an art dump from a stream yesterday

Two horror bois...

Emmet's voice echoed through the seemingly empty house, the old and halfly rotten floorboards creaking beneath him as he rushed through the almost endless corridors and rooms.

They had just been driving before this, on their way home from a different location and investigation, when Simon had spotted this abandoned house through the thickly grown trees and begged him to stop just so they could explore for a bit.

But there were a lot more buildings than they had initially thought, and his friends' curious hunger had kept them there for longer than anticipated. Much longer. It had gotten dark, and neither of them had taken any equipment except a small handheld camera before they left their car, so they were left with the flashlights on their phones, which hadn’t been such an issue if they had made it back to the car at all…

On their way back, when it wasn’t that dark yet, Simon had realised he forgot something in one of the buildings. He had told Emmet he remembered where he left it, and that he’d be quick to get it and meet him back at the car.

They had agreed to meet at the car, but Simon never came back.

After five minutes he figured he was on his way back.

Ten minutes passed, he thought he must’ve had trouble finding the thing he was looking for.

Fifteen minutes passed, Emmet started getting a bit worried but told himself he probably just found something interesting on the way back.

20 minutes, he tried calling him but no answer.

25 minutes, he started to get really worried. It was completely dark out now, and he couldn’t see much further than his phone's flashlight would let him.

Finally he decided to go look for him, worried something might’ve happened to him or that he got lost in the maze-like buildings. If it was hard to find their way around before in daylight, it was bound to be impossible now in the dark.

But now here he was, frantically looking for his buddy in pitch darkness, in an old house which could possibly collapse at any second and his mind playing tricks. For every corner he’d turn or door he’d pass through, the light of his phone would cast shadows that looked frighteningly a lot like people.

“Simon!”

His voice was breaking as he yelled, both from how tired his vocal chords were from yelling and how out of breath he was. He had been running around a good ten minutes at this point, and still no sign of the shorter brunette.

Eventually he had to stop to catch his breath. The room that he stopped in was like every other in the building; halfly torn down, the roof caving in and in some spots missing entirely, revealing the upper floors. The wallpaper that was still on the wall was just barely hanging on, chipping off in chunks if not entirely missing. He heaved, standing bent over and leaning on his knees. He couldn’t see anything in front of him if he didn’t have his light aimed the way he was looking.

He decides to check the battery on his phone.

23%, 10:42 in the evening. And still no sign of Simon.

“Please… You can’t have gone missing right?” He thinks out loud “If this is your idea of a prank…”

But then he thought he heard something. Emmet quickly straightened his posture and looked around with his phone. Yeah, he definitely heard something. Something echoed through this place, something sounding awfully a lot like faint music... 

But how was that possible? There weren’t even as much as power lines running to this place, there shouldn’t be any means of electricity in any of the buildings. Unless it was...

He stood and listened for another moment. He could hear the rustling of leaves outside in the wind, and how it almost howled through the empty corridors. Faint music, but it wasn’t far off. He swallowed hard, thinking for a moment. If it was Simon, he couldn’t afford to just stand there and wait.

He decided to follow the sound.

As he got closer to the source he started to realise something was wrong. It sounded… Strange. Almost as if through an old radio, but how could that be possible? It was a very old song as well, maybe 40’s or 50’s by the sound of it. This couldn’t be Simon, it was something else. But he had to find out.

‘Keep a knocking but ya can’t come in… Keep a knocking but ya can’t come in.... Come back tomorrow night and try again…’

It got louder and louder, until he found himself in front of a doorway, of course missing it’s door like every other he had passed by and through. The music was clearly coming from within that room.

“You in there?”

No reply, just the music playing back at him in it’s upbeat 50’s tempo.

He took a deep breath, wondering if he should just turn back and leave, go back to the car maybe. Because maybe Simon had came back while he was gone.

But he had to see what was playing that music.

Gathering whatever bravery he still had within him, he took a step forwards and entered the room, but as soon as he got through the entrance the music just… Stopped. He froze mid step, staring straight ahead and listening sharply after anything moving at all in the room. Nothing.

It was dead silent, as if nothing had been there at all.

He exhaled heavily after what seemed like hours just standing there holding his breath, quickly shining his light around the room.

It was empty.

