#hellhaus

The hall is far from dark and there is a table stretching its entire length. There are piles of food covering it.

I've never experienced hunger here. Now, my stomach growls. My mouth is watering. The scent is incredible.  Roasted meats, fresh fruit, crisp vegetables, steamed seafood, warm breads, and glazed pastries. All in plenty.

It's a feast. Why has no one else arrived?

I search the room for traps or waiting beasts. I'm alone. My insides ache.

I can resist no more. I step closer. I take a plate and select a piece of roast. It is so tender, it's falling apart on my fork. So juicy. I bring the plate to my nose and inhale deeply. Amazing.

I gaze at the perfectly cooked specimen. The fibers are still falling apart... No... They are moving. They are squirming together in mass. This flesh is alive.

I scream and throw the plate back at the table. I should have known! This place is wrong! My room is the only safe place. I'll never leave again!

My door is gone.

Yellow tinged wallpaper covers where my door once was.

My room.

My safety.

It's gone.

The food on the table is rotting , excreting a cloud for black and grey. Like mushrooms releasing spores. I drop to the floor and crawl. I have no choice. I must go deeper into the house. I must find another room.

  I reach the parlor. I can stand again.

"Mother" stares at me from within her mirror. She slides toward me, just breeching the mirror. She seems to think better of it.

There, there is something else here. I can hear it. A soft scraping sound. It's fast like lightning. From behind the old furniture a serpent appears. Two long horn curve back over its head and row upon row of needle teeth adorn its jaws.

I stumble back and it rises before me. A purple tongue flicks out . It strikes! I fall to the floor. There is no time to scream, but I hear one anyway. I open my eyes. The serpent is flailing in the pincers of the scorpion. It bites wildly, but its fangs cannot penetrate the metal exoskeleton. The scorpion's stinger is having a similarly hard time with the viper's scales. Metal whines and the serpent screams . There is a sharp crack and the scorpion snips the serpent in half. The two pieces are writhing, breaking into a million tiny copies of itself. They are slithering for the walls. They disappear into the tiniest of cracks.

I clamber to my feet. I feel like the serpents could be anywhere now. Even beneath my feet.

The scorpion turns toward me, it drops low with loud clanks. I'm reminded of a knights armor.

"Are you helping me?" I ask.

Its red eyes close slowly and lowers itself to the ground further.

I hear something in the walls. Terror sends me diving onto the back of this horrifying beast.  

The scorpion slowly stands and begins moving toward the interior of the house.  It moves quickly, the metallic sound of its legs is almost soothing.

I see the spider watching from its doorway as we pass by. We pass room after room, each more abstract than the next. This is farther than I've ever traveled on my own. The walls are curving in, tunnel like. I duck closer to my new friend as we pass under thousands of hornets. They buzz and skitter above us.

Faster, we are zooming through this horrible house. It's getting darker and darker. More foreboding. I hear that skittering in the walls again. There is a thunderous crack, flashes like lightning. Water is filling the halls behind us. It's lapping up over the scorpion's back, but we continue forward.

There's a wall ahead! But there is also light!

I hear the chime of a clock and the scorpion stops abruptly. I'm throw from its back. Water splashes all around me, but I land on dry floor.

Dong.

Dong.

Dong.

I try to get my bearings . Before me there is a stairwell. Does this place have a second level? I see light somewhere at its top. It feels safe, but somehow very final. There is also a gaping hole in the floor. It is dark. I can see no bottom, but I feel wind coming through.

I...

I think I hear someone calling me from down there. I can't be sure. A trick of the wind. It's so uncertain.

The water is flowing around these places most unnaturally.

"Your time is up. Go."

I whirl around. Jim is standing there. He smiles at me, but his eyes are sad.

"You have to come with me."

He shakes his head. "I told you, Little bit, I can't."

The man is here again. He grins at me with sharp teeth as he places his hand on Jim's shoulder.

"No..." I whisper.

"I deserve to be here, but not you."

The man looks at Jim with false sympathy then back to me with a condescending shake of the head.

"I don't know which path to take. I'm afraid! I can't go alone!"

"I can't go with you, but you must. You must go."

I step away from the portal, Jim shakes his head, but I take his hands. "I can't leave you hear alone."

The man grins wider, until I grip Jim tightly and throw us both into the hole.

We're falling.

Faster,

Faster.

I hear the serpent screaming.

It's so dark.

I see a small glow, then a little more.

It's Jim. His hands are glowing like embers. I stare in horror, the tips of his fingers are burning away.

"No!" I shout grabbing his more solid wrist as we tumble through space. "No!"

"I told you I couldn't go with you." He says all too calmly.

I look up at the glowing trail he is leaving behind. "No, I was supposed to save you!" I have to grab on to his shoulders.

