Something After
Chapter Two.
I wandered for no discernable amount of time: seconds, minutes, hours, days, all the same. There were no windows leading to an outside world, revealing the distance. There were no clocks of any sort, leaving me clueless, leaving me with even more unanswered questions. There were no calendars to share the day, the month, the year.
Time was nonexistent in this place, whatever it was. This was a fact I learned quickly without flaw, hallway after hallway, wall after wall, white upon white. The creature's presence from earlier soon faded away into an unpleasant memory, abandoning me with only my mind and the thoughts racing through it, with only the skittering of goosebumps reminding me this peace might not be forever.
The exploration wasn’t going as planned, either. The barren hospital was a curious place, filled with every little thing associated with an infirmary, completely ordinary, except for the fact of the missing doors. There were openings to many shaped rooms scattered about, but no doors. Even more unusual, there were no openings to the outside, no escape routes.
It was as if the only entities that mattered were the winding hallways, running all about, and me, struggling to follow them.
I kept at this endeavor for seconds, minutes, hours, days, until my marching feet ached and the chill of the floor no longer bothered my weary soldiers. I stumbled, on and on, until I reached one thing I thought I would never see here: a door.
It was normal looking, medium sized and made of a rich mahogany. The sight of this door anywhere else would not warrant a second glance, would be passed by without a second thought. The sight of this door here, however, sent a shiver through my spine and made my hands halt their swinging with a sudden jerk, almost a twitch.
As I reached for this doors handle, I couldn’t help but feel I was playing with fire, bright and dangerous.
Time was nonexistent in this place, whatever it was. This was a fact I learned quickly without flaw, hallway after hallway, wall after wall, white upon white. The creature's presence from earlier soon faded away into an unpleasant memory, abandoning me with only my mind and the thoughts racing through it, with only the skittering of goosebumps reminding me this peace might not be forever.
The exploration wasn’t going as planned, either. The barren hospital was a curious place, filled with every little thing associated with an infirmary, completely ordinary, except for the fact of the missing doors. There were openings to many shaped rooms scattered about, but no doors. Even more unusual, there were no openings to the outside, no escape routes.
It was as if the only entities that mattered were the winding hallways, running all about, and me, struggling to follow them.
I kept at this endeavor for seconds, minutes, hours, days, until my marching feet ached and the chill of the floor no longer bothered my weary soldiers. I stumbled, on and on, until I reached one thing I thought I would never see here: a door.
It was normal looking, medium sized and made of a rich mahogany. The sight of this door anywhere else would not warrant a second glance, would be passed by without a second thought. The sight of this door here, however, sent a shiver through my spine and made my hands halt their swinging with a sudden jerk, almost a twitch.
As I reached for this doors handle, I couldn’t help but feel I was playing with fire, bright and dangerous.