My heart pounded as the wet, heavy footsteps came nearer and nearer. I held my breath, hoping that whatever was on the other side of those thin walls wouldn't notice me and storm directly through the brittle rotten door. 

I had no recollection of where I was or how I got here. The last thing I remembered was preparing myself a hot chocolate to rekindle my learning mood for the evening. And suddenly, I was here in this shithole of an abandoned flooded horror house. Also, whatever was roaming between those mushy corridors must have been some kind of swamp thing, based on those sound effects. This wasn't the first room I'd hidden in, but the first with an intact cabinet. Hopefully, I will find something useful. Maybe a plastic bag for my shoes, a knife, or anything that could help me in this situation. Even a towel would be enough! But against my high hopes, it was completely empty. I sighed and was about to close it again when I saw a barely readable floor plan pinned to the inside of the door. 

"Fuck..." I mumbled. This place was huge. My eyes wandered over the plan when I noticed a name on the right bottom corner.

"Saint Ramansis Royal Hospital. The hell is that?!" I cursed. I'd never heard of this shitty place before, and I was really sure that there existed no Saint called 'Ramansis' in the entire world. Freaking shit, where the heck am I?! Then it dawned on me, and I turned around.

On a table, only a few feet away, sat a doll clad in a frilly black-violet victorian dress and stared at me. Her glass eyes send a shiver down my spine with their unnatural brilliance and purple irises. Every. Single. Time. How could I think this? This doll—Emily—was a recurring visitor of mine in my dreams. And every time, those dreams would always be shitty. Not because of her, though. For me, Emily was akin to a gatekeeper, always holding the most horrific stuff back. But she didn't make those dreams less bearable in the end. Especially that everything that happened to me here felt the same as if it were happening to my real body—utter bullshit of you asked me. 

"Hey, Em," I greeted the doll, not that she would answer anyway. For me, this greeting was like a ritual to start the nightmare for real. Because once I found Emily, I knew that shit would hit the fan real fast. 

I tore the plan off and went on. I hadn't had time for more because I could hear how the creature in the distance slowly came back in my direction. I needed to move on and find something to defend myself. Dying was no option; I would simply reawake somewhere in this building. And even the fact that I could tell that I was in a dream was of no real use. Why? Because of some weird rules my brain made. I was not in charge here and had to play by those rules: Find a key and the fitting door. If you die, repeat this process till you are victorious. And frankly speaking, dying sucks. It hurts like hell, so this wasn't an option for me either. 

Suddenly, everything was overly quiet. And when I turned to Emily, she was already gone. Not good, I thought. Total silence was never a good omen. 

I hurriedly opened the muddied door and peered down every side of the long corridor; they were still empty. "Now or never," I told myself and began to run. Did I run in the direction the monster went? Maybe, but no risk, no fun, I guess. Unfortunately, the water, which reached over my ankle, and the spongy ground made it difficult to move quickly, as you kept sinking into the ground and had to use quite a bit of strength each time to get out. 

The further I advanced along the corridor, the more the walls were overgrown with roots and tendrils. This place looked terribly run down, not to mention the nauseating smell. Chapeau subconscious, Chapeau! I thought dismissively. Sometimes I wonder why I'm not in a psychiatric hospital already. Those dreams were definitely not normal, especially when you had them this often. But like always, I don't think anybody would have believed me. Like Dad, he only screams at me and tells me to 'man up'. Whatever this was supposed to mean. Was showing a weakness really this wrong?

I shook my head and tried to focus on my current task—getting out of here. But this was easier said than done without knowing neither the location of the key nor the door. So I just moved forwards till the corridor opened up to some kind of atrium. And my gosh, this place was huge. But even though the sheer size alone had been quite stunning, it was the state of decay, or rather the reclaiming nature, that really left me speechless. And not in an 'Oh my God, this place looks so majestic' sort of way, but rather in an 'Oh holy shit, people are being sacrificed to dark gods here let's get the fuck out of here' sense, cause no matter how you hard you wanted to twist the truth, this place was simply horrifying. 

In the middle of the atrium towered some kind of massive cypress tree which was completely dead on one side and rotting away and full of blight on the other. The tendrils that were growing rampantly up the tree out of the water looked so poisonous that the mere sight was already making me queasy. The tree's roots had grown in such a pattern that the cypress, like a mangrove, had a cavity underneath it. If I didn't know better, I surely would have thought that someone had placed an altar there.

Moreover, cattails and sawgrass were growing everywhere around the tree. Urg, sawgrass. Just the thought of walking through this crappy grass without any real protection made me briefly consider whether it wouldn't be better to turn back after all. Still, out of the corner of my eye, I could see a small winding path at the edge of the room, which probably offered just enough space to get through all this shit unharmed. 

