I have never felt a greater fear in my life. The feeling of staring back at a predator as it decides whether you're worth the kill. My body was frozen. The thudding of my heart had stopped as I tried to decide whether to challenge the monster's gaze or give in and be consumed by it.
Red illuminated my face as its eyes grew wider and wider. They were like slits in its shadowy skull. Knife wounds that gushed pools of light as they breathed together. Then as if the monster didn't already have a good look at me, it crouched closer. Two more slits formed in its makeshift head as they too breathed with the others.
There was no feeling. The cold had vanished. My arm which rang with pain at my fall now stood numb. I felt nothing--- because I was nothing. Nothing more than a pig staring at his butcher.
I was entranced. Its eyes pulsed hypnotically as I memorized the inner carvings of its irises, endlessly falling into them.
Then without warning the monster stood back to its feet. Its second pair of eyes closed like healing scars as it returned to the staircase.
A long flowing cloak hid the rest of the beast like clouds hiding a full moon. It made no noises as it glided back up the stairs. No thudding, no scraping, just silence to accompany the darkness as my eyes tried to adjust after being reset from the blinding red light. Then it was gone, and my heart, my pain, my self, all came back to me.
"What the hell was that?" Andrew called from across the hallway.
His words snapped me out of my daze. Once again my heart was beating uncontrollably. My fingers were frozen numb by the cold wet stone I had been laying on. I couldn't think straight. Every logical thought I had ever known was thrown out the window. My brain tried to wrap around it. The idea that I had just stared into the face of something beyond our comprehension, beyond our world... a monster.
"Did you guys answer and I just forgot? Or were you not listening?" Andrew called again.
Diana turned around in her cell and explained to him what we knew so far, which was very little. None of our questions had been answered and the longer we stayed here, the more questions we came up with.
"Are you ok?" Ethan whispered to me.
I slowly turned my head to look at him. He was nothing more than a shadow, but the worriedness in his face showed through in his voice.
The light that had been streaming in from the crack in the ceiling seemed dimmer now.
"I think so," I replied, unsure. "I'm just--- I'm just a little shaken up."
Ethan was still staring at the staircase as he slid toward the back of the cell.
"So what do we do now?" he shuddered, gripping himself in a fetal position.
Another unanswerable question. But one that needed to be answered with haste.
I rubbed the goosebumps on my arms. It was getting colder, and every passing minute sealed our fate that much more.
"We need a plan. There has to be another way out of here." I shivered.
Diana's face appeared at the bars once again as she looked over at Ethan and me.
"Plan? I heard you say plan. Please say we have a plan." she questioned anxiously.
"A plan," I thought to myself. Never had I thought that a one-syllable word could be so difficult to produce. The monster definitely complicated things. We couldn't even be sure that something so otherworldly would be so careless as to let us leave. But Diana wanted an answer, so an answer was given.
"Our plan is to wait," I whispered back. "And keep your voice down. We can't expect to get past that thing to escape. Even if I could make it out you guys would all still be trapped in here."
I hesitated. Was this really the best we had? Just a moment ago I was ready to walk up those steps and now I sat on the cold wet floor, arms crossed, content. I wish I could have thought of something to give some hope to my friends and the others trapped here. But every thought brought me back to those eyes. The falling, the nothingness, the fear.
"So--- we wait". I mumbled.
"Wait? And become like Mr. Nuts over there?" Diana whispered angrily. "That thing is gonna kill us one way or another, so why not at least try?"
A faint cackling could be heard once again from the old man's cell as he slipped his arms back through the bars to greet us.
"That thing won't kill you, girl" He grumbled. "It wants us to be here. Wants us to be afraid of it. There's no fear--- in death."
"So what should we do?" Diana asked the man.
"Like that boy said--- Wait. Even with that perfect escape hole over there, you'd just be sentencing yourself to death the moment you try. The best thing to do is to do exactly what it wants."
His voice fell silent. Hands that so tightly gripped the bars now fell to his sides.
"Be afraid," he muttered as he slinked to the back of his cell.
Silence fell over the corridor as his words sealed our demise. No matter what we came up with, it all ended the same way. The air was colder now as the light from the ceiling slowly dwindled. It was becoming night time and the thought of staying in this place overnight lodged a rock from my throat down to my stomach.
