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Riley was looking down at Hart, eyes squinted and mouth opened - partly because he was shocked and because he wanted to speak but like most days in his presence he was left speechless. Riley had seen Hart get stabbed, he saw the man fall to the ground, dying and bleeding. And now. Now he was wide awake with no wound, no anything.
“Good job?” Riley managed to say, pulling himself up and not bothering to help Hart. The man took a knife to his stomach, he could get up by himself if he wanted. “You miraculously survived a knife attack, with no wound, and instead of explaining yourself you tell me good job?”
The pale man stood up and his eyes went to the body on the floor, then he looked back at Riley and gave a hint of proud in his face; his lips were relaxed in the shape of a tiny, almost unnoticeable smile.
Angered, Riley walked past Hart, bumping shoulders purposely. He stopped half way to the exit when he realized it was locked and he had no idea how to open it. Taking a deep breath, he came back to face Hart.
“Open the door.”
Hart hid his hands in his pockets and walked closer to him, still having that look on his face.
“Not only did you do what I asked, you also did it because you were trying to save me.”
“And now that I think about it, I'm an idiot,” Riley said.
“I don't think you're an idiot,” he replied softly, slowly closing the space between them until they were inches away from each other. “In fact, I think you're extraordinary.”
Just as they were leaning in, a loud crack on the ceiling made them freeze. They looked up and saw nothing. Riley looked back down at Hart's face and the man was just as confused as he was. Another sound followed a few seconds later, it wasn't a crack this time, it sounded like rocks falling.
“What is –“ Before Riley could finish his question, the room began to tremble. Neither of them moved, but then it got strong, so strong that Riley almost lost balance and had to grip onto Hart. But it was the look the man had that made his stomach twist. He had never seen this emotion on Hart before, he never thought he would see him become frightened.
“Riley! Run!” Hart screamed, pushing him towards the door. Riley knew better than to not trust Hart, so he ran at full speed to the closed door.
“It's closed!” Riley shouted back as he ran. He looked back to see if Hart was following him, and he was, but he was keeping a safe distance between them. The killer waved his hand out in front of him and the giant metal door keeping them trapped just flew out of the wall with ease, crashing somewhere against the other side of the basement.
“Keep running! Don't look back!”
Riley bolted out of the dark room but something happened. Before he could celebrate being free, gravity pulled him back. He felt everything around him turning, like if the house had been flipped on its side, or was rapidly twirling in outer space. He was now falling back towards the entrance. Hart had somehow pulled himself over it and was laying on the wall – which he guessed was the floor now. At the last second, Hart caught Riley's hand and held firmly as he dangled over brightness.
“Don't you dare look down!” The man screamed again.
Riley was terrified. He knew how huge the dark room was, if he fell then he would die. There was no other alternative.
“Why is it bright?” Riley whimpered, using all his strength not to look down. “And hot.”
“I'm going to pull you up now, okay?” he said.
“Hart,” Riley whispered as a tear rolled down his cheek. “My skin is burning. It's burning.” His head slowly tilted down and he ignored every angry shout coming from above him not to look down. He blinked when he saw what was under him, but not because he couldn't believe it, but because the heat was intense. There was no floor below him, just whiteness. It was too bright to make out if there was even anything down there. But fire was slowly climbing up the walls, and if he wasn't pulled up now, they would devour him any second.
“Give me your other hand! Now!” Hart ordered.
Riley tried, he really did. He swung himself, trying to catch Hart's other hand but the fire made his skin sweaty and slippery. To make things worse, his other hand was slowly slipping. He had never seen Hart like this before; so scared, so weak and fragile. It might as well be more terrifying than death.
And once again, he was proven wrong as his hand slipped out of the tight grip Hart had on him and fell.
“Riley! No!” Hart roared, his voice echoing down as Riley fell through the fire.
Riley didn't scream. No, he faced it. He was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it. The fire swallowed him and everything became so bright that he began to question if he was still falling or if he was now dead.
He still felt the heat blowing through him as he spun around uncontrollably. When the burning became too immense, he shut his eyes and waited for his death.
