Speaker 1: How many doors did you open today? How about in
the last week, month, or year, what about in your
entire life? The answer to that is probably many, Yet
if you're reading this right now, probably not enough of them.
So consider yourself lucky. They are luckier than me at
any rate. My ordeals started about five months ago. It
was a usual day, wake up, go to work, be
bored out of my mind, only it was a night.
I worked a night shift at a small pawn shop
and the night passed at a glacial pace. That's usually
good news, as i'd browse the Internet of my phone,
but my charger did that thing when you're sleep and
it just fucking disconnects, leaving you with no battery to
speak of, and me being me, I didn't notice until
I got into work. Great, so I was alone and
bored out of my mind for some ten hours. The
night eventually passed. A coworker came in this morning broke,
so I left. On my way to the car, I
stopped at a local market and I grabbed a couple
of sandwiches and a water bottle. I was too lazy
to make myself something to eat when I got home,
so I figured i'd just wolfed down the sandwiches and
go to sleep. The commute was only ten minutes long,
and it passed in a blur as I couldn't be
bothered to pay attention to anything. My mind had melted
under the boredom to the point that I couldn't wait
to get home and plugged my phone in to watch
some YouTube. I pulled up in my driveway and went
for the entrance, fumbling for my keys, but I finally
found them. I opened the door and entered, still not
paying attention to my surround. That i'd been a little
less negligent that I looked inside before going in, my
life would have been so different today, but I didn't.
The door clicked shut behind me, and I made my
way to the kitchen through the corridor. I was also
searching through my backpack for one of the sandwiches. I
finally noticed something was off when I reached the place
where the table should have been, but I didn't bump
into it. There was supposed to be a chair here
for me to sit down and eat my meal, but
there was nothing. I looked up frantically and noticed the
table was gone entirely, along with all the furniture in
my kitchen, the drawers, the fridge, even the damn sink.
Not a trace of them remained. I was dumbfounded, to
say the least, someone break in and steal everything while
I was gone. But why, how not a closer inspection,
though I hadn't been thieves, because even the sink's drain
was gone, replaced by a smooth wall instead. No one
could have done this in the ten hours that I
was at work, and even if they could have, I
couldn't fathom a reason for them too. I looked up.
I saw the light bulb was gone as well. At
that point I started freaking out badly because lights still
emanated from where it used to be. I grabbed my
backpack and ran to the front door, hastily opening it.
The street was gone in its place, only another empty room.
I let out a yelp of surprise mixed with fear
as I froze in the doorway that the hell was
going on. Remembering my phone, I pulled it out and
prayed that it still had some battery. Then I was
out of luck. The thing was dead. I took a
few minutes to calm down and decide what to do.
My breath smoothed out after a while, and I felt
confident enough i'd not have a panic attack. So I
closed my eyes and I opened the door again, still
a room instead of the street. Crap. I explored the
rest of the house, hoping to find something that would
have helped me understand, but every room was the same story.
All the furniture was gone, the walls were uncharacteristically smooth
and featureless, and the light bulbs were nowhere to be seen,
even though there was plenty of light to go around.
I had hoped, against all odds that i'd still find
my landline phone in the living room, but I think
you can guess how well that went. I didn't know
how many times I spent curled up on the floor
of the living room just crying. And I don't know
how much time I spent opening and closing the front
door hoping you would finally reveal the street to me,
many hours at any rate, until life finally gave up
and decided to take a leap of faith. I entered
the room my front door led to closed it behind me,
and opened the door again. Now my corridor was gone.
It's place taken by a small room with a single
door on the other side. If someone would have been
there with me, they could have pointed out the exact
moment my soul shattered by the pope made. But no
one was there. I was all alone and lost in
a twilight zone of empty rooms. I sat down, pulled
my backpack in my lap, and took a sip of water.