"You did!" He says smiling, this time it reaches his eyes. He is smiling through tears.

He's burning away. I feel tears in my own eyes. "Jim, Jim, please!" I grab hold of his face. There isn't much left.

"I'll be waiting on you Little bit, but don't let me see you for a long, long time. You hear?"

"Jim!" I plead.

He grins. "Tell them I love them, okay?" He kisses me on the forehead and I squeeze my eyes shut.

My hands are suddenly empty and I fall alone.

"Jim!!" I scream into the darkness.

    Suddenly the sound of wind is gone and I jolt.

I hear machines. Whirs and beeps. I hear the clacking of heels in a hallway.

Where am I?

Why is it so...white?

    Sometime later...

"I'm thinking of getting another job." I call to my girlfriend in the kitchen.

"Your dad hasn't reverted has he?" Her voice sounds strained.

I sip at a glass of water. "No, no... He's been much more understanding and easier to deal with, but..." I sigh. "I don't know. I think it would be better for everyone if I got my own place. Less stress all around."

Kim comes out of the kitchen carrying two plates. She's so tall and statuesque and perfect. She has her hair colored a pale blue and it contrasts so wonderfully with her dark skin. She puts down a serving of plain mashed potatoes in front of me.

"I know I said I'd spoil you rotten when you got out of the hospital, but, you know, doctors orders."

"I know." I say with a smile. She's eating the same thing. I must eat bland until this lava pit I created in my stomach heals.

"Would..." She pushes her potatoes around. "Would you be opposed to living with me?"

"Are you sure you want a mess like me living here?"

"I worry." She says softly. "I can't lose anyone else."

"I'm sorry. I was stupid."

"I know you didn't do what you did to hurt me... you did it because you were hurting-"

"It won't happen again." I assure. "I'll still have bad days, I'm sure, but... I'm too scared to try that again."

"Can I ask why?"

I stare at the floor. "I don't really know. You ever have a dream and you can't remember it? Maybe you still get feelings or bits and pieces, but it's all a blur?"

She looks confused.

"Never mind. It's pretty silly." I nibble at my meal and look around the living room. There are so many pictures of us. I guess that happens when you've grown up together. Lots of pictures of us as kids, being silly. I put my plate down and walk over to a corkboards where she has a lot of stuff pinned up. There are a few photos of us with her brother. I one we are dangling from his arms. Even with the large age gap he always took time off from his band and more grownup things to play with us. My father had never liked him.

Stay away from that boy.

He's a bad influence.

You're becoming a young lady, guys will notice.

I'm pretty sure all he saw when he looked at me was an awkward kid. I was still in braces when he died. She has the new article pinned up here along with the chrome emblem from his scooter. The one he was riding the night he missed the stop sign. His bike was clipped by an SVU, which in turn swerved into a tree. He and two others were killed.

I run my fingers over the scorpion emblem.

"Why keep this?" I ask before I realize how insensitive that is.

"Oh, you know. He loved that stupid thing." She walks to my side a gently adjusts it. "He had this custom made. The scooter didn't come with one." She sighs. "Jim was such a dork."

I knot my fingers together. "Those three days I was out... they are like a really long dream. I don't remember much at all, but..." My throat feels tight and my eyes burn. "I feel like Jim was there. Feel like he protected me and helped me get back home."

I shouldn't have said that. Not to his little sister.

I look up and she's smiling with a tear rolling down her cheek. "Yeah, that sounds like something Jim would do."

Now I'm crying too.

She leans in and kisses me sweetly.

  I'm not alone.

"Stardust." He says very matter-of-factly.

Since my other arm is beneath him I release my grip on his shirt to touch my face.  It's not easy to determine my features from touch. My nose is thin and has a slight hump to it. My cheekbones are sharp.  My lips feel soft, but wide, perhaps too big for my face? It's so hard to tell.  I find a small bump near my jaw, it isn't sore. Maybe a mole?

I look back up at Jim, he is staring up at the ceiling. Perhaps he's trying to find shapes in the stucco.

Jim is the only good thing about this place. I can't say we talk much, but no one does. It's hard to form words here. Hard to think. It's all a fog.

Still, he is kind and warm and handsome. I feel safe in his presence and warm in his arms, but that is the extent of it. I can't say I'm attracted to him. I don't think he is attracted to me either.

"Are you really my husband?" I ask.

He glances down at me. "Of course not."

This place. It wants me silent. I wants me to accept, but I've had enough of it. "Then why did he tell me you were? Why did he bring you here?"

"I think..."  he stares upward again. "To make you stay."

"Make me stay?" I sit up. "Does that mean we can leave?"

He frowns, I think he is struggling to remember something.