Through another exhale he mumbled a short ‘what the fuck?’ as he stepped further in in complete and utter confusion. There had been music there just a couple seconds ago! Where did it go? Who was playing it? And most importantly, what was playing? Because as he was standing in the middle of the worn down room he couldn’t see any trace of any sort of electronic, let alone a radio of all things.

He scratched his head, eyes darting wildly around the room trying to find answers. But he wouldn’t find anything.

He checked the battery on his phone.

Already down to 6%

He didn’t have much time to ponder over why it had drained so quickly however… The room seemed to drop in temperature scarily fast, and sent him shivers throughout his entire body. He stood there, frozen, staring up at the wall in front of him with his back turned to the doorway.

And that’s when he heard it. The radio. It was behind him, and it was playing static mixed with what seemed to be flipping through channels inhumanly fast, voices and songs coming and going and only staying for a split second.

His heart sank, and In that very same moment, the cold seemed to have eaten the last of his phone's battery. The light disappeared, leaving him in complete darkness. 

He blindly turned around, staring wide eyed and shaking towards the doorway.

Two yellow glowing eyes and a huge smile stared back at him… No, one eye and what appeared to be a… Tuner?

He was frozen in place, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t make a single sound. All he could do was watch as the thing crept closer. The distorted channel flipping seemed to die down in favour of static, but there was something else in the background, and it sounded like it was cackling, as if it thought this was funny.

“Well well well WELL what do we have here?”

The voice was heavily distorted and riddled in static, the same as you’d hear listening to someone through an actual radio, but he could tell it was the voice of a young man. He could feel him creeping even closer, even if he couldn’t tell visually. The lights that seemed to be coming from the person's face were glaringly bright, and he couldn’t make out much more of him than that.

When Emmet didn’t respond he seemed to grow impatient, tilting its head to the side but not letting him go out of his sights.

“What’s the matter? Cat caught your tongue? Oh come now! Don’t be shy! I won’t bite~ I’ll promise you that much~” His words dripped of poison, again inching closer and causing Emmet to stumble back and hitting the wall behind him. Not only did he regret doing that because he now successfully cornered himself, as soon as he touched the wall a cascade of dust and old crumpled up wallpaper came falling down on him.

“Wh- Who are you!? What have you done to Simon?!” Emmet finally manages to sputter out. Although he couldn’t see the other person, he could tell he was a bit taken aback.

“My my, what accusations already! To assume little ol’ ME have even SEEN your pal! Psh! Such manners, or should I rather say no manners” The person sounded almost offended “But to answer your first oh so RUDE question, I’m your show host for the evening, for the night, for the day for the week for the mONTH FOR THE YEAR FOR THE LIFETIME!”

The way it sped up its speech was enough to send him shivers, but it’s cackling laughter afterwards was almost worse.

“What do you mean ‘show host’?!”

The way his voice quivered seemed to almost amuse the other person. “Oh… Don’t be silly now… I’m the show host, and you’re my new and fresh contestant! Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that GREAT?”

“Contestant? But I never signed up for anything!”

The being seemed to shake his head disapprovingly, or maybe it was out of pity, and appeared to back off a bit.

“Wonder how long you’ll make it… Things ain’t looking so bright for ya kiddo if this is your attitude! Hm… Shame. Such a shame.”

After it had finished that sentence, it turned around and left Emmet staring into complete darkness again, and left the room without another word.

“H- Hey!! Wait! No stop! You have to explain!”

He blindly scrambled after the person, tracing his hands along the walls to not accidentally run into one and frantically looking both directions of the hallway outside the room. He couldn’t see anything, but he could still hear the static.

It was coming from the right.

He stumbled down the corridor, keeping one hand on a wall and praying he wouldn’t trip on the remains of ceiling or leftover furniture. The corridor seemed to lighten up a bit further ahead though, and as he got closer he got more and more confident in running a bit faster.

He turned a corner, and it was a bigger corridor with windows to the outside evenly spaced all the way down. The moon was out, shining just enough to brighten up the corridor so he could see… But he soon wished he hadn’t followed the person.

Further down the corridor it stood, no, it floated. It didn’t have legs, but a long tail that was slowly moving side to side. It wasn’t tall, by the looks of it shorter than Emmet himself, but it was the way it was staring back at him that scared him rather than his size…

He was wearing a blue polo shirt spotted with flowers in various sizes, and it looked far from clean just like the rest of him. It was spotted with blood. His skin was a dark and unnatural green, and from his neck two antennas stuck out, as if they had been stabbed into him. His collar was stained red beneath them, obviously far from fresh but still looking as if it was constantly getting soaked.