It didn't come. He still felt like he was falling, but when he opened his eyes he was standing on a rocky surface. It was still hot and fire still engulfed the walls around him, but he wasn't positive where he was. Not to mention the big question; how did he stop falling? How was it that one second he was in the air, dropping God knows where, and the next he was firmly standing on the ground?
First thing he did was look up. Instead of a hole, he saw just rocks, like he hadn't even fallen at all. He was in a cave, no doubt about it. He wasn't imagining things and it wasn't dark, the fire around lit up the whole cave and he visibly saw no hole.
It's happening again. The illusions. The strange, and scary, visions, he thought. Just like that day when I saw all of those dead people roaming the house, and the blood filling up to my neck. I'm seeing things again.
He took a careful step forward, tapping the ground with his foot, checking that it wouldn't suddenly break off and he'd end up falling again. He took another cautious step forward, certain that something would happen this time; he could feel it in his chest.
ROAR!
His eyes looked up nervously as he heard the loud husky voice. He tensed up, bending his spine a little as he became a scared little pup. In front of him was a path that led into the darkness. Would it lead him out of the cave or further into it? He wasn't confident with guessing, but going back didn't seem like such a good idea. Every time he casually looked back, he felt a cold breeze tickle his skin and make the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight.
A second roar, this time it was closer. Something was coming. Something knew he was there.
Quickly, he ran towards the giant boulder close to the rocky walls and he sat down, hiding behind it as he waited eagerly for the owner of the terrifying growls. He took a peak when silence settled in. There wasn't anyone on the path, and his heart was racing fast, as if telling him that something was there.
A shadow crept up the wall and he quickly pressed his back against the boulder, fighting to keep his breathing normal.
Don't look, he told himself. Curiosity killed the cat. Remember that phrase, Riley.
For once he listened to his own thoughts and didn't look. The roar never came again and he never heard footsteps approaching, yet he stayed against the boulder, frozen. Maybe he just didn't want to push his luck, or maybe he was just scared out of his mind.
He didn't move for a while. He wasn't sure how long he'd been hiding behind the big rock, but he felt it could have been an hour. He hoped deep inside that this daydream, whatever it was, would end if he just waited it out – but it didn't. He was still sitting against black, ashy rocks. Fire still burned all over the cave. It was hotter than a summer day in July. Everything was just as it was when he first opened his eyes and appeared in this . . . this place. He couldn't even call it anything.
He pulled himself on his knees, holding the boulder as he slowly risked being the curious cat. The path was empty, nothing waiting to kill him. He looked both ways before getting up again. His hands were covered in black ash and so were his clothes. He now just realized that tiny flakes of ash were falling above him.
He stayed looking up, wondering if somehow . . . if it was possible . . . that he was under the dark room. Honestly, he wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. He never expected the dark room to exist in the first place. What if this was the place where Hart took all the dead bodies to? Chills ran up his spine as he thought about it. He really didn't want to come across a huge pile of bodies. Being imprisoned in a room full of them was enough to scar him for an eternity.
He had been so distracted by his thoughts that he failed to realize the flames around him were dying. It was slowly becoming darker, and much to his dismay, he had no other choice but to follow the mysterious path, where he was sure he'd meet the uncanny voices.
He wiped the sweat dripping down his forehead with the back of his hand as he carefully stepped over the dark stones that made up the path. The cave got narrower as he kept moving forward. He didn't look back as the only source of light went out, even when every part of him wanted to. Fortunately, another source of light appeared in front of him. He wasn't sure if it was more fire; what seemed to be the end of the path made one last curve that hid what was on the other side.
And in the moment he stepped out of the cave, he wished he hadn't.
Two lakes of lava with a very thin path separating them, that was what he saw. The lava stretched for miles, moving like waves, like an ocean. In the lava he saw hands reaching up, only to be swallowed by the burning waves and pulled down. Those were people in there, desperately trying to get out. He also saw human heads poking up, and he shuddered at the sight of their melted faces and their jaws falling apart.
What kind of sick shit is this? Riley thought.
