Another thing common in Hillside was suicide. Not even just inside the hospital or any of the haunted sites, but everywhere. More common than the murder reports were distressed phone calls to the hospitals in the middle of the night telling about people of all ages found dead in their rooms with bottles of sleeping pills and or knives. This day alone we've had two cases. A teenager from townsquare drowned herself in her bathtub, and a middle aged man who took alkaline solutions to kill himself. I don't even need to explain why. I've been living in this town my entire life, just enough for me to know that along with the cursed land dwelled toxic communities. The options were; deal with it using drugs, or don't deal with it at all. Escape. Death was better than living in hell for the rest of your life. I used to question what compelled them to do such a thing, but not anymore.
It took me a minute to realize I've just been staring up at it the whole time, creeps crawling down my back the longer I did. I took a deep breath, vacillating between climbing the chair and cutting him loose myself or driving back to the station. It wasn't like I could just leave him there, but even if I didn't. What then? Was I just going to put a fucking dead body in my backseat for the sake of my conscience? I didn't know why he killed himself and I wasn't about to investigate right there and then, but based on where and how, it seemed like he wanted to be found. There wasn't anything stopping him from doing it in the middle of the woods where maggots can easily consume him without any problems and make it beyond difficult for anyone to discover him, however instead he did it here, inside the only building Hillside owed it's fame from.
Gathering what was left of courage in my stomach, I stood on the chair, my heart falling out of my chest as its feet wobbled against the unstable floor. I balanced myself on top, listening to the foundation underneath creaking from my weight. Once it stopped making sounds, I ignored the chills shooting down my spine from my proximity to the body, whipping out my knife and grabbing into the rope. I slice the thick noose, the chair wobbled on each movement I made, my shoes scraping against the edges for the sake of maintaining my balance. I didn't know how it happened, but all I could remember was a fiery hot breath on my neck, and my head snapping towards behind me in reflex, the same old darkness greeting my pupils. I didn't know how else the situation could get even more disturbing; a three day old dead body hanging right in front of me inside the most haunted place in hillside and no one outside knows what I've discovered. It was an intimidating thought, not to mention, I felt so small inside the hospital. It could eat me alive anytime it wanted.
I get back to what I was doing, tucking the flashlight in the crook of my neck as I cut the noose, my arm swelling. The rope was thick and old, coated with some kind of grey matter breaking off from my blade. Cement, like it has been soaked in concrete first before it was used. Death by hanging wasn't new to me, I couldn't count how many times I've stood in front of a body like this, everyone taking pictures of the crimescene while. It wasn't too long before burning pained through my elbow and I was only half way there. The body budged along each gesture, its icy cold hand brushing against my stomach. Another creak from the floorboards caught my balance off guard, one of the feet burying a hole into the wood, my eyes widening in horror as the chair trembled from my weight. I hold onto the rope for dear life, uncertain whether to jump off or keep going.
My heart jumped out of my ribcage, the flashlight tucked in my neck falling off before I could catch it. My surroundings dip back into utter darkness, a thud echoing throughout the entirety of the room. A wheeze ripped out of my mouth, air constricting in my lungs as my throat tightened from a grasp. The blackness wasn't even enough to conceal the pair of paper white arms reaching out to me and wrapping its icy cold fingers around my neck. The light spun across the floors before stopping, shining over the body. A scream wasn't even enough to emphasize the shaking of my limbs and the sickening squelch inside my stomach. It was alive; it's previous white eyes replaced by dilated pupils staring right at me, maggots crawling out of the hole on the side of its cheek. I held onto its arms, prying them off of me to no avail, its grip firm and deliberate.
I try to remember everything I learned from training; fighting techniques, shooting an A.K 47, none of which that can help me in my situation. I bury my nails into its skin, scratching it, anything I could do to breath again, black circles floating around my vision, yet everything remained clear, including its gritted teeth and its wide eyes. I've never genuinely believed the stories I heard from everyone, now I didn't know. However it was possible, I had no idea, I didn't dare to question why or how, all sorts of rational thinking leaving my system the longer my lungs squeezed for oxygen. I attempt to reach for my holster, something splattering onto my face. My fingers dug into the skin, black blood cascading down it's arms staying attached to my neck. Unconsciousness lingered close, my neck swelling as his grip tightened for more than I can take. I squeezed my eyes shut, shovelling through my head for anything I could do to get him off.
My balance vanishes, my feet kicking for freedom as I wheezed and air burned in my nose, the back of my head numbing. It, or he, only watched, a huge grin plastered across his face, displaying charcoal black teeth, his putrid breath of decomposing flesh and some other fucking concoction attacking my nostrils, strangling the blood vessles running along my neck. That was when it hit me, the chair annihilating the floorboards it stood on and falling through the ceiling downstairs, even screams unable to come out of my mouth. The gun in my holster stood useless, the sunken seat underneath my feet out of reach, his arm the only thing holding me up now. I've been prepared for tougher encounters ever since I got into the cop field; running after junkies, raiding night clubs filling up with minors, nonetheless, nothing would've prepared me for this. It almost seemed funny in my head that one simple strangle from a dead guy would kill me. But I was terrified.