But his face… His emotionless and cold face, halfly covered in his own blood from a huge wound on the side of his head. It resembled a radio, his mouth now revealed to be the screen of a very old radio, showing the different channels, and his right eye as previously suspected replaced with a dial.

The radio host slowly lifted a hand, pointing directly to Emmet and staring coldly, like a predator at its prey...

Part 1

Part 2

. . .

Emmet didn’t even have time to react, before he knew it something had already grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him back out into the corridor, the sudden pull throwing him forwards and making him hit the floor hard. But whatever grabbed him didn’t stop there, no, it kept dragging him screaming further from the room, slamming him up against a wall and successfully knocking the air out of his lungs.

“EMMET!!”

He wheezed, desperately trying to breathe, but the collision had been great enough to render that scarily hard to do. His entire body felt weak, and for a split second he lost control entirely and fell onto his side, coughing and still desperately wheezing. He managed to catch a glimpse of Simon though, who was standing in the doorway of the room they had been in and staring at him, frozen in complete fear.

He had dropped the torch, but it was miraculously still lit further down the corridor, albeit weaker than before. Finally he managed to breathe in, but it left him in a coughing fit and regret of inhaling so sharply.

Whatever had dragged him out was still there, looming over him, waiting.

With whatever small amount of strength he still had Emmet forced himself to look up. What he was met with was a long disfigured creature, laying coiled on top of the pipes and staring back down at him. Its body must’ve been at least 12 meters, but it was hard to tell since it had wrapped itself around the pipes.

Like a snake.

It was a deep purple, spotted with bruises and blood, and whenever it moved it made horrific crunching and cracking sounds like bones being ground together over and over again. The most obvious feature however was its neck, which was stretched inhumanly long all the way to it’s head. It’s face seemed to be the most normal part, but even then it was obvious something was very wrong. Its hair was wild looking and halfly covering its eyes, which were glowing blue. It seemed to be constantly crying, and it’s teeth were nothing short of fang like and probably razor sharp…

Emmet shakily got up, supporting himself on his hands at first but then nearly fell again when he to his horror noticed how drenched in blood his legs were.

Had he broken something?

No, both his legs were fine. But then where was the blood coming from? Upon further inspection it seemed to be trailing back to the monstrous being hanging from the ceiling, or more exactly to its hands… It was missing a finger on each hand, and from the open wounds there was a semi constant drip of crimson blood.

But he didn’t have much time to ponder over what he was seeing, before the creature lunged down a second time and grabbed him again, but this time by his hair, or more specifically the bun his hair was in.

Emmet screamed, clawing frantically at the hand that was holding him up and kicking in hopes of maybe freeing himself, but to no avail. It just brought him up higher into the air, before getting uncomfortably close to his now crying face.

“Well lookie lookie here… If we don’t have us another friend~ How fun~”

Its voice alone was enough to make the air around them drop in temperature, thin smoke seeping through its teeth as it growled out its words.

The longhaired man could do nothing but try to hold himself up and try to lessen how much he was hanging from his hair, using the creature's hand to do so. The pain alone was nearly unbearable, coupled with his still unsteady breathing and fear, he was completely helpless and at the mercy of this monster…

“I must say… I’m impressed you got this far~ By all means with how little caution you seem to have, someone else should already have gotten you…” It grinned, teeth reflecting dangerously against the dying fire. One bite from that and... 

“LET HIM GO!”

Everything seemed to stop and pause just at that moment. The creature's heavy breathing came to a halt, as it stared intently at Emmet, who had slowed his struggling but was still gasping in terror.

‘Please no… Simon… Don’t do this…’ Emmet gazed in the rough direction where he thought the brunette was standing. Even if he couldn’t muster a single word through his wheezing gasps, he was still praying he’d hear him ‘Don’t do this…’

The distorted figure was looking at Emmet, sure, but it wasn’t relying on its eyes at this moment. It was listening.

“IT’S NOT HIM YOU’RE AFTER! IT’S ME! I- I’M RIGHT HERE!!” Simon's voice cracked as he yelled out towards the dark figure with only hintings of highlights caused by the struggling flame somewhere on the ground.