I didn't feel hungry yet, so I decided not to
touch the sandwiches. With only two of them in a
lead water, I had to them last. My mind went
into survival mode. I didn't know how long I'd been
here or how to get out. Eventually, I decided to
pick a nap. As I was still tired from the
night shift i'd been through. I decided i'd have a
better chance of figuring things out if I was rested.
Sleep came swiftly, but it was fitful and as bland
as the room I was in. I didn't dream at all,
and I constantly woke up feeling paranoid, like someone or
something was watching me. The fifth time that happened, I
jumped to my feet. The room was dark now I
couldn't even see my hand in front of my face.
After I was done shitting bricks, I thought that I died.
It was now in some sort of hell. I walked
around slowly and still found the walls of the room
in about the places I expected. It clicked in my
head it was nighttime this place, wherever, whatever it was,
kept track of the time outside. I huddled myself in
one of the corners and waited for light to return.
That took a few hours, but with nothing to draw
my attention and excite my senses, it felt like a
small eternity. There was only me, the darkness, the sounds
of my occasional breath, and the pulse of my heart
pounding in my ears. I thought I'd go crazy, that
I'd start to hallucinate any moment now. But then I
noticed a small inkling of light emanating from the ceiling.
Dawn was coming. The light slowly grew in intensity, mirroring
the pace of a sunrise. But I didn't wait any longer.
The moment I could see even the vaguest of shapes,
I got up and on the move. Despite the poor
quality of my sleep, I felt rested and refreshed, so
I started exploring door after door, room after room. All
I found was more of the same. The walls different colors,
and the shapes of the rooms varied to mirror their
purpose a small closet, a garage, a bathroom, a corridor
once in a while, but other than that they were
all the same. For a split second, I felt like
I was in a video game and I'd entered an
area that I wasn't supposed to a building. The devs
didn't flesh out because no one was meant to enter it.
Only this was reality. At one point I got an idea.
I kept finding windows which, although they didn't show anything
on the other side and were flushed with the walls.
I thought maybe they would lead somewhere, so I threw
my water bottle against one of them, hoping to shatter it,
but it bounced right off and rolled at my feet.
The next few days were spent going from room to room,
only stopping at night when I couldn't see a damn thing.
But I made a few two interesting discoveries, if you
want to call them, that, about how this place in
my body worked. Now, closing a door randomized the room
on the other side, so you could walk in a
circle without going in the same room twice. As soon
as a door left your direct line of sight. Even
if you had left it open, it would close on
its own. This one I figured out after I had
the bright idea of not closing any doors behind me,
hoping i'd managed to figure out how big the place was.
I didn't need sleep, or at least I didn't need
it as often as I normally would, despite a few
days having passed at that point. I didn't feel tired,
and I only slept the first night I spent there.
Same went for food and water. I didn't feel hungry
or thirsty, even though I still had both sandwiches and
the water bottle were missing only the few SIPs that
I took on the first day. That was either a
curse or a blessing, depending on how you chose to
look at it. It would give me more time to
find a way out, but it had the potential of
prolonging myself immensely if I didn't. I decided to take
it as a blessing for the time being, and kept
going room after room, day in and day out. I
think I opened more doors in that time than I
would have in my entire life otherwise. But after roughly
a week, I finally found something that wasn't just another
bland wall, though I wished I hadn't. The first thing
that hit me as I entered another room was the
gut wrenching smell. It was stagnant and putrid, to the
point it made me wretch and made my eyes water.
I slowly looked up and found red trails adorning the floor.
They had a radial pattern that led back to a
common source and looked as if they'd flowed at one
point or another. Because my eyes followed them slow and uncertain,
my gaze came upon something in the corner. It was
a dry husk, with its back against the wall and
its hands beside its body. The trails led to its
wrists and I could see bone beneath the mummified skin.
Words were strewn on the wall behind it, in the
same red color as the trails on the floor. I
backed up slowly as the realization hit me in like
a truck. This person, whoever he or she might have been,
was like me at some point, someone stuck in here
that couldn't take it anymore and decided to end it all.
