Hell Room (1st)

I woke up to the acrid and awful stench of death.

At first I thought I had woken up in a drunken stupor from the previous night’s hectic antics and had passed out in some stranger’s bed room. I quickly tried to gain some steadiness in my sight but that option was quickly cut; I was in total darkness. I extended my hand out and felt a cool, hard surface; cement. I sat up, and instantly there was a pounding pulse in my head, the kind you get when you eat your ice cream too fast. A jolting sensation flushed through my body. I tried to stand up; my body not cooperating with me as the jolting sensation flourished through my legs making them weak. I sat back down. I felt dizzy and the pitch black wasn’t helping. I was starting to feel uneasy. Minutes passed till I attempted to stand again. This time I positioned myself back up against a wall and lifted myself up, knees instantly buckling down. It took some time and effort before I could finally utilize my legs again with minimal dizziness. I steadily groped around the room until I found the light switch nearby and flipped it on, the blazing light showering me.

It took some time for my eyes to adjust but when it finally did, I was instantly regretting it. Bodies, stripped bare of their flesh, dangled from the ceiling. A sudden strong and pungent stench rose like mist and hovered in the air. I was in shock. I backed against a wall and stared out in horror. What was going on? How come I didn’t bump into these before? I surely would have noticed the stench as well.

The bodies were raw; you could see their muscles clearly in the light. I held up my hand to cover my nose from that awful stench. I could count as many as ten, men and woman alike but soon stopped. The sight was unbearable yet I still stared in horror. The silence was broken with the faint sounds of a faucet dripping.

I sink to the floor and bury my hands into my face. I was starting to grow delirious.

I’m dreaming, oh god I’m dreaming aren’t I? Please let me be dreaming.

Wake up, wake up wake up wake up.

This is a damn nightmare, and I have no idea how I got here.

I opened my eyes.

The ceiling lights that shone like a thousand suns had dimmed extremely and was in the act of flickering on and off, casting menacing shadows across the decaying walls.

I need to get out of here.

My whole body becomes too tense for me to even move an inch, and quite frankly, I really don’t want to go near the bodies. I take my gaze off of them and look around. Besides the ceiling lights and bodies, the room itself is completely empty; no windows, doors, or hope. The lights flicker on and off again, sending chills throughout my whole body.

“Okay, just calm down, you can do this

How the hell do you wake up from a nightmare? Whenever I have these kinds of dreams, I find myself waking up screaming, drenched in sweat in the middle of the night. “I’m drenched in sweat already, so doesn’t that mean”…but my thoughts drift off. I look up to the flickering lights once more, the air around me begins to grow cooler and my heart starts to beat faster. The lights begin to flutter rapidly and suddenly the dead begin to thrash around. Their bodies smack into each other (what a sickening sound), spraying blood all over the walls and all over me. I quickly cover myself and begin to whimper uncontrollably.

“Wake up, damnit! Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!” I scream, but nothing happens.

I still hear the dead still thrash about. I dare not open my eyes. I just want to wake up. I want to wake up next to my beautiful wife Amelia and for once, make passionate love to her. I want to hear her scream my name in ecstasy. I want to wake up to my ever-growing pile of bills and statements. I want to wake up to my beautiful Labrador retriever, Roxy, pouncing on me and constantly licking my face. My eyes grow heavy and suddenly I’m falling into a slumber.

BAM!

A sudden jolt pulls me from sleep, and I am once again thrust into the hellish nightmare. I wake up, still half drunk and still half crazed. In front of me, the once dangling dead are now gone. Only pools of dried up blood are left in their wake. The ceiling light has now become steady but the air is still chill. And I am still in this hellish nightmare.

I slowly get up and cautiously examine the dried up pools of blood. I turn around and notice that the décor of the room has changed; what was once brick walls had now become metallic material. As I examine more pools of dried up blood, I notice a plaque against the opposite wall.

That wasn’t there before. Why haven’t I noticed this before? Surely I would have seen it.

I come closer to the plaque and notice it’s covered in blood and rust. The words “Against all wishes and dreams come undone, the path of the dead will be fun” are etched into it. Below it, a miniature clock, roughly the size of my fist, begins to move its hands in an eerily fashion and lands on twelve ‘o clock.

This doesn’t make any sense. I tend to the other walls but find nothing of the sorts. I begin to pace back and forth, never taking my eyes off of the miniature clock. Two hours pass and soon enough I tire myself out, back up against a wall and collapse. It’s only 2:04 unexpected sleep begins to take over me…

I am in an endless field of greens and flowers. The sun beams down above me as I bask in its warmth. A warm breeze dances across the infinite meadow, the trees in the distance joining in the festive. I crane my head up to see the billowy clouds etching their way across the blue neon skies. I am dreaming. A calm, secure feeling overwhelms me, and I frolic throughout the nearby sunflower patch. The gleaming yellow giants welcome me, and join with me as well. All is peaceful. I feel careless and young. I am dreaming…

But the funny thing about dreams is that they end too quickly…and they’re not as real as we might hope to be.

I wake up to screaming. Wide awake, I stand up and the walls around me begin to shake and rumble. The ceiling lights begin to flicker and my heart begins to race.