Emmet was shaking as he hesitantly looked back to face the monstrous being, and he could’ve sworn its smile was slightly wider than before. It raspily exhaled and seemed to be laughing quietly to itself, its version of silent laughter reminded him of how cicadas sound... But it didn’t let go of Emmet. No, it just held him tighter.

Heavy cracks and snaps filled the air as it started to move, twisting its body harder around the piping. It was only a question of when those old and rusted pipes would finally give out and collapse under the pressure, as they shook and creaked dangerously beneath the creature's weight.

“Oh… Don’t worry… I haven’t forgotten about you...”

It turned its head and stared back at Simon, grinning hungrily at the trembling man standing out completely in the open now. He stumbled back at the realisation that the monster had turned its full attention at him.

At any second it could lunge at him, and he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Simon glanced at Emmet, but tried to not draw back attention to him. Instead he took a step closer to them both, making sure to keep eye contact with the distorted creature and raising both his arms.

“S- SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!?”

And at that moment it all clicked. Simon was trying to buy him time.

The being growled lowly, bending down closer to the terrified ghost investigator and huffing out more of that cold smoke. Emmet had to act quick while it wasn’t paying attention to him.

The pain was unbearable and made it hard to think, but in a moment of pure desperation he remembered the lighter in his pocket. Still holding onto the clawed and gory hand that was holding him, he let his other hand dive into his pocket and through nothing but pure luck was able to pull out the lighter. Trembling he managed to light it and without hesitation brought it up to where his hair was tied and prayed that it’d burn through the hair tie.

The creature suddenly shrieked, and before Emmet could react he was thrown back down onto the ground. He must’ve held the small flame higher than anticipated and burnt its hand in the process, but he wasn’t about to question it. As soon as he realised he was free he scrambled back down the hallway away from where he had been.

He could’ve sworn he heard faint music coming from somewhere further away, coupled with the chaotic calm of white noise...

Emmet stared back behind him, and to his horror Simon wasn’t following. With everything he could muster he screamed out his name, which seemed to snap him out of whatever trancelike state he had been in, but it was too late.

The whole ceiling seemed to be close to giving way now, cracking and groaning painfully as the full weight of the thing still coiled around the pipework seemed to get too heavy to hold up, until finally…

Snap.

Part of the ceiling collapsed and whirred up a cloud of dust and debris, it was a miracle nothing hit Emmet, but that wasn’t the problem now.

From within the dark cloud of dust only partially illuminated by the dying flame Simon screamed, the sound of bones snapping and popping in and out of place as the creature moved around and its deep growling echoed in chorus with his screaming. It didn’t sound as calm as before, no, it sounded furious.

As most of the dust settled he could finally make out what was happening. The monster had coiled itself around Simon and was looming over him threateningly but forced to keep low due to the still slow ceiling of this place. It was massive in comparison to the investigator in its grips, even bigger than they had previously assumed it to be.

Simon was sobbing uncontrollably, struggling to free himself from its body but only finding himself held even tighter than before. The creature tensed around the small man, causing him to scream out in pain. He felt like he was gonna suffocate at any second now, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“OH YOU CLEVER LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT, YOU LET HIM GET AWAY FROM ME! OH, OH WE CAN’T LET THAT STAND UNPUNISHED NOW DO WE? DID YOU THINK YOU WERE GONNA GET OUT OF THIS ALIVE? DID YOU? YOU STUPID, WORTHLESS HUMAN BEING.” It roared through clenched teeth, staring wide eyed at Simon struggling in its grips “OH BUT DON’T WORRY, I’M NOT GONNA KILL YOU~ I’M JUST GONNA MAKE YOU WISH YOU WERE DEAD~ OH I’M GONNA BREAK EVERY SINGLE BONE IN YOUR BODY, ONE AFTER ONE! HOW MUCH MORE UNTIL YOU START TO BREAK RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW?~”

This is it. This is how it ends, right? Here in the cellar of an abandoned building, out in the middle of nowhere with no one to witness the horror unfolding, no one but them.

Simon felt his consciousness starting to fade, the pain wasn’t as bad as it was before and all the sounds that had been surrounding him didn’t seem as loud anymore… Maybe death wasn’t so bad after all? It all seemed to calm, so gentle and soft, and so easy to slip into and disappear. Yeah… Maybe he should let himself... And just…

His eyes snapped back open, gasping awake again. Everything seemed to come back to him at once, the distorted screaming of the creature, the smell of decay and blood, and the feeling of getting pulled and dragged away…

Everything that was unfolding before him suddenly snapped together into one, revealing the few moments he had been gone for. Emmet had charged at them with a broken off pipe and impaled the beings side with it, and in response it had loosened its grip around him and allowed for Emmet to drag him out of there.