That was their only way out, their only release, And
I feared more and more each day that it would
eventually be my only option as well. For hours, I
fought back the urge to leave the room and shut
the door behind me. The reality of what I was
facing sunken deeper and deeper into my soul, bringing with
it despair and a feeling of complete helplessness. Many slaps later,
I managed to snap myself out of it and approach
the corpse to inspect it. I thought that maybe they'd
have something useful on them, though what exactly that would
have been. I had no idea. Certainly no food or water,
else they'd not have taken their own life, and certainly
not a map that let outside, else I'd not have
found them in here like this. I fashioned a mask
to cover my mouth and nose out of my t
shirt and walked over to it slowly. The words behind
it came into view as I got closer, and I
could read them when I was a few steps away.
Beware the dark, don't follow the footsteps. The eyes, oh god,
the eyes make it stop. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but
that was the gist of it. Short sentences with an
ominous feeling to them. They certainly did a good job
of making me feel like I drowned in dread. I
tried to puzzle them together and draw some meaning from them,
but I couldn't what eyes, what footsteps. I'd been here
for more than a week now, but besides the sounds
I made myself, I didn't hear anything. Still shot my
pants or reading it though. I knelt down next to
the corpse and started pulling on its clothes in search
of pockets. I was dressed pretty blandly jeans and a
T shirt, so i'd not find much. One of the
front pockets of the jeans revealed a phone with no battery.
Then the back pocket revealed a wallet. There was a
bit of cash in it, a few bills and coins,
but I decided not to even count it, let alone
take it. But I found an ID in a driver's license.
I took those. I figured that if I ever got out,
the least I could do is turn these in and
let their relatives know their fate. His name was Brandon,
the average looking twenty five year old guy with dirty
blonde hair sparkling blue eyes. He didn't deserve his fate.
I didn't either. I found nothing else on him, so
I decided to move on. Staying put wouldn't do me
any good, and After finding Brandon's corpse, I felt a
renewed sense of urgency. The next few days followed the
same pattern as before, stopping only at nightfall before I
moved for as long as I could see, but with
Brandon's warning to be aware of the dark, I began
stopping the moment the light started to fade. I was
itching to move to keep my mind occupied so I
wouldn't collapse in on me, but I was afraid I
didn't need to see any monsters on top of all
that I'd been through. As the second week came and passed,
I was certain I traveled for dozens of miles now,
and more or less in a straight line too. I'd
grown properly hungry in the meantime, so I ate one
of the sandwiches and held onto the other one until
I'd literally be starving. I was also down to half
a bottle of water, but if my body kept up
at the same rate, these meager supplies would have lasted
me another month or two. That was unless I'd found her.
As I entered another room, I saw someone huddled in
a corner. Thinking it was another corpse, I approached it slowly,
my nerves on their ends. It looked shriveled, malnourished, but
I couldn't tell if they'd been dead for long now.
Decomposition was probably effected the same way as my hunger
and thirst, which is why my sandwich went stale but
still edible. But then she opened an eye, looked at
me with horror, and started to scream. I covered my
ears to sheeld them from the loud screech, and it
took everything I had in me to not bolt it
out the door. She screamed for a solid thirty seconds
before she stopped the gasp for air, but I could
see that she was ready to do it again. Stop that,
I yelled, I will hurt you. She opened both eyes
and they were wide with surprise. A look of disbelief
and then of relief washed over her features as she
huddled down tighter. Help me, please, Oh God, if you're
a real human, help me. It. Rushed over to her
and knelt down. She looked bad, but knowing she was
still alive in her condition made it so much worse.
Her face was scrawny, her skin pulled taut over her bones.
Her clothes looked a few sizes too big, hanging loosely
on her frame. Her hair was disheveled, dirty, and bunches
of it had fallen off to reveal her bare scalp.
What happened to you, I asked, although I probably knew
the answer. Do you have anything to eat? There? Some water?
