I gasp and swat something away from my face. It's small and furry and quiet shocked to see me moving. A rat. There's a terrible noise all around me and I'm extreamly uncomfortable, like I slept in wet clothing. I'm also cold. Where the hell am I?
My senses slowly come back to me. I'm laying on my back by an old bus stop in an abandoned community. It was abandoned after a landslide destroyed several houses. Since the potential for landslides to keep happening existed, people moved away. No one was reported dead in the landslide, because no one found the bodies.
It's raining pretty hard. I'll catch a cold if I continue to stay out in this mess. I lift myself up and move toward the nearest building. Unfortunately the door is locked, so I try another. A few attempts later, I find an unlocked house and head in. Its so empty in here that it drives me crazy. Even some dreary scenery or blood stains would be welcome. The emptiness seems more painful than visions of horror.
I can only vaugely remember why I'm here. I lost....something. I think I lost a fight, be usually that would entail me dying. So maybe I lost something here in the village? That would be awkward, since there's only one place I would have left anything. There's no reason not to check, though.
One of the houses destroyed in the landslide was mine--a public school, of sorts. During the storm, we all hid in the basement. The landslice covered the entrance, so no one could esscape. Luckily, there was a side entrance that was uncovered which I esscaped through.
I pause. "That's...wrong."
I quickly move to where I remember the side entrace being. No deaths were reported, and yet I remember people dying. Everyone but me. So why am I alive? I reach the worn down, wooden door. I attempt toopen it but it seems to be jammed. It's not too surprising considering it's had years worth of water damage. I give it a hard tug and break the handle free. Just the handle, because the door is locked.
A terrible feeling runs down my back. There was only one person with a key to this door, which was obviously the home owner. Why is it locked if we left through it? My judgement tells me there's some deep, dark secret down there waiting to be uncovered, and my nerves scream for me to run. My foot ignores both of them and kicks the door in. Immidiately im assailed by the strong smell of death.
I knew it would be there. People died in there, and stayed dead. No investigation was done because no one was reported dead. No one was reported missing either. The others and I were vargrant students of the home owner, a man who called himself "the Master". As kids, we thought it was a pretty cool name, so we went along with it. He would preform amazing tricks, using magic and illusions. He said he knew magic, and I, for one, beleived him.
I wanted to learn, too, so I sought him out as my teacher. We all did, and that's why we came to live in his basement. Nobody misses an orphan from the town in a village miles away, so we were pupils who could learn and not be a liability. Unfortunately, the landslide trapped us all until the house, and since we couldn't get out, we died of starvation.
"That's wrong!" I insist in the racid darkness. I'm alive. I'm certain the squishy thing i just stepped on was at one point too, before the landslide. I should be dead too, because the door was locked. "The door was locked, right?"
"The door is locked!"
"Let us out!"
"I'll kick it down!"
"Master unlock the door!"
Several voices, the voices of children, assail me as I ask about the door. This place is dangerous. The latent magic in the air is unstable, and if I do something wrong, who knows what could happen. It's also dangerous because I only vaugely remember what was in the room. Every other step something crunches or squishes. Its our bodies I'm stepping on, but if I use my magic to light up the room, not only will I see them, but the latent magic could react.
"K-..kay?" I apprehensively call out my best friend's name.
"I told you not to remember, Andy..." She replies. Her voice brings our fight back to me.
"Sorry, I'm not very good at listening." I scowl into the darkness. The "Kay" talking to me isn't Kay. She died with me in the landslide. We all did, but somehow we all lived and become the abberations we are now. For whatever reason, everyone but me required other lives to sustain their own, and that's why I'm hunting them down.
"Kay."
"Andy-...Andril. You never did like Andy." She continues to speak cheerfully.
"How long have you been down here?" I inquire.
"I stayed down here after we all left. I didn't want to leave. I was afraid of what I might do to people." Kay turns away from me. I can't see her, but her voice tells me which direction she's facing.
"And then people found the house." I press.
"I was so hungry, Andril...I couldn't stop myself. It appeared in the newspapaer, huh?" She asks about how I found out of her whereabouts.
Naturally, one would avoid this place if it was where they died. By that same logic, if they were afraid of settling somewhere else, they would have no where else to go. A small newspaper clip headlined a missing construction crew in a landslide in the area. No bodies were found, and funeral services had already been held. I knew better, though.
"You really shouldn't be down here, Andy. I'm so happy to see you, but...I'm so hungry, too. Please...I don't want to." The strain in her voice tells me that her cheerful demeanor before was an act. The pain is easy to discern. Unfortunately, I'm blind in this basement, and she can see clear as day. She's also appereantly faster and stronger than me.
"I'll leave, now, Kay. Only because I can't stop you like this. I'll be back next week." I threaten,
"I'll look forward to it. since you opened the door, I should be able to feed on the rats that come to chew on the corpses. Gee, that sounded dour..." She pouts.
"I'm going to stop you, Kay." I threaten again, backing up slowly and making my way toward the light shaft.
She wins again. For now....
No comments:
Post a Comment