The sudden rush of adrenaline allowed him to regain his footing and he ran. He ran along with Emmet away from that horrible thing that had just been moments away from killing them both. There was no time to waste and no time to explain, but nothing had to be explained. They had to get out of there now, or they’d never get out at all.

But as Simon looked back behind them, he saw the bloodied up mess of the creature staring back at them, watching them. But then it just... Disappeared, vanished into thin air.

He blinked, unsure if he just imagined that or not. But no, it was gone. As if it was never there to begin with. Terrified he turned back to looking ahead of them and ran a bit faster, still holding onto Emmets hand. They couldn’t stop, not until they were out of there.

The corridor seemed to go on forever, and it seemed way longer now than when Emmet initially came down here. But as he was wondering whether he was just imagining it or not, he couldn’t help but hear something else. Something that wasn’t their heavy breathing or their rushed footsteps.

First part

...

He ran. He had turned around and ran. Each step hitting the floor hard, echoing hollowly throughout the building. The disfigured creatures words repeated over and over in his mind like a broken record, words that he couldn’t seem to shake.

“You better start looking for your buddy before it’s too late.”

Simon was in here. Something had happened, and that THING, that radio looking monster, had something to do with it, he was sure of it.

He stumbled, nearly tripping on broken off cement that had fallen from the ceiling at some point, and barely caught himself from falling face first onto the hard floor. He was heaving shakily as he finally slowed down. Emmet didn’t feel like he was far away enough, but he probably never would as long as he was in the same building as that ghastly figure of a man.

The longhaired man leaned heavily against the wall closest to him, desperately trying to catch his breath.

This couldn’t be happening.

Just a few hours before this they had both been wandering around the area and marveling at the halfly fallen down buildings, theorising about what this place might’ve been used for in its prime years...

But all that seemed so far away now, and almost unreal. None of this felt real. It couldn’t be, right? This was just a bad nightmare. It had to be.

He fumbled into his pockets before fishing up his phone. It was still dead. No matter how much he begged it to turn back on, the screen remained black.

“Damnit- Why didn’t either of us think of bringing a flashlight? Why didn’t I do that?” But the realisation of why hit him pretty quick. He had given Simon the keys, and the car was still locked.

He groaned at his own stupidity, letting himself slide down the wall until he was sitting on the floor and leaning back on it. He could always try and go back to the car, break one of the windows for the sake of getting a flashlight and a powerbank to charge his phone and then come back to try and find his friend again. But the darkness of the night advised against it. They had parked away from the area, just in case anyone showed up which would give them a better chance of getting out and away from there, but it proved to be a big mistake now during the dark hours. It was hard enough trying to find his way back to this building, it was probably near impossible to find their car in the forest without as much as a light to guide him.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly, still somewhat winded from running. He figured the time was around 11 now, which left him at least seven hours until sunrise. He was stranded there until he either found Simon or the sun came up, and he was hoping on the former. Judging by what that radio man said, he didn’t have much time to spare and a trip back to their car could potentially cost more than he was willing to risk.

He let his tired golden brown eyes open again, looking up above him with a sigh. His eyes had started to get used to the dark, and he could at least make out more silhouettes than before, but he was still left fumbling in the dark. He needed a lightsource, or else it’d be impossible to find his way around at all.

Emmet got up and dusted himself off a bit, before pulling off his hoodie and tying it around his waist. He knew he had a lighter, but that wouldn’t be nearly enough to let him see his surroundings. Looking around a bit, he found a broken off piece of wood, which he immediately managed to hurt himself on the moment he picked it up. Loose splinters stabbed his hand over and over as he grabbed it, but he didn’t have time to do anything about that. He winced but carried on with his plan.

Untying the hoodie again, he picked a part that he thought would affect him the least if he needed to wear it again before tearing off a chunk of fabric and tied it around the wooden piece.

That was gonna burn out too fast. Way too fast.

He looked around a bit, before spotting a puddle of presumably water. If he drenched the bottom of the fabric, it’d stop the fire from eating it too quickly…

After a bit of carefully dipping the stick into the water, he felt confident enough in his makeshift torch to light it. His hands were shaking and he could barely control his fingers, but after a few attempts he finally managed to light the thing.