She asked. I considered for a moment to lie and
tell her no, that I couldn't live with myself if
I did that. However long I still had to live anyway.
I opened my backpack and offered her the sandwich. She
wolfed it down in a few seconds and then licked
the plastic wrap clean. Thank you so much, she said,
after she was done. I haven't eaten in months. I
gave her the water bottle too, told her to drink
it slowly. I was no expert in malnutrition and starvation,
but I knew that if the stomach was empty for
a long time, it's not a good idea the stuff it.
All of a sudden, she of course, didn't listen to me,
and drank the water in a few gulps. I couldn't
really blame her, though I can't even imagine what it
feels like. Did not eat or drink for months. We
stood in silence for a while, because I allowed her
to regain some She eventually opened her mouth and started
to talk to this day. To this day, I still
regret hearing her words. Have you seen it yet? She asked?
Seen what? I asked, buck? So you didn't travel through
the dark? Then she continued, No, No, I haven't. Can't
see shit, So when night comes, I stay put. Good,
she said, you didn't answer me, though, see what. I
tried to get more out of her, but my attempts
were met with failure. She didn't invade my questions. She
outright shot them down and told me it was for
my own good. Seeing that, I didn't relent. However, she
eventually told me something, Listen, you really are better off
not knowing, and believe me you it just won't travel
through the dark and you'll be safe. Fine, I said,
accepting defeat. The terror in her voice was not hidden
at all. It was laid thick on every word she spoke.
So I didn't pester her further. Still, her questions and
cryptic words felt eerily familiar. Brandon's words written in blood
came to mind. Be where the dark. I stayed by
your side as the day passed and night settled, Even
though I was itching to get on the move again.
I had not seen another human or spoken to anyone
in over two weeks, and although I thought that I'd
never miss it, that changed. That was starved for conversation,
for interaction, most importantly for information. Her name was Vanessa.
She was twenty five years old and had been living
a few towns over for me. One day, three months
before I found her, she went to the bathroom in
her own apartment. Preoccupied with her phone. She didn't check
on the room she entered. Only when the door was
shut behind her and she was cut off from the
outside world does she notice something was up. By then,
it was too late. She's been trapped in here ever since.
Her story sent chills down my spine, as it was
very similar to mine. In a moment of distraction, she
walked through a door she'd opened countless times before, only
for it to lead her here. The gears in my
head started spinning as I began to theorize the how
and why. I knew these rooms were copies of real ones.
That much was evident from day one, seeing as I
entered my own house and thought someone had stolen all
my furniture, and I knew they were randomized upon closing
the doors. But where was this place outside of our reality?
Did we enter it because we weren't paying attention? Or
was it something like quantum mechanics where the contents of
the rooms weren't decided until they were observed that I
didn't know could have been any one of them, a
combination of them, something else entirely. Anyway, after me and
Vanessa talked some more, she fell asleep. She was obviously weak,
so I didn't wake her. I stood by her side
as the light slowly dimmed, hoping she'd get enough strength
back the next day to walk. I myself couldn't sleep,
In fact, ever since I'd gotten here, I only slept
that one time through the first night. The rest of
them I spent awake pondering my predicament, my life thus far. Tonight,
I was glad to have someone next to me, even
though all I could hear was her steady breathing. I
wasn't alone anymore, and that was the only thing that mattered.
About halfway through the night, I got up and paced
around through the room for a bit to stretch my legs.
I'd do this every night to stop my muscles from
going stiff, but I never left the rooms I was in.
At one point I stopped after maybe ten minutes of
walking in circles. I listened for Vanessa so I could
return next to her, and didn't take me long to
pick up on her breathing. But before I could take
a single step towards her, I heard footsteps. I stood
as still as I could, listening, hoping my mind was
only playing tricks on me. It wasn't. Although they were
faint and sounded like they came from far away, I
could clearly make out every step. They were slow, with
a few seconds between them, but they followed a steady rhythm.