"I can't leave." He finally says with conviction.

"Do you remember? Do you remember anything other than this place? Because I can't. I don't even have a name. Do you remember?"

"Sometimes..." He says in a whisper. "You don't want to. You don't want to be whole here. Believe me. Don't be whole here."

I bite my lip. I want to ask more, to know more, but my head is feeling heavy.

Jim looks nervous. "You can leave." He says.

  the door slowly swings open.

The man is here.

What does he want? What does he-

      I'm lonely. My room is dark. I stand in only place, everywhere else is dirty. Piles and piles of shoes covered in something dark and sticky. It smells. How long have I been here? I feels like forever. I hate this place. I feel gross. I climb into the tub and test the faucets. No water. Nothing. I start to get out. There, in the slime, something is scrawled.

I can read it.

I can read it!

"Beware the collector" it says.

Who is that? Who wrote this?

I can see light reflecting off the tub. It's a beautiful glow. I turn. It's coming from the window. I've never seen light from there before.

I stumble toward it. I press my face to the glass. I can see the sun. There is a flower filled meadow stretching on forever. I think I can hear birds. The butterflies are so big! That, that looks like home. It's so beautiful.

It's getting hard to breathe. My chest fills tight. I don't want to look away. That's where I belong! That's- Something is blocking my view. It looks like muscle and bone. It looks like hands-

I scream. Those are my hands. This is wrong. I pull the curtain shut and throw myself to the floor, away from the light.

I can breathe again.

I can breathe...

My hands are mere shimmer again.

I can breathe.

I climb back to my feet. I don't want to be here anymore. I leave my room.

I'm so lonely.

Mother. I remember Mother.

She's just this way I think.

Mother will speak to me. She'll make things better.

I see her chair. It's empty. The door to the curio are open and just her hips and legs are hanging out of it. Somehow half of her seems to be inside the mirror. I rush forward grabbing the skirt of her dress. I have to use all of my strength, but she is starting to budge.

I don't want to be alone here.

Please.

Don't leave me alone.

She slides free with a sucking sound. I sit her in her chair, but something is wrong. Here skin is translucent and her eyes hallow. There is gelatinous webbing stretched from her face, neck, and chest back into the mirror.

"Are you okay?" I ask. "Can you understand me?"

She looks up at me and her jaw drops open. Water gushes out. She's on me. Her arms aren't arms, but thousands of thin tendrils, delicate, but unyielding.  They are tangling around me. Stinging me. Pulling me down. Water rushes over my face. I taste soap. I can't breathe.

I feel far away.

I see mother, she looks human. She is outside. There is a washtub in front of her. A little boy splashes inside as she washes his hair. He's smiling, she looks peaceful.

The little boy cries out. The sound hurts my ears. Maybe he has soap in his eyes. Mother winces. She closes her eyes and pushed his head under. The little boy struggles, but he is only a baby. There, there is nothing he can do... My chest hurts.

The vision is pulling away from me.

I can breathe again. "Mother" shrinks away from me. Her eyes are wide and her mouth gaping, but only a trickle escapes. She slides back toward the curio, no longer human. More some form of jelly.  She disappears into the mirror backwards keeping her eyes on...me?

I hear a metallic clicking. I turn and I gasp.

It's huge, the scorpion looming over me. It must be the size of a bus. Numerous red eyes glisten. I feel frozen. My eyes dart from the enormous pincers to the dagger like stinger. It looks almost robotic with its chrome trimmed carapace. It's mouth parts click together, but it makes no other moves.

I take a slow step back. It doesn't react. Then another and another.

I run. I run as fast as my feet will carry me back to my room. I ram shoes under the door and crawl into the tub. I want to call for help.

There is no one to call to here.

Everything is hazy, hard to see.

I pass a woman. She's sitting in a chair before a tilted curio. She is frail, porcelain skinned, and her hair is in a neat bun. She just stares into the mirror beyond the glass.

I'm told she's my mother. The man told me that. I can't picture him now. I don't believe him. I don't know this woman. I feel nothing.

"What are you looking at?" I ask.

She doesn't look my way. "I can see it. If I look hard enough. Home." She says in a dreamy far away tone.

I lean down, leveling my gaze with her's. I see only her reflection. I don't exist in that mirror. I straighten up and look down at my hand. I see only the vaguest shimmery outline, somewhat human shaped. My limbs barely obscure the dingy carpeted floor. I don't know what I look like. I think I am a woman. Maybe.

I leave her.

I'm not sure how long I've been here, but one room has become mine. It is past the room of fallen books and the dark hall. The door is broken, it will not latch. The room is big, trapezoidal, carpeted, and filled with shoes. There is a closet and a tub. There may be a toilet under the shoes in the corner. The shoes are all types and sizes. I'll jam boots under the door to keep it shut.

