The light dragged across the roof as he moved it from above the bed, to behind him above the desk. The first difference from his room became quite clear: the ceiling was much lower. He then noticed many sharp nails sticking down through the ceiling. Four sets of them. William studied the nails and realized that one of the patterns was missing a nail. William walked forward and stood up straighter to get a better look, almost not believing it.
"How did he get it loose?" he thought.
His mind wandered into a strange vision of the flying red, soaring into the nail until it went through to the other side. His mind was an active one. His imaginings were sometimes hard to distinguish from reality. He also felt that hunger and thirst had some kind of role in the matter. So too, his many years of solitary thinking.
He knew, by where the foot was on the bed, that this person was no giant - likely shorter than him. He observed no hammer or plank of wood to hit the nail free. He lowered the lantern to his waist and walked to the door. He'd spent enough time in small rooms. He froze at the entry. The disturbing image of a person lying beneath those sheets bore heavy on him.
It felt to him a great disrespect to simply walk away. The person who had helped him escape was laying only feet away. Could he leave him there with not so much as a passing glance to his face? Reluctantly, he moved toward the bed and the lantern revealed the rest of what he had feared. He knelt by the bed and quit all breathing through his nose, trying to block the stench. It was powerful, however, and he knew that no rational attempt could mask the smell besides getting as far away as possible.
He reached down and gripped the covers by the person's head and pulled back. William looked upon it with anguish as his face scrunched and his eyes watered. Long, dark hair flowed like a river under the head, over the planks, and onto the floor. The cheeks were as thin as his were but seemed more shapely and pointed. The chin was narrow and the lips were thick and had the shape of a heart. Directly above them was a small and buttoned nose. He could tell with certainty that this was no man; it was a girl. What truly frightened William was the pure darkness where her eyes should be. He brought the lantern closer and leaned in to see them.
He fell back onto the floor with horror and crawled quickly back towards the doorway. The sheet pulled back with his foot and one of the bed planks came off with it. He turned around as he stood up, running into the hall and shutting the door behind him. As he leaned back against the door, he tried to calm himself and remove the image from his mind. He couldn't. All he could do was peer forward into the dark hallway, where he had no choice but to continue.
Any part of William that had not changed from the out-of-body experience had no doubt been changed after that.
"Her eyes. What... where were they?" He thought, trying his best to breathe.
He started into the hallway, lantern held outward and eyes darting every which way, expecting a confrontation at any moment. Hugging close to the wall, he walked forward while listening to each of his footsteps, hoping the next one would be quieter than the last. The hallway was narrow and the smell was that of wet brick and copper. Pipes protruded here and there across the ceiling, a good indicator of being somewhere underground. It almost seemed constructed and managed by an amateur who only knew the bare minimum of architecture.
William happened upon what looked to be a small storage room to his left, with no door and enough room to fit small household supplies. He looked inside and found a bucket, two unwashed hand towels, and a cheap, green broom with a dustpan attached to its handle. William almost laughed to himself, thinking about how long it would take to even clean that place up and how surprising it was to see cleaning supplies. He leaned out of the small space and started again down the hall.
A left turn was coming up and it dawned on William that the entire structure of the hallway seemed to be getting slightly more enclosed as he went on. He reached the corner and peeked around it. More darkness awaited him there. He pushed the lantern further out in front of him and started to feel a sensation that someone was following him. He turned around and pointed the lantern down the hall behind him, seeing and hearing nothing.
William could feel the nail starting to irritate his waist so he moved it slightly to the right. He wiped some sweat off his forehead. Again, he noticed the hall becoming smaller. Ten feet in height had now turned to eight, he was sure of it. A short way in front of him and to the left, he noticed a large wooden barrel with worn, blue paint. William went over to it and rested his hand on the rim. He moved the lantern over the top of it as he looked down. He tried pushing and found it to be bolted down, like everything else. He couldn't quite see the bottom of it, as the lantern's light was blocked by the candlestick which rested on a wide, metal underside - making anything that wasn't head-on or straight-up, miserable to make out.
William, being curious by what might lay at the bottom, reached inside with his left hand. He moved his hand around, feeling for anything that could prove useful to him. He soon felt a cold, metal surface hugging one side of the barrel and felt it click inward as his hand pressed against it. Immediately afterward, William heard the bottom of the barrel fling open, and he jolted his hand back out of it. He carefully looked back over the top and again raised the lantern. As he peered into the darkness below, he noticed another foul smell, flowing outward from the barrel, making him nauseated.
"What the hell?" He said to himself quietly.