I turned to face the direction they seemed to come
from and took a few steps of my own, slow
and careful not to make a sound, I inched forward
until my outstretch hand met the wood of the door.
I leaned against it, pressing my ear on the wood,
and heard the footsteps clearer. I hoped there would be
another person. I hoped me and Vanessa would get another
companion to help us out. But the more I listened,
the more that hope was eroded away until it shattered entirely.
The steps were too heavy for a normal human, too
drawn out, and besides that, the room they seemed to
come from wasn't decided yet. For all intents and purposes,
I shouldn't have been able to hear them. The moment
that realization hit me, Brandon's warning and Vanessa's question suddenly
made sense. A deep sense of dread and fear took
over me, and I made my way next to Vanessa
without even taking a single breath. The night passed, one
heartbeat at a time, one footstep, because they never went away,
not until the light returned in full. At that point,
I woke Vanessa up. She came to her senses slowly
and noticed the change in my demeanor. Did did you
see it? It was the first thing she asked me. No.
Did you hear the footsteps? Then? Yes, but I didn't
follow them. We should be safe. Then Vanessa tried to
get up on her own, but she couldn't. She was
still too weak, and we both doubted a sandwich and
a bit of water could change that. I helped her
to her feet and threw one of her arms around
my shoulders, basically dragging her along. You don't have to,
she said, as we walked towards the door. Opposite the
footsteps I heard the night before. I'm not going by myself,
I cut her short. If I spent another night awake
by myself, I'd lose it. She didn't say anything. Having
been alone for the past months, she probably understood me,
who spent the day walking in a straight line, door
after door, hoping one of them would lead us outside.
It hadn't, of course, and by nightfall we stopped once again.
I sat Vanessa down in a corner and laid next
to her. She lifted her right pant leg to reveal
her shin, and I saw it was full of straight
cuts and various stages of healing. I didn't know what
to make of them, but they looked suspiciously like tally marks.
With the nail of her thumb, she cut another line
into her skin. She winced a bit, but didn't let
us sound. Seeing my confusion, she started to explain, I'm
counting the days I've been here on your skin, I asked,
unnerved by it, I've forgot nothing else, she said. We
talked a bit more, mostly about our lives. She'd finished
high school but didn't pursue a higher education. That left
her working at a restaurant. As a waitress to make
a living. There, she met the man that would soon
become her boyfriend and then fiance. He was the son
of the owner, but from what Vanessa told me, he
worked with him whenever he needed. He sounded like a
swell guy, to be honest. Anyway, two of them moved
into an apartment by themselves a year prior, and they'd
been happy together. Vanessa said she could already see the
rest of her life with him until well, until this
happened to her. I told her I was in a
similar position to hers, working a dead end job in
order to scrape by. Only I had wasted years of
my life going to college, getting a degree that never
led me anywhere. I still live with my parents in
our small suburban home, hoping to find someone to share
my days with, maybe start a family. Well you can
guess how well that went, I said, trying to pass
it off as a joke. Vanessa managed to giggle, but
I could tell us she didn't really taste my joke.
I didn't blame her, but I always found humor alleviates
bad situations for me. We kept talking as the lights
vanished almost completely, and we'd have done it even after
probably all through the night, something we heard stopped us.
The footsteps, goddamn footsteps. They returned as the last rays
were gone, seemingly closer than last night. We held our breath,
listening in anticipation for what must have been hours. We
huddled closer together, bunching into one another for a fleeting
sense of safety. The night eventually passed. We were both
still alive by the end of it, Scared out of
our minds, but alive. We spent about two more months
traveling together, passing the days with small talk and the
nights fearing for our lives. The footsteps got closer some nights,
but if we kept quiet, they wouldn't approach us. We
both got weaker by the day, withering away to hunger
and thirst, but Vanessa was much worse off than me.
I didn't think someone could be that thin and still live.