He was afraid to move. For the past five minutes as he stared, he had to hold himself up against the rocky walls. The people in the lava should have worried him, but it was the fact that he couldn't see an end to the lava lakes that frightened him more. It literally was an ocean of lava. Was he inside a volcano? Or maybe when he fell he actually fell deep below the earth's surface. But then how could he breathe?
A cold breeze rushed out from behind him, cooling his skin and temporarily making him forget where he was. The air also brought something with it; whispers. They made him feel just as cold as the wind. Then more wind pushed out of the cave and more voices whispered around him. He felt himself become light, like a feather. He began to march forward, towards the small path that led through the lava, and it took every strength to snap out of the daze and run back. As he ran back inside the cave, a strong wind pushed him out and caused him to trip and roll towards the lava. He stopped rolling half way to his death and got up fast because of what he saw when he was knocked out of the cave. There was a figure inside, someone was watching him, someone was doing this.
“Who are you?!” he screamed, breathing heavily.
He then heard the roaring, but it came from behind him, not in front of him as he had expected. He turned around and saw a creature coming right at him. It wasn't clear what it was, he was too far away to tell. He could see legs, many of them. Human legs?
“What the hell,” he murmured as he finally saw what it was. It was . . . he didn't know. It wasn't human, but it was human. It had six human legs, a human body, a human head, but it was all disfigured and resembled a really fast spider. Its eyes were closed, mouth opened like it wanted to eat him. “Like . . . it wants to eat me.” He ran for it. He wasn't going to stay to say hello. He was going to run as fast as he could because that thing did not look friendly.
He was about to enter the cave – which really wouldn't have helped him, just put him in more danger – when the figure he'd seen appeared, blocking him. It wore a black cloak that covered its entire body and a hood that hung low over its face. There was long black hair falling out of the hood, and he swore he saw blood on it. The figure raised its right hand at him and knew immediately that it was a woman. He wasn't quite sure how he knew, he just did. It had feminine hands, that could be one of the reasons why he knew.
He was blasted back by air, air that the woman conjured with her hand. None of this made any sense to Riley, but he had already accepted that he was going insane, so it was no use to try and find an explanation. The woman stepped forward, intimidating Riley and showing dominance. She was pushing him back by continuing to make threatening steps towards him. He had no where to run but the path through the lava, the path that currently had a creature running towards them. He looked back quickly and his eyebrows furrowed. The human part of the creature, the torso, looked to be dead. It wobbled around like it had no control over any of its limbs, like the legs were the only thing alive. Riley wasn't sure if it made it creepier or more menacing.
He looked back at the woman and breathed, “I don't want to die. Please, do not kill me. I know it's stupid to ask someone who is about to kill you not to kill you, I've witnessed it, but I realize that it's the only thing you can say when you have no way out.”
The woman halted and everything went quiet, except for the running footsteps in the background; those were still very active and getting louder. She seemed to be staring at him, but he couldn't tell with the hood hiding her face. He had no clue what she looked like. She could look like a monster for all he knew.
She raised both of her hands so fast that he barely had any time to prepare for the impact. She became violent, thrashing at him with her claws – Yeah, claws. Her nails grew long and deadly sharp. She pushed him back again with her . . . magic(because he really didn't know what to call what she was doing). The air was getting stronger and stronger each time she sent it at him until the point that he couldn't resist any longer. He had to turn back and run through the path.
So here was the deal. He had three options. Die by a human spider, die by a cloaked woman with sharp nails and air magic, or jump into the lava and suffer a painful death. But then again, all the others seemed just as painful to him. Which one was quicker?
As he ran through the path, eyes fixated on the monster ahead, the woman chased him. She sent wave after wave, trying to knock him out of balance. One of the winds even lifted him in mid air, that was how strong they were. If she wanted, she could effortlessly shove him into the lava. His heart raced as he got closer to the creature running at him. It was even scarier up close, like a horrible experiment had gone right. Then they were barely six feet away from each other when another gust of wind crept under him and lifted him into the air, flying right over the monster. Riley didn't know if the woman had done that on purpose or on accident, either way she turned the creature's attention on her. It jumped at her, wrapping its legs around her torso in a strong grip, rendering her immobile. She struggled to set her hands free but the creature just squeezed harder.