A barrel, set randomly in a hallway, with what appeared to be some kind of trap door to who-knows-where just underneath it? It wasn't the strangest thing he had ever seen, but it was up there. William thought he heard something. It came from the barrel. He leaned in over it and could barely make out something deep down, some kind of small light or glare. He held the lantern closer to his head and leaned in more, his shoulders at the rim.
The small speck was now two, reminiscent of the glare in a cat's eyes when exposed to light. Two piercing, white specks peered onto William and seemed to be looking directly at his face.
"Hello?" William asked.
Still quiet but with a deeper tone, he asked once again. The things were silent and seemed to dim out now and then as if they were blinking. Then he heard a scratching sound, like feet sliding against concrete.
"Help." The voice said.
He could hardly make out the word. The voice was muted, perhaps behind a covering. It sounded worn and tired like a throat that's been squeezed beyond repair. William got even closer - as close as he safely could. It sunk in that there could be another person in there with him. Another soul who only wants out of there. He had to help.
"I'll help you, what's your name?" William asked, trying to contain his mixture of excitement and panic. But the voice he heard back was not what he'd expected.
"Boy!" Yelled a voice behind William, no more than a few feet away.
Suddenly, William lost sight of the lights and heard a scurry of footsteps that seemed to quickly drag across what must have been the concrete floor below. William flung up out of the barrel and saw Father walking furiously toward him.
The light from the lantern shook wildly about, giving sight of an angry Father getting closer and closer. Each time the light passed over Father's face, William could see that staying put wouldn't end well. He used the barrel as leverage to push himself backward and turn around. William ran for his life down the hallway. The lantern light went out from the commotion. William flung the lantern back, trying to hit Father with it, hoping it would slow him down for even a single second.
"You ain't gonna get far down here!" Yelled Father, treading closely behind.
"Just let me go!" Screamed William as he ran, sliding his hands against the cold, brick walls.
He could not see anything. He was truly terrified. As if his nightmare, decades in the making, had just reached its climax. William struggled to breathe, gasping for air and grabbing his legs where he had been recently whipped. He could feel the scabbing wounds starting to rip.
William felt the wall recede inward and gripped the wall tight. He quickly ran into the opening and tried to hide in the small room. He felt around and touched what seemed to be a broom handle. William slid down the wall and reached into his waistband, taking out the nail and holding it up. He heard Father getting close. Out of breath, he tried as hard as he could to repress the sounds of them.
"Wiiiillliaaaammmm," Called out Father in a taunting voice, "You think you can just up and walk away?"
The footsteps stopped to a halt, right before the small room. Silence came. Shaking with fear, William slowly stood up, using the wall to help. He waited for a minute before taking a step forward. His foot hit what sounded like a bucket. Soon after, he felt the full force of Father's hands wrap around his throat.
"Gotcha, you little shit!" said Father as he slammed William against the wall.
William could hardly breathe as it was. Now, two hands were gripped around his neck and not letting up. He felt the blood begin to pool in his head and he fought desperately for air as he struggled to kick Father off of him.
"You think it's hard to see now? Wait until you're like that little girl!" Said Father through his gritted teeth.
William was becoming light headed, about to pass out. He took the nail he held and raised it up to Fathers neck and shoved it downward with everything he had. It was just like the fork, yet it went in much easier. It seemed to have no trouble sliding deep into Fathers skin and muscle.
Father yelled and his grip loosened. William drove the nail further in and the grip around his throat loosened even more. He finally gasped and took air into his depleted lungs, the lightheadedness starting to dissipate.
Father fell back a bit, and William took the nail out and shoved it back in with even more force than before. Father dropped down and William could hear him panting and squirming around. This was his chance. He ran as fast as he could again down the hall, hands once again being used as his guide against the brick. He slowed down after a few minutes without any sound behind him and caught his breath. He remembered how the hallway had been getting smaller and reached his hands upward. He felt the ceiling.
Claustrophobia set in on William. He wondered if he should keep going or turn back in fear of missing something during his escape. He knew Father was behind him though. He was not about to risk that, especially without a way to defend himself. So, deeper in it was. He started to wonder just how big the place was. All those years and he had only thought of that place as a relatively small house and never could have imagined the true size of it all, let alone right beneath him.
He knew there were others now. The girl, the person under the barrel. He had no way of helping them, as far as he knew. At least not at that moment. His best bet was making it out of there alive and finding someone on the outside who could help. What if they died before he came back? What if there's no way out? What if there was no one outside to help them? He knew the answers would have to wait. He knew that he was underground and that the next logical step was to find a way up.