Daniel

Dedicated to Daniel Kyre, you will live on through cyndago ❤️

The room around Daniel was dark, he was awake but too afraid to open his eyes, scared of what he might find if he did. There was a soft thudding noise close by, as if something had jumped from the ceiling to the floor. Daniel couldn't take it any longer, he sat up and opened his eyes. He was in his room, sitting up in his own bed. He closed his eyes, leaned forward and put his head in his hands. When he opened his eyes again he was back in the dark room. Startled, he sprang to his feet and looked around frantically, searching for something that might tell him where he was. He reached into his back pocket and found the familiar shape of his cell phone. He turned it on, no signal, typical. He returned the phone to his pocket, wondering what to do next. Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel could see a light. He followed it and found the source of the light, a lamp hanging above a door. A sign on the door read 'EXIT'. Looking around, Daniel didn't see anywhere else to go. He pushed open the door and stepped through. The door swung shut behind him as the letters on the sign changed to form the word 'DANGER'.

Daniel found himself standing outside, it seemed to be night yet there were no stars or moon. A long gravel path lead through the trees ahead of him. A chill wind rustled the leaves of the trees that stood at either side of the path that Daniel was now walking down. As he walked, he tried to recall where he he had been and what he'd been doing before waking up in that dark room. All he could remember was that he had been in his room, what he had been doing, he had no idea. He walked for about twenty minutes until he thought he'd heard something move in the trees to his left. "Probably just some kind of animal" Daniel said to himself. About ten minutes later he heard something behind him, he spun around, nothing. When he turned back to continue walking forward, a wooden sign was stood in front of him, it read: 'Don't turn around, don't even move, move and you're dead, they're everywhere, there's one behind you right now' Daniel was about to look back when he heard footsteps crunching on the gravel path, they were getting closer. The thing got so close to him that he could hear it breathing. The silence that followed felt like it would last forever. Then suddenly two hands came out from behind Daniel and covered his eyes.
When Daniel woke up he was lying beside a lake surrounded by tall trees. He stood up and looked around, checking to see if the thing that brought him to this place was still around. Feeling confident that he was alone, Daniel sighed. What the hell was that thing back there anyway and why had it brought him to this place? A narrow path lead from the lake through the woods behind him, animals probably used it to get down to the lake for water. Daniel brushed the leaves off his jacket and started up the little path. He felt as if he had been walking for hours until he found something, a small wooden cabin, it's windows were broken and shattered and the wood was rotten and eroded. The roof had caved in slightly but not enough to ruin it's shelter from the rain that had started to fall. Daniel shoved open the crooked door and fell inside the cabin. Despite the weather, the cabin felt warm and cozy. An orange light flickered from a room down the hall on the left. Was there a fireplace? Daniel wondered, and who had lit it? He slowly and quietly walked down to the room, fearful of what he might find. He stopped outside of the room and listened for a moment, he heard what sounded like TV static. Finally he got enough courage to look round the corner into the erie room. At first he didn't see anything strange, just a couch sitting in front of a fireplace with a couple of chairs scattered around. Then he saw the dark figure standing in the far corner of the room. It was pure black and seemed to be twitching and flickering, as if it wasn't quite there, but Daniel definitely felt it as it rushed towards him with incredible speed and thrust it's hand up and around his neck. It lifted him up into the air with undying strength. Daniel struggling to breathe, looked down at the horrifying creature, before, its eyes had been closed but now they were wide open, staring at him with dark red pupils. Suddenly the flames in the fireplace burst out as if they were alive. The creature that held Daniel, screamed and then flicked out of existence. Daniel fell to the ground in a dazed heap. Afraid that the monster might return, he jumped to his feet and ran to the door, he shoved it open and stumbled outside, or what he thought was outside until he looked around.
The cold damp woods that had been surrounding the cabin of horrors was gone, in it's place Daniel found himself standing in a hallway that looked like it stretched on forever  in both directions with rooms on either side. He started walking down the seemingly unending hallway, passing each room with caution, expecting something to jump out at him. Suddenly a huge gust of wind blew down the hall and all of the doors to the rooms slammed shut with a tremendous bang. Daniel stopped and listened to the deafening silence, then he heard a noise. It was distant but he could make out a high pitched wailing coming from the darkness of the hall behind him. He looked back and saw two bright lights. What could they be? Daniel wondered, but he wasn't going to stay to find out because the lights were coming faster towards him. He ran through the hallway, the lights above him started to flicker but he barely noticed, more worried about whatever was now chasing him. Then the wailing scream stopped. Daniel looked back, where had the lights gone? When he turned to start walking again he found that he was no longer standing in the long hallway but in a large rotting room, on the other side of the room was a closed door. He approached the large ominous door, it was made from dark wood and seemed pretty sturdy. looking closer he could see scratches in the splintered wood, they looked like fingernails had made them, dried blood lined the scratches. Daniel stepped back from the door, covering his mouth. How many people had been here before him? He turned, intending to get as far away from the door as possible but when he did, a blank wall stood in the way. Daniel looked around, the dark rotting room that he had been standing in was gone, he was now surrounded by four blank white walls, the only other thing in the room apart from himself was the large wooden door, he was trapped. He went back to the door and upon examination found that there was no door knob. "What kind of door doesn't have a door knob?" Daniel said to himself. "The kind that doesn't wish to be opened" came a reply from behind him.
Daniel spun around to to find a man standing there, he was the spitting image of Daniel. "Who are you?!" Daniel asked, panicked, backing up against the door. "Why, i'm you Daniel, don't you see the resemblance?" the man said. In fact Daniel did see the resemblance, the two of them looked exactly alike except for one thing, the man that claimed to be Daniel had bright white eyes. "I, I don't understand" Daniel said, confused and and frankly quite frightened. "I'm your reaper" the man said. "Reaper, like the Grim Reaper?" Daniel asked. The reaper chuckled. "Hardly, he's my boss" "So if you're my reaper does that mean i'm dying?" The reaper nodded "You see that door behind you?" The reaper asked, pointing to the door. "That's your life, walk through that door and you get your life back but if you come with me, you'll die" Daniel looked at the door. "Then open the door! I want to leave!" "It's not that simple, you have to want to go back, you have to really want life" the reaper replied. Daniel looked confused. "If you really want your life back you have to create a door knob for that door there" "With what?!" Daniel asked, getting angry now. "With your mind, we are in your head after all" the reaper replied. Daniel had stopped questioning things by now, he was tired and wanted to leave. He turned to the door and looked at the spot where a door knob would be placed and closed his eyes, concentrating hard. He opened his eyes, nothing. He looked back at the reaper "Dude, this is ridiculous, what am I supposed to be doing?" "Try again, if you don't create a door knob then we'll know" the reaper replied patiently. "Know what?!" Daniel asked. The reaper just gestured at the door, implying that Daniel should try again. He rolled his eyes and turned back to the door, once again closing his eyes and concentrating. When he opened his eyes again there was still no door knob. "It's still not working" Daniel said, turning round to face the reaper but when he did, the reaper was standing right in front of him. "I'm sorry Daniel" the reaper said. "But it seems that you've made your choice" The reaper put a hand on Daniel's head and everything went black.