Fortunately, as far as I could tell, the water wasn't getting much deeper, even though this room was a bit subsided. I really hoped that crossing this hall was the right choice. I sighed and slowly began to feel my way forward to avoid losing my footing due to the difference in altitude. 

Unfortunately, my previous assessment was wrong. The water was now up to my waist, and I felt myself struggling to keep on walking. I sent a quick prayer to Emily and hoped that the creature I had heard earlier wasn't suddenly standing behind me. I laughed briefly and turned my head immediately around. 

Nothing. Phew, lucky me, I thought, while I now hoped that in the meantime, nothing stood in front of me. Happily, this was not the case, and I kept on struggling through the mire. The path I had seen from the end of the corridor was conveniently broad enough that I avoided cutting myself on those crappy grasses. However, the recurring blackout of the ceiling lights, which were clinging on a few remaining cables and looked like they were about to fall down, was a bit unnerving. This behavior originated from the fact that it appeared as if a breeze swept through the grass every time they went out. It didn't hit me, thankfully, but where the fuck was that wind coming from? Those shitty dirty neon lights didn't offer the best vision anyway, but those fucking power outages really didn't make the orientation any better. 

Truthfully, all I wanted was to wake up. I'd never been a fan of nightmares and the like and would rather have dreamed of nicer things, but my dreams, when I did have one, were always filled with things that prevented a good night's sleep. So every time before I went to sleep, I hoped I wouldn't be dreaming at all. I was way more comfortable with a silent nothingness. 

Eventually, I reached the end of the path and stood—as expected of a nightmare—in front of the cypress tree. I briefly wondered how a passage that clearly led somewhere else suddenly ended here. "It's a bit like that horror movie with the tall grass maze, huh?" I surmised. I thankfully declined this oncoming scenario with a waving hand and was about to turn around and ignore the whole situation until I saw a large antique Cheval mirror facing away from me in front of the tree. 

"That's new..." I muttered, toying with the idea of whether I was foolish enough to go up to it and examine it. Alas, I wasn't the brightest in situations like these. 

The mirror itself stood on a rooting of the cypress tree and seemed to be entwined with it. To my satisfaction, it had grown tall enough to escape the water—a welcome change to get out of this muddy wetness. Thus, I struggled a few final feet to the mirror and finally up onto the root podium. Then I went to the right side of the mirror. 

Brimming with disappointment, I stared at what I found in the mirror. "You're shitting me," I said and wanted to smash my head into the glass.

"Well, Well, well, if it isn't our cute Benjamin," said a husky feminine voice.

"Don't tease him, sister. Poor Ben already has a rough time in here," said another.

I internally screamed hysterically when I heard the two too well-known voices. They belonged to the crying and the laughing mask which were residing in the mirror. They called themselves Melpomene and Thalia, and I'd known them for almost my entire life. In the beginning, I only saw those two in the mirror from time to time in the corner of my vision in the real world when I had a bad or emotional day. Then they gradually began to alternately cover my face, which I was somewhy thankful for, with theirs. But as soon as I turned seventeen, they would only stay on either side of my face in the mirror, whilst itself was completely blurred out. I tried once to talk to someone 'bout that, but they just made fun of me. Since then, I tried to avoid mirrors and to avoid 'them' out of fear of what could become of me...and also because they never shut up. But yeah, here I was yet again.

"He's again deep in thought. What should we do if he loses himself in there somedays?" the crying mask, Melpomene, asked. 

"Wouldn't it be better? Maybe 'she' would come back then instead," said the other. 

"B-but, what happens if he isn't ready? He doesn't even know yet!" Melpomene protested, and her voice began to carry sobs.

"Oh, wouldn't that be kinda tragic in a funny way? Imagine this kind of situation, hilarious!" snickered Thalia. 

I pinched my nose. "The fuck are you two talking about again? Always this nonsense. Can't you talk like normal people sometimes? Haah, what else do I expect of voices that come out of my mind. You aren't even real; why am I even talking to you?!"

"He is like Oedipus, a tragic hero. It makes me so sad!" cried the mask. 

Her sister fell into a laughing fit, "Yes, Mel, a tragic 'heroine'! But more like Antigone! And 'she' still hasn't the slightest idea! Hahaha!"

"Lia, stop making fun of him! It's not his fault that he doesn't know the answer. It's hard to find, like the one of which came first: the chicken or the egg," said Mel, who had calmed down a little.

Thalia began to laugh even louder than before, "When I look at 'her', obviously the egg!" 