I think only her will to survive and see this
through kept her alive. At that point, we'd made very
little progress for a few days, and I guess we
both knew that she didn't have long left, but I
refused to acknowledge it. One evening, as we stopped for
the day, she was too weak to even talk to me.
She went straight to sleep, which worried me since I
didn't need to sleep once since i'd met her. Then
morning finally came and she woke up. She kept uncharacteristically silent.
I waited half an hour for her to wake up
fully before I suggested we get on the move again.
But she stopped me. Just leave me, she said, in
a weak, sad voice. Both No, I don't have much
left and I'm only sighing it down. No, I protested,
there's not some movie. You're not doing some heroic sacrifice
for me. She didn't fight me about it. Maybe she
was too weak too. Maybe she's simply didn't care anymore,
knowing we'd both meet our end regardless. Sorry, she accepted
my decision after a while. At least let me tell
you the truth. God knows how much time I have left.
This might be my last chance to I wanted to
stop her, to contradict her and reassure her we'd make
it eventually, but I listened. I was curious, but I
didn't want to risk braving this place alone without knowing
exactly what I'm in for. There's something in here with us,
she said, after a long pause. I don't know exactly
what it is, but it's hunting us down. If you
move during the night, it picks up on you, I think,
And then it just starts circling the rooms and search
for you, making those footsteps we've been hearing. If you
make noise, or if you follow the footsteps, it can
find you. Did I started, but the words got stuck
in my throat. Did you see it? I did, she admitted,
with a surprised calmness when I first got here. Actually,
I ran around for a few days, even through the dark,
and one night I bumped into it. I didn't get
a good look at it. I ran away like hell,
and and I guess I lost it. How did it look?
I asked, even though I was sure I'd regret finding
out its tall, gaunt, spindly limbs, Vanessa said, and paused
for a moment. Her sight got lost in empty space,
and for a few heartbeats, I was sure she wasn't
there with me anymore on a mental level. And those eyes,
she eventually added, red shining, and tears formed around her
eyes flowed down her cheeks, but her expression didn't change
to reflect fat haunting. I asked, She nodded her head. Okay,
he said, that's enough. I'm not sure I want to
hear more, and I'm pretty sure it's not doing you
any good to try and remember more. She sheepishly nodded
her head again, so we closed the subject. We got
on the move, at a glacial pace, with bricks every
other hour or so for her to catch her breath.
He mostly kept silent, with barely a few words exchanged
between us, but I still appreciate her her presence. I
think another week or so passed and Vanessa withered away
visibly day by day. It wasn't long before she couldn't
walk anymore, and she kept insisting that I either leave
her or end her. But I didn't do either. I
couldn't do either, at least not in the meantime. For
as long as I was able, I'd carry her around
on my back, which is exactly what I did, And
even though she was more bone than flesh at that point,
she still felt very heavy, a clear sign of my
own degradation. We traveled less and less, starting up later
and stopping sooner every day. Vanessa kept tallying the days
on her skin until she ran out of room on
her legs and had to move on to her forearms. Bored.
One evening, we counted the marks and we found that
she'd been in here for a little over six months.
That's the rate I'm going, she said, after a while,
I have maybe another month left. She didn't bring it
up again that I knew from a look in her
eyes she was afraid, despite her inhuman amounts of resolve,
what in another month in her condition would mean so
much pain, so much suffering. And although she never said it,
I knew she was angry with me for refusing to
end it for her. That night was the first time
I slept as well. Couldn't describe how good it felt.