Riley should have ran. But he was stupid and naive, that was why he was in this mess in the first place. Instead of turning back and running, he picked up a giant rock close to the lava and threw it at the creature's head. Its head spun, empty eyes staring directly at him. One by one, its legs detached from around the woman and thumped loudly on the ground. Now its attention was fixed on him, and crap, he really was stupid.
Behind the creature, the woman lifted her long sleeves up to her elbows to reveal extremely pale skin, very familiar pale skin. She raised both of her hands, extending her fingers. They began to tremble as the lava around them growled. Dangerously hot bubbles formed over the surface, popping unexpectedly and hitting the ground in front of them. Riley searched for refuge from the exploding lava but there was nothing. No where he could hide. No where he could run. Once again, he was back to dying.
The cloaked woman waved her hands, slowly raising them higher. The lava on either side of them began to rise fast like mountains. They quickly rose higher than his height and the monster's combined. She was going to kill them all, drown them in fire with no escape.
She unleashed the lava and it came down on top of them in large waves. Riley dropped on the floor, covering his head as a last resort. He felt the heat pour on him, but it was not any hotter than a sunny day. He didn't feel the burning sensation of lava collapsing on top of him. He did not melt or scream in agony, he just laid on the ground, closing his eyes as he waited to die.
Minutes passed. The grumbling of lava ceased, the heat disappearing with it. It was no longer bright behind his closed eyes. And he no longer felt in danger. Suddenly, Riley felt something cold and wet drop on his back. He twitched, eyes opening. He wasn't staring at a black rocky surface, but wet green grass. It was soft, something he never thought he'd miss. He watched as a drop of rain splashed on the grass in front of him, slowly dripping down a green leaf and feeding itself to the earth.
His eyes looked up at the dark clouds and it began to pour furiously. He pulled himself up, looking around and stopped when he saw the house. He was in front of Hart's house. He was back.
“H-Har,” he tried to yell out his name, to announce that he was outside, to come get him and make him feel safe again, but his voice was hoarse and it hurt to speak so it was barely a whisper. He wanted to close his eyes and snuggle his head against the man's arms and fall asleep, knowing everything was going to be okay. He wanted to be told that he wasn't going crazy.
He wobbled towards the house and tripped half way, his legs burning like he had ran twenty miles. He pushed himself up again and carefully walked towards the steps of the front porch. He felt anxious as he remembered the collar around his neck and what it was for.
He saw someone in the window, a dark cloaked figure and he cringed. It was her, she was inside. She only appeared to him until he blinked, then she was gone. He wasn't gonna lie, he wanted to cry right about now. He wanted to finally break down and lose all his strength. He wanted to feel human, and more importantly he wanted to feel what normal was again. There was not one part of him that knew anymore. Normal . . . normal was fantasy. And this . . . this was reality.
He walked up to the door and lifted his hand to knock on the door when he heard a loud beep. He instantly recognized the sound, he heard it when Hart demonstrated the collar to him. Riley had passed the line, his collar activated.
Panicking, he began to scream Hart's name as loud as he could, pounding his fists on the door. He touched the collar, his eyes widening as the beeping went faster and faster. Then it stopped. It just stopped. He took a long breath and held it in, closing his eyes as one last beep made his ears twitch.
Riley blew up in front of the door, the collar causing his head to explode and spraying the front door with blood. His body shredded into pieces, flying in every direction; a part of his arm landed outside on the grass and his torso completely disintegrated.
As Riley's blood pooled on the porch and slowly dripped down the steps, the front door opened.
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[Author's Message]: Well . . . that happened. LOL. This chapter was originally going to be a lot longer but I had to cut off what happens after Hart opens the door and I'm gonna put it instead on the next chapter, so I'm sorry if it's a bit short. Actually, no I'm not lol. I hope my fans don't kill me (cause Hart protects me) and I hope you continue to read even though this story is becoming more and more WTF. It WILL all make sense soon. In time, you will all understand and you will sigh in relief. Or not? Dunno. Things get more weirder, and that's good. Muahaha. So please PLEASE vote and comment! I need your feedback as much as possible. I hope you enjoyed the chapter lololol. Thoughts?