Down
Naturally, it took only a moment for them all to start walking down the stairs. After all, nothing bad had ever happened in a story about people going into a mysterious basement in the middle of the night. Either way they were far too drunk to actually think.
The smell of an old basement permeated the air.
Daniel suddenly awoke, his head throbbing and his vision blurry. His mind swirled, not to mention the horrible pain that came from what seemed to be a lump on his head. He groaned and tried to blink, but his vision was hesitant to clear itself. He tried to figure out where he was and what was going on, and tried to feel around him, but his fingers were completely numb. He wasn’t even sure if he was moving them at all.
He could hear fuzzy murmurs of voices, as if someone was talking to him through a veil. They sounded... Inhuman, in a way. Perhaps that veil wasn’t a physical one so much as something greater..
Words flared, searing into his mind like the sun goes through your eyes when you close them on a sunny day. It felt like his mind, not his brain, was being branded with a hot iron.
ONE OF US.
Daniel’s ears rang with loud screaming that he soon realized was coming from his own mouth. Howls of immense pain bellowed forth from his throat. Suddenly, the pain subsided. The last of his screams finished echoing in the room. He sat, panting for a moment, before he took in his surroundings.
It was the room.
The room. That room, where he kept finding himself. The very same concrete, with all its crooks and crannies. All of the paper pasted onto the walls. The very same bed, that he was now buckled onto with leather straps binding his wrists, chest, and legs.
He didn’t need to struggle against his binds to know it would be futile. His heart was racing though, and he could feel adrenaline pumping through his veins. He had to do something. He couldn’t just sit there! Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait.
A door on the left side of the room creaked open. The door itself was massive and metallic, it looked like it was nearly as thick as his head. Reinforcements made of a dark steel lined its outside. Clearly, they wanted to keep something out. Or in.
Two men stepped through the door. One of them was wearing a brown suit with a sort of unclean white undershirt. He was balding, but his hair was a healthy brown color. There were noticeable bags under his eyes. The other was much less discernible, wearing a white Hazmat suit with an opaque glass pane for him to see through along with yellow gloves and what looked to be some kind of briefcase.
Daniel gulped. Breaths came to him in short, curt bursts that began to make him feel lightheaded. Or maybe that was the lightbulb that had just turned on. Or maybe it was just something about the air.
Written by OakenFerret on 18 September 2022