Escaping the hell I was in, even for a few hours,
was a blessing, But unfortunately I didn't get to relish
in it for too long. All the stress, all the anxiety,
all the worry that built up in me, they turned
into nightmares and ruined my rest. I dreamt of Vanessa dying,
of me crying over her lifeless body. My resolve to
continue shattered. And then she opened her eyes and reached
a skeletal arm out towards me. I tried to scream
and back a way away from her. But you know
how well that goes in dreams. I was paralyzed, the
yells frozen in my throat. She threw me to the
ground effortlessly. Why didn't you kill me, she asked, climbing
over me and wrapping her fingers around my throat. I
couldn't answer, and I thrashed around beneath her and tried
to scream again and again, but I was only met
with failure. The struggle didn't last for long, though. Fortunately
the real Vanessa woke me up, but I let out
a single loud screech as I came to and regained
control of my body. It's all right, it's okay, You're okay,
you're okay, she whispered and covered my mouth. The silence
that engulfed us was so all consuming that I could
hear the beating of my own heart in my ears.
I kept quiet as the shock of the nightmares faded away,
and Vanessa did the same, not making a single sound.
I could barely even hear her breathing because my senses adjusted,
I heard something faint and distant. Footsteps somewhere far away,
the doors squeaking as they opened and close. They were
getting closer. I knew that the creature heard my scream.
It was only a matter of time until it would
reach us. We have to move, I whispered to Vanessa.
Will be found. We can't outrun it, Vanessa said, And
it'll hear us, It'll hear the doors. The footsteps got
even closer to the point I could tell them apart.
The creature was only a few rooms away at best.
We don't have a choice, I said, as I got
to my feet. Let's go. We'll figure something out. I
didn't wait for Vanessa to answer. The footsteps were maybe
two rooms away. We didn't have time to argue any longer.
I took her hands and pulled her to her feet,
getting her on my back and taking off. I tried
my best to move as quietly as possible, but as
soon as I opened the first door, the footsteps quickened
behind us. The door to our room opened just as
we left it, and I heard a guttural scream from behind.
That was all I needed to convince me to throw
all caution to the wind. I sped up, not quite running,
but hurrying the best of my abilities. I went at random,
opening and closing all the doors in my wake. But
the creature was onto us. I didn't have the strength
to go any faster and lose it. It soon caught
up to us, and I turned my head around in
time to get a glimpse of it. Dredd invaded me
at the sight of its glowing eyes filled with malice,
and I almost tripped right then and there. But I
kept going, and by some miracle, I stayed ahead of
it for a little while longer leave me, Vanessa urged,
I'm a goner anyway else, I'll buy you some time
to get away. No way in hell, I yelled back
at her. Not an option. The next room was a
flight of stairs with no other route in sight. I
could barely make out a door all the way up,
and with the way I came from blocked by the creature,
I started ascending. I didn't think i'd make it five
steps before I tripped and was forced to continue on
all fours. Vanessa was barely hanging onto me, and I
felt her grip around my throat loosening. Whether or not
she was letting go intentionally, I'll never know. Your guess
is as good as mine. At any rate, she didn't
get to fall off my back. The creature caught up
to us, bounding up the stairs like a crazed animal.
When it got its calloused hands around my ankle, I
tried to kick it away to keep going, but in
a single motion, it hurled me through the air and
back down the stairs. I landed hard on my back,
getting the air knocked out of me, and I heard
Vanessa crash to the floor somewhere to my right. Through
the stars in my vision, I could vaguely make out
her form in the murky darkness. She was completely still Vanessa.
I yelled, crawling towards her scow. She yelled back, yet
her words were cut short by the creature as it
plowed into her, up off the ground so fast that
its spindley body was just a blur of shadows and movement.
I heard a loud thud as it pitted Vanessa against
a wall, and heard her gargle as she tried to scream.