I was lost in my own thoughts as the lack of light and sound caused a static to slowly crackle into my head. How many nights would it take before this was all over? How many nights would it take before we all ended up like that man over there? A shell of what we once were. My stomach grumbled as I thought about what we would be eating, if anything at all.
It's crazy how just hours ago we were back at Mason's house. Back at school worrying about making friends and introductions. Now we were here. Cold and alone in a cell—- with a monster as our jailer.
I hung my head between my knees as I let the static overtake me. My thoughts all jumbled together as the white noise filled my ears.
"I always wanted to be a hero," Andrew said softly.
My ears popped as the static fizzled away at his words. We all shuffled in our cells as we looked over at him.
"I've always been different I think. Ever since I was a kid I knew that. Other kids would laugh at me as I raised my hand again and again asking the same questions."
He leaned his head on the stone wall, staring up at the ceiling.
"It's funny how I can look back at those moments so clearly, but I can't remember any of your names."
Andrew's eyes began to well with tears and his voice broke with each word.
"I told myself that if I became a hero, stories would be written about me. A whole glossary of tales that I could look through." He wiped his nose as he caught his next breath. "So... even when I forget... I would be able to read those stories every day and know that my life had meaning. That I wasn't just some kid who sat around and moped about the hand he had been dealt, but someone who was kind and helped others who needed it."
Andrew stood up gripping the bars to his cell.
"And I don't plan on sitting around moping about this hand either. So Adam... if you don't mind... let's find a way to get out of here yeah?"
The cells grew warmer. His words filled our bodies with hope. I stood to my feet, keeping my eyes on Andrew as I lifted myself up.
"You remembered my name," I replied, smiling.
"I--- I did?"
"Yea--- you did. And you're right. We can't just sit here and submit to this thing even if it means saving our own skin. Who knows how many people are sitting in these cells waiting to be rescued."
I walked up to the gate, once again gripping the ice-cold steel as I looked into the dark hallway before continuing.
"I think we owe it to them to try"
Diana stood up alongside Andrew and Ethan quickly joined me as we all stood together.
"This is crazy--- you're all--- not normal. " Diana stuttered.
"Where's the fun in being normal?" I replied, giving a smirk to Ethan.
Ethan dawned on his famous ear-to-ear smile as he looked back at me. The setting was still bleak and yet smiles rolled onto our faces as hope filled our hearts. But it didn't take long for that hope to crash and burn as a loud roar came from up the stairs!
We all instinctively jumped back from the cell doors as fear and anticipation snuffed out what little hope had grown.
Another roar echoed off the stone wall as the steel vibrated loudly. Then without warning the doors mechanically lifted. Nothing stood between us and our new friends as Ethan and I walked closer to the center of the hallway.
We were hesitant. The hope we had felt was now a long-lost memory as the roar of the monster echoed its way back to our ears.
I could see Diana and Andrew clearly now. The mix of emotions that we felt split us in two. It was a blessing to know that these cells no longer trapped us, and yet now we knew that nothing stood in the way of us and the monster.
We all met in the center of the hallway. You would think our eyes would be on the stairs but it wasn't. We looked at each other as if we hadn't seen each other in years. At that moment we felt like we had been friends forever--- and not just a few hours.
The corridor once again shook as another roar blew past us and into the darkness, but from the darkness came a small speck of light.
The end of the hallway faintly lit up as sunlight poured in through a pair of double doors. This was the only thing more pressing than each other. In unison, we stared back into the corridor, squinting into the light pouring in.
"A way out!" Ethan shouted.
The man across from us quickly ran from his cell. His hand wrapped around his cellmate's wrist as they both sprinted down the corridor.
The once-dark desolate hallway quickly filled up with silhouettes as people began to desperately pour out of their cells. I was shocked at how many people there were. All of them had been so quiet until now. It was obvious that fear had been controlling these people, but now a crumb of hope pushed them forward toward the light.
The sunlight quickly vanished as the crowds of people blotted out what little there was, leaving us once again in darkness. This was our only chance to get out of here and we knew that if we pondered for even a second it could be the end for us.
So just as the fear had caused me to crawl back into my cell, hope caused us to run toward the ever-dimming light. If only we had known that this would be the beginning of our fear-filled story. Instead of running toward hope we ran toward the horrors that lay beyond these cells.
There was no way of knowing...
That a hunt had just begun.