Jim is in the bath tub, his long limbs draped over the edges.

I remember the man bringing him to me.

"This is your husband." He said of the giant ebony skinned man. Jim had paid the man no mind, staring at me the way my "mother" stared at the curio. I had been afraid as the man left me alone with someone so large and emotionless. I remember cowering as he towered over me.

"Don't be afraid little bit." He had said warmly. Once he was close I could see his features, still stoic, but soft. He had a septum piercing. He looked human. Alive. Not like "Mother". "I don't mess with kids." He finished kissing me lightly on the forehead and pulling me into his arms. A thought ran through my head, telling me I was not a child, but I kept it inside.

He felt safe and I was no longer afraid.

I believe Jim has been here much longer than I. He says he's not sure. None of us are.

I flop down onto a pile of shoes. There is nothing to do here. We don't eat. We don't sleep. The books can't be read. Endless nothing.

"Did you see any hornets?" Jim asks.

"No, not even a little one."

He rubs his temple. "It must be breeding time. Be careful when you go out."

"I don't go anywhere I hear buzzing."

"Good."

Jim told me once how the little hornets were just workers. At two inches long they had a painful sting, but were mostly harmless. Don't dare kill one he had warned. Their death would call forth the Queen and her drones. The drones were Jim's size and the queens even larger. "They like to lay their eggs in warm bodies." He had warned.

Does the sting kill you first, I wondered, are you merely paralyzed? Can we even die? I was unable to ask those questions. Fear kept me silent.

  While we don't sleep I still rest my eyes and let my mind wander. When I am done with my rest, Jim is gone. I don't know where he goes. I don't talk much of my excursions either.

I decide to wander the house again. What else is there to do?

"Mother" is still in her chair, but today is a little different. She's sobbing pitifully , shirt unbuttoned to her navel, and she is methodically digging a hole in her breast with her finger nail. She won't take her eyes off the mirror. I pause only briefly.

Jim says the house has a way of swallowing people up.  You lose yourself and the house takes you. I wonder what I have left to lose. Is there too little of me for the house's gaping maw?

I enter each new room I pass carefully. I don't go into occupied rooms, be they by man or beast. I find another room with books spread across a large wooden desk. Threads reflect in the limited light. In the upper most corner rows of glowing red orbs look my way. I have to squint, but I make out eight huge legs attached to an even larger body. Perhaps the giant spider would only attack if I stumbled into it's web. maybe not. I move on.

I'm not sure how long I journeyed , until I became bored. I head for home.

I must be wearing shoes . I can hear a click-clack as I walk the hard floors.

  I come across "mother" again. The man is with her. Has his skin always been so ashen-blue? He has a rubber tube in his hand. It leads back to the hole in "mother's" chest. The doors to the curio are thrown open and he inserts the other end into the mirror. It slides in as if the mirror were made of jelly.

He looks back at me with cat's eyes.  A split, purple tongue snakes between his teeth. His glare crushes down on me. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to see this. I divert my eyes and take a quick step forward.

Crunch.

I look down through the faint shimmer of my foot and see a smashed hornet. I gasp looking up. The man is smiling, sharp teeth glistening.

I can't pay him anymore attention. I already hear buzzing.  

I tear toward my room followed by the thunderous sound of wing and the clacking of exoskeletons. As I slam the door I see the hall filled with a black and yellow hoard. They slam into the door nearly knocking me over. My back is pressed to the door when I see, in my peripheral vision,  the first stinger puncture though near my head. I jerk away keeping my wieght on the door knob instead. More stingers break through. Long, shiny, black, and seeking my flesh. I used my foot the kick boots and shoes under the door for all the good it would do.

I must not be capable of crying anymore or surely I would be.

"JIM!" I shriek "JIM!!"

I don't know why I'm calling him, how could he hear me over this god-awful buzzing. How could he do anything against this throng of insects.

They will break down this door. They will get me and make me a host.  Not this. Anything but this!

They shove the door open a few inches, small workers try to wriggle their way in. I push back cutting them in two.

"JIIIIMMMMM!" I scream again. There is no one else to call to here. No one.

Suddenly the stingers with draw and the buzzing intensifies. I hear them ramming into each other and sharp squeals. They aren't pushing on the door anymore.

Now it's quiet.

The knob rattles only because my hands are shaking hard. Are they gone? Tell me I am not worth the trouble. Please, tell me. Dare I peek to calm my nerves?

"Don't open that door little bit."

I whirl around. Jim is behind me. I don't know how or when he got here. I don't care. He'd here and they are gone. I rush into his arms and bury my face in his stomach.  I make all the wailing and blubbering of a crying child, but no tears.