Her eyes locked for a final time, and behind her
gaze I saw a terrifying calm, an acceptance of her
fate that I didn't think possible. She mouthed go one
final time, and her eyes left mine, moving to meet
those of the creature. I didn't want to my heart
screamed at me to stay, to fight, to help, but
my tired, malnourished body fought me back, and I found
myself turning around, limping away on all fours. As I
reached the door and left the room, I heard a
sickening sound of flesh and bone being torn apart as
the creature let out squeals of satisfy action it won,
it got its prey. I went as fast as I could,
closing all of the doors behind me, hoping that the
rooms would get reshuffled and i'd be safe. More than
once I was tempted to either stop or outright turn around,
because oh was the point, But I kept going until
my lungs burned and my souls felt raw. A human
survival spirit as a hell of a thing. After Vanessa's death,
I had no idea how much time passed. Days, weeks, months,
even slowed down As it was a Hunger and dehydration
were finally catching up to me, and I soon started
resembling the state that Vanessa had been in during her
final days, with my consciousness lapsing in and out, spending
more and more time sleeping each day. I picked a
room and sided to just to let myself die and
end the nightmare. But that didn't get to happen obviously,
Otherwise I wouldn't be here telling you my story. One
faithful evening, as the lights in the room dimmed to
almost nothing, one of the doors opened. The two figures
walked inside, shining flashlights in my face. I opened my
crusted eyes slowly. I tried to speak, but all that
escaped my mouth was a throaty rasp. Bloody hell Nate,
one of the figures said, in a thick British accent,
he's still alive. Get him out. More people appeared from
behind the two, brandishing shotguns and firemen's axis. Two of
them grabbed me by my feet and arms, hauling me
up and carrying me along. I passed out on the way,
but I was conscious for long enough to notice that
they left every door open behind them. They also spread
a thick steel rope as they went. It's kept the
doors from closing and reshuffling. I made it out of
the back rooms four months after I'd entered, and I
woke up in a small town in northern Alaska. Seeing
as I'm from West Virginia, I was quite a ways
away from home. The local doctor defied the odds and
treating me, and his idea of keeping me in the
back rooms for another day while he gave me liquids
and glucose was quite smart. Feared that bringing me back
outside into the real world would have just caused my
body to instantly collapse and die. I didn't get to
meet my saviors. By the time I woke up after
a few days of non stop sleeping, they were already gone.
A pair of monster hunters named Damian, British guy and
his apprentice named Miles. That's all I managed to get
out of the locals. Men in black arrived before long,
and they made up a story about me being kidnapped
by human traffickers for unknown reasons. We were all in
the same page. They contacted my family and let them
know I was alive. Transport was arranged for me to
return back home, and I made it without incident. But
my life hasn't been the same since. And for starters,
I removed all the unnecessary doors in my home. I
replaced the rest with glass ones so I could always
see what laid on the other side. Unfortunately, I wasn't
able to share Brandon and Vanessa's fates with their families,
and for the lack of trying. Believe me, I did
try from the day I got home. The men in
black they'd been key being the under surveillance. For how
long they'll keep it up, I don't know. I'm not
even sure for who they work for, the ont a
nebulous concept that they're part of some branch of the government. Anyway,
that's all I got. I wish I had a better resolution,
a happy ending, but I don't. I'm a scarred and
traumatized shell of the person I used to be, and
no amount of therapy and medication can fix me. And
I'll forever be paranoid when opening doors. I'll never again
in my life into a room without checking what is
on the other side. First, Hey, they're kids, it's me,
mister Peppasta. And before we say good night, I just
wanted to say thank you so much for watching tonight's
video or for listening to tonight's episode or the podcast.
I also want to say, if you guys like the
stories you're hearing now, please check out The Creepy Pasta
Collection Volume one and Volume two. They're available now on Amazon.
They're available at Barnes and Noble. They're available wherever you
like to get books. They're some of the best authors
I've worked with over the years, of my absolute favorite
authors and some of my friends, so I'd appreciate it
if you guys check those things out. There's also an
audiobook that I wasn't involved with. I don't know why
Simon and Schuster did that, but they did, so you
can check that out too if you'd like listening to
books but you just don't want to hear me. As always,
I want to give a very big thank you to
everybody who supports me on Patreon, patreon dot com, slash
mister Creeposta, people such as Diana Kraus Asset System, Benjamin
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Thank you all so much for being here, and as always,
sweet dreams.