Across from me the wall collapses and vanishes in a veil of dust and debris. The smell of bitter death pours out and the screams become clearer and louder. The screams of a woman engulf me and suddenly stop. The dust begins to fade away and a gaping hole is revealed. I step closer and on the other side of the hole is a similar room of fashion. I carefully step into it, and adjust my eyes to the forming darkness around me. The stench is unbearable. Slowly, with one hand over my nose and one hand stretched out, I begin to take smalls strides as I blindly try to explore my new surroundings. It takes a while combing the room around me but I finally manage to flip the lights on. A blaring light emerges from the ceiling and I have little time to react before it temporally blinds me. Shielding my eyes, I slowly try to take in my surroundings. Apart from the strong, blaring ceiling lights, this room is exactly like the other one. The walls are made of the same metallic material and the cement floor is burdened by dirt and grime.

Exactly like the room before.

I groan in disappointment and make my way back till a clicking noise forces me to turn around. Right in front of me, the walls begin to slide open and reveal a dark, narrow hallway.

Do I really want to go through there? (sigh) What other choice do I have?

I enter the hallway and immediately notice a change in the interior. Instead of the metallic walls, and grime infested floors, I’m surrounded by chain link fences, metal pipes and slick steel floors. I make my way towards the end of the hallway and with each step my growing fear eats at me. The temperature drops rapidly the further I go. All of a sudden, the terrifying screams of a woman once again pierce the air and I let out an exasperated gasp.

“Help me, god please…oh god.” A woman wails. I start to follow the voice, eventually picking up pace.

“Momma...momma where are you”, she continues to shout but her words trail off.

I finally come to a wooden door, half open and the handle smeared with blood.

I reach for the handle but stop as the woman screams much louder and disturbing than before. A shudder flows through my body. Do I really want to see what’s on the other side of this door? My hand shakes as I slowly turn the door knob; sweat dripping from my forehead.

As I’m about to open the wooden door, the woman stops screaming and an eerie howl penetrates the air around me.

I can’t take no more.

I charge blindly into the room.

I crash into the room and with its back to me, stands a tall, disturbing figure cloaked all in black with scrawny, elongated arms that almost reach down to the grimy floor. Cowering beneath it, a woman with mangy hair and tattered clothes is fastened to a sleek metal table. I stand horrified at the sight.

“Help…me…”

The woman attempts to say more but her voice just trails off. The cloaked figure ignores my sudden presence and reaches over to a nearby small table, it’s freakishly long arms moves gracefully and without any effort, it picks up a large, glistening knife oozing with a dark substance. Her eyes widen and she furiously thrashes about. The cloaked figure reaches out to the woman’s mouth with its free hand and gropes inside. With a swift motion, the creature violently yanks out her tongue and flings it against the wall, (that sickening noise once again) blood splattering everywhere. The woman gurgles and chokes as blood rapidly fills her mouth and flows down her neck.

All of this happens so fast that I don’t even remember backing up against the wall. I try to scream but nothing comes out. I am paralyzed and I can’t move. The creature, with the glistening knife in it’s the hand, turns around and finally notices me. Massive stitches cover its oval shaped head, the eyes are shut with wire and its small jagged mouth twitches. It slowly walks towards me, its elongated arms dragging at its side.

As it gets closer, a raw stench fills the air, the kind of rotten meat and milk. The creature stops right in front of me, lowers its head and begins to howl.

I look at the woman on the table and she tries something but gurgles out blood instead. I think she would have said “I can’t help you…I’m sorry.”

I close my eyes and cover my ears to shut out the screeching as it gets louder and increasingly disturbing. I try to think that this is all a dream and soon enough I will be waking up.

“Wake up! Damnit!” I scream. I can feel the creatures breathe on me and I can distinctively hear the woman gurgle out more blood and the scraping of metal against cement. I scream and scream some more.

The howling suddenly stops. Silence.

I open my eyes. The creature before me is gone but the woman on the table is still there. She begins to weep and tries to beckon my attention but I’m still paralyzed to move.

I force some movement in my feet and I make my way towards the woman.

As I get closer, my heart races.

Oh god, the stench is unbearable.

“It’s okay. I’m going to get you…” I begin to say but before I can utter another word out, the woman’s eyes widen, blood spurts out of her mouth and the table rumbles and the woman is seamlessly ripped apart at the stomach. Blood splatters everywhere; across the floor, across the walls and on me. I stand horrified covered in warm, thick blood. The table begins to churn again and both her arms are yanked out of their sockets. Her screams have silenced and what’s left is just an orgy of blood, intestines, guts and limbs.

My whole body is completely paralyzed. The only noise is that of blood dripping, the hum of the lights above and the splatter of the liver that suddenly drops to the floor.

I don’t remember how long I stood there, eyes widened and a trembling body. I don’t remember how long I was in that nightmare. After what happened, I went back to that very first room; clothes stained with blood and dirt, and just lay helplessly on the floor in the fetal position. Had I gone mad? I was surely terrified, but I was also beginning to think that this nightmare wasn’t really what is seemed to be.

What I saw was never going to go away and as I was dozing off, I couldn’t help but wonder what my wife and family were doing. It was a Sunday, I remember, and they would be getting ready to celebrate my 30th birthday. Yeah, it was my birthday. How could I forget? I remember celebrating with my friends that day before; they had thrown me a surprise party and invited everyone, even Matthew Sanford. That creep. I remember going out to buy more cheap beers and a bottle of vodka for Amelia. I remember taking my eyes off the road for one second. I remember seeing that little boy cross the street. I remember veering off the road and….

I remember waking up into a nightmare.