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Prologue
The room was dark, only vague images could be discerned in the blackness. A table, maybe a mirror in the far corner—something reflective enough to impress a small void on the opposite end of the room—otherwise Mark couldn’t be sure. The room was large, chasm-like from the sound of his timid shuffling.
Why am I shuffling again? I can’t quite remember…
He didn’t remember much, in fact. His head throbbed with a bitter heat, the kind that reminded him of summer days spent in bed and cruelly punctual mornings spent popping the lids off Ibuprofen bottles as if they were packages of tic-tacs.
How did I get here?
The darkness was disorienting. Coupled with the relentless pulsing of what felt like his very brain, it was enough to make Mark sick. He struggled to focus, but silhouettes washed in and out of his vision in a maddening tide. He would sit, but some instinct told him to remain upright. The best he could do was grope forward and hope for some convenient support to rest his body against until the whirlpool in his head calmed to a mild ripple.
Though he felt tense, his arms were almost alarmingly loose—they swung about drunkenly before him, slashing at the nothingness around him with crude efficiency. Meanwhile Mark’s legs struggled to keep up.
One foot after the other, just like mams taught you.
His whole lower body felt stubbornly rigid—every hinge all but refusing to budge. He thrust his torso forward, continuing to flail his upper extremities, and his heavy legs slowly edged ahead.
That’s right, baby steps ol’ buddy. No reason to freak out.
There was reason enough for Mark to be scared, though. Someone else was moving around in here too. Not doggedly creeping as Mark was, but scampering about with such liquidity that Mark felt more sure of the shadows swimming about him than of the whereabouts—or even existence—of this mysterious individual.
Mark listened intensely for discernable movement. Nothing. All he could hear was the static crackle that he could only assume was rain falling outside somewhere. He guessed that the disjointed nature of the sound, as well as the dull hum that complemented it, could only be the inventions of his own agonized brain. After all, if the room could be sloshing about in a soup of ambiguity, who was he to assume that the sounds accompanying its constant ebb and flow would be any clearer? Nonetheless, Mark kept his ear trained for the sound of this strange person—or thing—moving around him.
At last one of Mark’s fishing arms landed. His right hand caught hold of a rough surface just a couple feet in front of him. The concreteness of the object before him, whatever it was, energized Mark’s obstinate muscles and, as if every part of his body were giving a collective shout of rejoicing, he lurched forward and enthusiastically took hold of it.
Oh, thank God.
He barely had time to celebrate this small victory, though, as the sound of movement behind him brought the foreboding nature of his surroundings flooding back. Mark gripped tighter onto the object before him—what felt like a large rock podium of some kind—and wrenched his head around toward the back of the room. He was hardly surprised to find that he could see no one moving behind him, not even the peculiar artifacts of movement one can sometimes find in the dark were visible. He squinted and strained, but saw nothing.
“Is…” Mark stopped, hesitant to continue, shocked by the sound of his own voice there in the dark. “Is someone there?”
No response. Only a faint chattering and an airy whistle could be heard. Silently willing his ears to hear, Mark could only stare—stare into nothingness and pray.
“I won’t hurt you,” Mark said cautiously, “just please let me know if you’re there… Please.”
Chatter, chatter, chatter, but no words came to sooth Mark’s growing paranoia.
“Listen. If you’re scared, I understand. I don’t know what’s going on here and I don’t know how we got here and I don’t know why it’s so dark and so cold and so…”
Chatter, chatter, chatter.
“Dammit! Talk to me!”
A harsh and bitter moan cut through the emptiness before him. A rasping, gurgling, heaving cry that, though wordless, expressed more to Mark than words could ever say. “Kill me,” it said, “end it now before I have to see, feel, know what happens next.” Mark turned his back to the noise.
What the hell is happening? I can’t take this. I just can’t take this.
In every inch of his body Mark could feel his heart throbbing, pulsing with anxiety and uncertainty. He placed his hand over his chest as insurance that it wouldn’t just burst right out and dance across the floor. His legs shook. His skin felt clammy and cold.
Relax. One breath after the other—mams taught you that too.
He tried desperately to drown out the sound, but the man’s cries refused to be dampened—they echoed from all corners of the room as if the darkness itself were weeping in agony.
“Stop it!!”
Mark closed his eyes tight, wishing to block out the room entirely from his consciousness.
No more. Within me I’m safe. And when I open my eyes, this torture will be over.
“Wrong again, Marky-boy.”
Mark’s eyes sprung open almost involuntarily. Before him, etched in the darkness, was a face. He saw no body. In fact, he saw nothing at all. It was as if the visage before him were made of the very emptiness filling the room. And yet he could recognize its presence, sense its… no, his emotion—and he was smiling.
“You’ll never be safe, Marky-Mark. Not now. Not now that I’ve made my mark.”
The face contorted and a tongue of blue flame licked out from its mouth. Mark briefly saw the shimmer of water and his own faint reflection. The tongue retreated back into its jaws, as the face let out a wild cackle.
1 comment:
and what happens next...? I am wondering!!
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