He Took Me in the Night

Chapter XIV: Devastated

“For life be, after all, only a waiting for something else than what we're doing; and death be all that we can rightly depend on.” -Bram Stoker, Dracula

Chapter XIV: Devastated

Fear is a silent predator. It waits for you in the shadows, creeps up on you without warning and targets the place that hurts the most. It strikes your heart, freezes the blood coursing through your veins and sends your mind into a frenzy of daunting paranoia. Everybody has experienced it, everybody dreads it and everybody wishes it would just leave them alone.

But nobody has ever felt fear like I am now.

I can feel all the blood draining from my cheeks and hear the sound of my thick, fast pulse in my ears. Tears are flooding from my eyes- blurring my vision- and my mind is scattered with the haunting images of what has brought me running down the halls like a mad woman in the first place.

Heath is right beside me, guiding me where I need to go, but his presence doesn’t give me security. Nothing could give me that, not when I’m practically walking into a death trap.

We turn a corner into a long hallway and a few curious pairs of red eyes follow me as I sprint past them. I know they must be gawking at me, but its not like I truly see them, so I don’t really care. When Heath leads me to the Throne Room, I stop for a fleeting moment and look up at him in alarm. He nods his head at me and I feel my stomach do back flips again.

“It’s a short cut,” is all he says.

I force my legs to cooperate with me as I fight against the fear that’s bringing me closer and closer to falling to my knees. I could just stop now and save myself from the worst experience of my life, but I have to keep going.

I have to stop him.  

Turning into the Throne Room, I feel the familiar shiver ripple up my spine and the chills tip toe across my skin. I try to look strait ahead, to keep my focus on the door at the end of the room, but my betraying eyes stray defiantly to the portrait of The Princess of Night above Lord Stoker’s golden throne.

I can almost hear her mocking me with laughter, like a witch’s cackle but far more venomous. I tear my eyes away from her before I can start hyperventilating and yank the door open.

I wind through a few more passageways, my breathing erratic and my heart beating faster and faster against my temples. I know what I’m about to find, and even though it’s going to tear every last broken piece of my heart from my chest, I must look for it anyway.

“Turn left,” Heath instructs me.

I do as he says without question and run for a few more seconds until I reach another door. Inscribed into the wood is the word dungeon and I burst through it with a vengeance.

I’m running so fast and frantic that Heath has to grab me by the arm and yank me to a halt to prevent me from falling down a flight of stairs. I take in three deep breaths before quickly stepping down them, but not as swiftly as I would have liked to. I have to be fast or I won’t get there in time.

When I reach the bottom of the stairs, I instantly feel cold like there’s a draft wafting through this enclosed, underground space, but there are no windows. All I can see is concrete walls that are amplifying the echoes made by my footsteps and the red door at the end of the line. 

I freeze when I reach it, paralysed by the utter sense of trepidation and anxiety that seems to be consuming me. Behind this door is my own personal horror, worst nightmare and dose of reality all wrapped up into one terrifying package, and once I enter, there’s no turning back.