the man’s other limbs to the cross.
“You ****ing traitor.” Chris mumbled quietly. “You knew that she belonged to me Anthony! You knew she was mine…”
The man opened his eyes. He could hear footsteps to his left.
“Wh-What’s going on here?” asked a horrified and shocked sounding voice. Chris quickly turned and fired at the construction worker. He fell to the ground and moaned loudly. Chris smiled again, as he walked over towards the wounded man. He picked a circular saw off the floor and smashed the safety guard against the ground. The whir of the spinning saw mixed crudely with the sound of flesh and bone being cut and destroyed. And the short tortured pleas. The workers head rolled off, and as if nothing happened, Chris returned to the other man.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked weakly. Chris raised his gun to the man who had been his friend just weeks earlier and fired. Anthony was dead.
Suddenly, he heard another voice. “Get on the ground!” Without looking, Chris took off through the door the construction worker had come through. He could hear the cop’s footsteps behind him.
The alleyway flashed by him. “Stop!” He heard again. Chris turned and fired three times at the cop. All three shots missed. After a few moments, there was another shot, this one from the cop. Chris could feel the bullet tear through his leg. After he hit the ground, he rolled onto his back, gun still in hand. As the cop approached, Chris fired twice. Both shots hit the patrolman, penetrating his kevlar. The cop stumbled backwards, and fell to the ground, his badge gleaming in the rising sun. Chris limped back to his car, swung open the door, and took off down the street. There were several police cars already flying down the street.
Ten minutes later, Chris was out of the city, fleeing from his pursuers. The fuel gauge caught his eye. “****!” he said angrily. The needle was pointed fairly close to the E. There had to be at least ten cars chasing him. He gunned it down the interstate highway, driving on a cliffside road. He knew there was nowhere he could run to. He stopped the car and ran to the edge of the mountain.
The police crouched behind their cars, guns trained on Chris. “Drop it!” they barked. Chris was pointing the pistol towards the crowd of police surrounding him.
There was a flash, and Chris was back standing above the beautiful waterfall. He grabbed the side of his head. The blood was no longer dry. Again, the eye flickered into his vision, only for a split second, the angry demented one from the computer room. The vision returned.
With nowhere left to run, nothing left to live for, Chris snapped the gun towards the armada of police cars. Before his finger could reach the trigger, there was a long session of guns cracking and bullets flying past him. Chris shook and twisted as the speeding projectiles tore through his body. Blood was pouring out of his mouth as gravity pulled him downwards, over the cliff side.
Another vision of the eye; this one was filled with a combination of rage, hatred, and pure insanity. They were his eyes.
Chris could feel himself falling from the air. The water below him faded to black. He could see it turn to the cold, dead, snowfield he had passed through before. He fell into the dark tunnel where he had fought the first man. He fell down from the fire escape into the alleyway, hit the floor but still he continued to fall.
Finally, he felt the ground below him. He was in a cage, in a room surrounded by horrific monsters, the remains of people with limbs sewn onto their body. Among them, was a huge, grey-skinned man, wielding a large serrated knife. It entered the cage and moved towards the young man ominously.
The sounds of screams broke the eerie silence. The kind of scream you here moments before one’s life ceases to be, and then abruptly ends. This scream however, did not end. It continued, and will continue. Chris had fought his way through hell, only to return once more, and to never leave again...
Somewhere, a young man awakens in a room similar to an apartment room. He was wearing a cheap jacket, cargo pants, and a red T-shirt. He stood up, and moved cautiously towards the door. There was a man behind him, sitting in a plain wooden chair, sipping something red out of a glass. He wore an expensive looking white suit. The young man was startled by the man’s spontaneous greeting. “Hello Anthony.”