"Stop talking in riddles!" I screamed at them. 

Suddenly, both of them were quiet, and their hollow eye sockets glared at me. "You shouldn't have done that," they said in unison. 

I was about to ask why but heard countless bubbly groans around me seconds later. Slowly I broke eye contact with the mirror and turned my head to the right. 

"Foolish little thing," I heard Thalia's voice to my left, "you woke them up." And as she said this, out of the murky water all around me, countless creatures covered in slime, algae, mud, and rotten moss started to rise from their deep slumber.

"She won't be able to save you every time. You really need to learn, or you will die in the near future," said Mel's voice in a disappointed tone from the other side. 

"Now run!" ordered both of them in unison again. 

"You don't have to tell me twice!" I yelled back at them and took to my heels. 

I looked for that path I'd taken before, but it was gone. Honestly, it wasn't that surprising, but c'mon, why now?! Hurridly I tried to find another way to leave this cursed place only to notice that the solely free path was behind a hoard of those awakening bog bodies. Their eyes resembled those of dead fish, and the parts of their bodies that were not covered by the stuff they were lying in were swollen and gnawed. It was a pitiable and utterly disgusting sight. I should never have looked at those autopsy pictures. 

Luckily for me, they were slow, and so I maneuvered around the first few of them the best as I could. But even before I reached the entrance of the new path, something slimy grabbed my leg. I yelped in surprise and tried to free myself, but the grip only grew stronger. Panic-stricken, I looked around to find something to defend myself with, but there was nothing. So I did the only thing left and hammered with a clenched fist down on the arm-like thingy that held me in a tight prison. I thrashed and smashed at it again and again till my hand began to sting and ooze blood, but the grip just wouldn't loosen.

"No, no, no, no! I don't want to die like that!" I screamed frantically.

But then, out of nowhere, a loud crack sounded. I stared above me, and with a loud breaking sound, one of the old neon lamps snapped loose and fell down on me.

My ears roared, and my head spun. For a brief moment, I didn't know where I was until I saw the broken remains of the lamp in front of me. I couldn't believe my luck, and I didn't even think about what had just happened. I just got up and kept running. I didn't care if the grass cut me or not. I ran and ran, past all the bodies that appeared. My heart was throbbing, my whole body aching, and I didn't know how much longer I could keep going, but I didn't stop running. I reached a higher corridor, whether it was the same, I do not know, but I ran through it until I found an open and intact door. I rushed in and pushed the door shut behind me with my remaining energy. Then I slumped to the flooded floor with my back pressed against the entrance. Hot tears began to pour down my face. I hated it, I hated the dreams, I hated my life, I just hated everything! 

Sadly, I wasn't allowed to relax. Before I realized it, everything around me began to creak and move. Startled by the sudden movement, I slammed my head against the wood behind me. In front of me, however, another eerie spectacle was about to unfold.  

The creaking sound came from roots growing all around me in the room, which was built unnaturally high. They seemed to be contracting towards the center of the room and getting bigger and bigger. At first, it looked like just a proliferation of branches, but then it began to form. Inch by inch, a wooden body emerged that resembled a human woman. The hair formed from tendrils that had grown on the walls. On her head sprouted a kind of antlers' crown. It was reminiscent of a creature from ancient days when primordial beings still roamed the forests and seas and were worshipped by heathens. When the creature was fully shaped, it stood several feet above me. 

Then an echoing voice ran through my entire being as the entity pointed at me with one of its branch-like fingers. "At last! At last, we have found you! The shard! The shard has appeared, and it's mine!"

Then the treant woman reached out for me, but before she could touch me, I felt something pulling on my ankle and dragging me down. The hand swept over me as it missed, and the creature began to scream angrily until my head ultimately disappeared beneath the surface of the water. I dared and looked down to identify my new attacker and saw Emily pulling me down into an endless depth. Why...?

I tried to fight back, but my body was paralyzed. The space above me grew darker and darker, and the air in my lungs grew scarcer and scarcer. A moment of carelessness caused me to try to inhale, and water entered my lungs. I felt everything tense up, my body gasping for air, only getting further caught into the death spiral. My mind began to fade while I tried in vain to scream...but in the depths, no one would hear me anyway. So I closed my eyes and let myself fall into the cold void. 

LittleVixen

Thanks for reading!

This story will be released once a week. If you want more information bout this or one of my other stories, the schedule plan is on my profile.

If you like this story, consider reading one of my other stories ^.^

Spoiler

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/273362/i-lived-so-long-in-seclusion-that-everybody-forgot-about-me/

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/378429/treevolution/

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/422515/lunar-chaos/

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/279059/moonlit-tears/

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