The previous vigorous swats of my hand grew weak, my lungs convulsing as eternity seemed to pass that I was there, waiting for the inevitable. I was just going to give up right there and then. But who was I kidding? I've been warned my entire life, enough to listen, enough to stay away, but for some reason I still ended up here, in a place where you either die or go insane. There was a fall, vibrations ringing through my ears as my surroundings fade to obscurity, his pale, bloody face still burning holes onto mine. Death was never at all a big deal for me, having had been exposed to it since I was a kid, so I wasn't as terrified, but what I was scared of was him, and everything, like that room was going to swallow me whole after I give in, and instead of nothingness I'll be trapped.
Finally I managed to breathe, oxygen rushing into my nose faster than the speed of light, mercilessly dragging me away from the weakness I was beginning to get used to. I pulled myself back together, letting go of his arm and snatching the gun in my holster, firing it at his chest, the bullet passing through his hospital gown. His hand loosened from its grip, my body hitting the edge of the chair from what I can remember, stabbing into my stomach, the added weight poking a massive hole through the ceiling downstairs. One wrong move and I would fall, and then I did. His piercing black pupils gawking at me as the wood underneath me gave up, the squelch of excruciating pain evaporating into the back of my head, air brushing through my fingers, letting go of my firearm. Back to first floor, the hole creeping away as I freefell, but he was still there, just watching me and he remained hung.
My spine hit the tiled floors, tears bursting through my eyes for it didn't end there, the crack of the concrete against my bones filling my ears, the frigid foundations splitting my skin open. I could still remember how it felt; like a million teeth biting into you all at once, but your brain doesn't know how to react to such a pain, so it just ponders from a distance, in utter shock and horror.
I counted the hours darkness encompassed my vision, waiting for some kind of light to break through but nothing did. It was as if your entire body is numb of any sensation but you can still see, and are fully aware of your surroundings. For a moment I was beginning to convince myself I was dead. It was a scary thought to take in, either way I was all out of care. On a second thought, they said death is exactly how it feels like before you were born; just nothing. Not peaceful, not paradise or hellish like the ones the elderly have warned us about, rather a void hanging in the air. This wasn't nothing. It was a middle ground, and one extremely obvious difference was the dread materializing somewhere in my body and the thoughts rushing on and out of my subconscious.
And then it happened, at first I wasn't quite sure what it was that changed, but the longer I stayed there, the more it became noticeable; the noises. Incoherent whispers one minute, the next, entire comprehensible sentences from people somewhere near. I've tried opening my mouth, doing anything at all to catch their attention much to no avail and I was still there, existing, clueless where they are. The sentences turned into whole conversations, one of them being about a girl bleeding from the head, the other about a building. Afterwards, a series of beeping screeched through the void into my ears, followed by a vague light shining over the darkness, mercilessly dragging me away from my unconscious. Only them did I remember everything that happened. The hallways, the rooms, the disgusting stench. My stomach churned from the memory, the scene playing back ahead of me and taking me back to the corridors.
I walked through it again, pacing for the stairs at the edge and never once reaching it. I shone the flashlight in my hand over the walls, an abyss greeting me outside the window. There was a distinct difference between nothingness and the nightskies, the lack of stars and silhouettes from trees outside the building sending chills down my spine. Right there and then I knew for a fact I was still alive, but it wasn't the same. There was nothing there, just the same pitch black over and over again my eyes were sick of seeing, yet for some reason my heart was pounding inside my chest, waiting for something to come up and traumatize me again. The anticipation remained although nothing came, and I could feel the sweat trickling down my forehead and neck, the freezing atmosphere crawling up my skin.
A spontaneous pressure pushed through my ribs, my mouth dropping as I lose grip of the flashlight and my knees meet the floor. I hold onto my chest for dear life, rummaging for reasons in my head. Heart attack? Panic attack? The last time I experienced it was back in tenth grade after having too much meth. No, something else. I had no idea what was happening, my lungs squeezing and I wheeze for air. A black mass caught the corner of my eye as I crash back onto the floor, inching closer and closer to my side until it was right in front of me. A creepily tall man with glowing pale skin and all black eyes, staring right down into my soul. He reached over before I could flinch, grabbing my jaw with his icy old hand, leaning foreward and saying something. His voice was deep, deeper than anything humanly possible, my ears ringing from the weird frequency. It took my entire being to process he was the same guy who hung by the ceiling; his hospital gown, his hair, even the holes on his arms and the maggots crawling out of them. How it was possible for a dead body to take himself out of the noose and walk was out of the question, I needed to get out as soon as I can.
I couldn't stand up, not even swat his grasp glued to my skin away. My knees on the floorboads were sinking into the wood, not in a way it would when the foundation is falling apart, rather submerging into it like the building was eating me alive. My eyes widen in panic kicking my feet for some kind of control. Half my limbs sunk into the floor, completely incapacitating me from moving and further decreasing my chances of escaping. I strain hard, squirming my head away from his grip but there was no use. Exhaustion corrupted my muscles, my lungs squeezing for air which didn't smell like him. Meanwhile he only stood there, watching, his black mouth still muffling something I couldn't gather. A moment of clarity took over my senses as he knelt down, towering over me as he held my face close, his body reeking of rotting meat.
"How could you wake me!?" He growled, his breath fanning to my visage, killing all sorts of olfactory sense in my nose. My stomach flipped, puke rising to my mouth before I could push it back in, exploding all over his arm. But he didn't budge, the two holes on his face still looking at me, the lower half of my torso paralyzed. I didn't know if it was the floor, or my heart beating faster than I could fathom, permanent goosebumps formed on my skin. "Tell them I roam this land, and I will not stop until I find who woke me." He says, blood spattering out each word, "I will kill, every, single, people that step into my home. I will kill them. I will." He promised, his words echoing across the walls, drilling holes into my skull from the headache which came after. I had nothing left of reality to even understand what he was talking about, either way I did know it was a warning, and he was the monster people have been talking about inside Hillside Cross Station for more than one hundred years.
There was a sudden jolt of electric current inside me, the same contraction in my chest earlier returning, this time squelching through and cramping my entire body. I was dying. No, not just dying. Death was peaceful, not this, it was like every hurt you've gone through your entire life happening all at the same time in one moment. My heart was squeezing, my nose was stinging, and black spread its way over my eyes, blocking my view of the man.
I could finish this story off by saying that's everything I could remember from that incident, but that would just be a ridiculously absurd lie. Why should I stop myself from documenting everything that happened to me? It's not like people would believe me anyway anymore. Everyone around me have stated all the same diagnoses; schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and psychosis.The holy trinity of the worse kinds of mental illnesses. Quite frankly, getting called crazy was nothing to my brain compared to the moment I went back to consciousness. Laying on a hospital bed with ten thousand needles stuck on my arms to feed me, my entire head stuck on an uncomfortable soft pillow. There was something on my face, a thick layer of cast and bandage. Even breathing wasn't nice for I could feel every single twist of muscle and bone. The room was too bright for my eyes that even closing my lids was no help, and sleep wasn't an option.
I scanned my surroundings for anyone but only the white walls greeted me back, the door in the corner secured shut, an apparatus hissing right next to my bed. I've seen those things before at work whenever we had to deal with a car accident victim falling into a coma. Life support. I only laid there, stopping myself from getting overwhelmed over what was happening. It was exactly two hours before someone entered the door, a nurse and a doctor both hugging clipboards to their chests, eyes widening as they landed to my face. "She's awake?" The nurse spoke first, dropping the pad onto a table and hurtling towards me, grabbing the stetoscope from the bedside table and putting it on, checking me. Three more months was how long it was I needed to stay at the recovery facility. Two months in casts, unable to move for they said I would break a bone if I did, and another month learning to eat through my mouth again because my throat grew narrow.
I still regret asking what happened. Forgetting about it was the best thing that ever happened to me since I woke up, but I just had to ruin all of that from over curiosity. Apparently I haven't returned that night at the station and my chief called me ten times with no answer. He became concerned enough to drive from stadcrikel to hillside cross station, and there he found me and called for medics and backup. They took me in, soon found out I fell three storys from the second floor from the three broken vertibrae on my spine, and multiple fractures on my skull and collarbone. I was in a coma for more than four months. No brain activity, no neural responses, enough for my family to consider pulling the plug as they lost hope I was ever going to get up. Remembering all of it was a rollercoaster. One moment I was sat talking to a psychiatrist they recommended, the other I was bawling in the corner of the room having a panic attack.
I thought I would be able to leave after everything; I went back home with the mindset it was all over, only to be greeted by night terrors whenever I slept. So then I was shoved back into the recovery facilty, diagnosed with a couple of mental disorders by professional psychologists and psychiatrists. That was all they could see; the anomalies in my brain tests and the MRI's clearly stating schizophrenia and psychosis. But that wasn't just it. I could still see him. Everytime I closed my eyes, he was there, still holding my jaw and burning holes on my face, and I relived the moment over and over and over again. When I talked to my chief, they never did find a body. Just me in the basement swimming in a pool of blood. They were surprised I was still even alive. Even I was too, and maybe regretting I was in the first place.
Life lately is no where near the same one I lived before I went inside. Other than that, I could still hear him saying those words in my ears when I'm alone.
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Hi guys 🤠 So, I've been absolutely dead for almost two months now and I'm not going to excuse myself. But if I might; I've been preparing for my finals which didn't come because classes has been suspended for an entire month in my country due to multiple Corona Virus/COVID-19 cases around my city, and all my academic efforts have gone to waste. However, at the same time that means summer break starts early, and I've gone back to writing since then because I miss it so much. And now I'm here! Hopefully the updates are going to be much more consistent than this now that I don't have requirements on my back 😊 I'm going to try my hardest to keep up with my writing schedule. For now, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and thank you for reading! ❤