Immediately the fire stuck to the object and gasped to life, basking his surroundings in a golden flickering light as the flames licked upwards, reaching for the ceiling before disappearing into nothing, letting the cycle of raw untamed heat repeat itself. Emmet couldn’t help but smile widely, staring at the flame as if it was his saviour.

There was hope. He would find Simon before sunrise and they’d go home, and all this would be but a bad dream left in the past.

He got up from his crouched down position and looked around at his options of where to go next. He wasn’t exactly sure where he came from, but what he was sure of was that he didn’t want to go back there and risk running into that… Thing for a second time.

That's when it struck him.

That creature wasn’t alone. It couldn’t be. It didn’t make sense for there to just be one of them, there had to be more like him. And what if Simon had already met another one? Obviously that radio man knew about him, Simon had probably already ran into him once, but...

Something wasn’t right. The radio man had obviously let them both go intentionally, but Simon never returned. He had to have run into something else. Something worse… What was it exactly he had been hinting at when he said ‘before it’s too late’?

He shivered, feeling the panic start to build even worse in his chest. The being had talked about some sort of competition or game, and that he was a contestant. But a contestant for what? What was the prize? But most importantly, what was the cost?

What exactly had they started when they walked in here?

Emmet started walking. He couldn’t just keep standing around and do nothing, he had to find Simon and he had to find him quickly, before anything could happen. He couldn’t afford to let his fears take control. His footsteps were rushed, but he wasn’t running. No, he needed to save his energy. For every room he’d pass by he’d take a look inside, letting the light of the fire guide him.

Every room seemed to be the same, a dusty and broken down mess, no furniture and no doors. He started to wonder if he was just walking in circles at this point. Was he lost? No, he couldn’t be… Right?

He stopped. From his left, a cold draught gently brushed past him, tugging at the flame that in response bent to the opposite direction, following the rush of air in a gentle manner. It felt like a warning, like a sign of something very bad about to happen.

He looked over to its source, which revealed to be a set of stairs leading both up to the upper floor and to what seemed to be an underground level. But the breeze seemed to be coming from the latter.

Hesitantly he walked a bit closer to the stairs. The makeshift torch revealed a sign placed on the wall, with an arrow pointing down the stairs.

‘Tunnels’

The stairs turned not too much further down from where he was standing, so he couldn’t see what was further down. Emmet could only assume the tunnels connected all the buildings surrounding the area. But maybe that’s where his friend had gone... He fell into complete silence, concentrating completely on what he could hear instead of what he could see.

The light crackling of the fire that he was holding, the low whistling of the wind that surrounded him, the shaking of leaves, and…

Sobbing. The faint sound of someone quietly sobbing.

And it was coming from the lower floor. From the tunnels. Emmet gasped, opening his eyes again and staring down the direction it was coming from.

He frantically looked around, making sure nothing was secretly stalking him, waving the fire around him as he looked. He was alone. He turned back to the stairs, which now reminded him more of hungry jaws waiting to swallow him and trap him deep underground... He had to go down there. He had to find Simon.

Without wasting another moment by just standing around, he rushed down the stairs, careful of where he set his feet. The building was old, and there was no telling when it would let the flooring fall beneath him and send him tumbling down.

Well down in the bottom floor, he wasn’t too surprised to find himself in a much narrower hallway, piping running just above his head and other corridors shooting off from this one. If he thought the area he was in before was maze like it was nothing in comparison to this.

He could hear the faint sobbing a bit more clearly now, it was definitely coming from here. But whoever that was crying must’ve heard him ascend, and immediately silenced.

“Simon?”

No response.

He slowly started walking, checking each corridor he passed. He thought he heard something move down one of the corridors shooting off from the one he was walking down, and it sounded like… Cracking. Something breaking over and over again, and a faint dragging sound…

‘No, you’re just imagining things… It’s an old building...’

The corridors shooting off from the main one seemed to become fewer and fewer the further he walked, instead being replaced by various rooms, but even then they were placed scaresly and far apart. It didn’t take him long to get to the very end of the corridor. But something was different about these rooms.

They had doors.

Each door was halfly closed, but something stuck out about one of them. Unlike the other doors, it seemed to have been moved recently judging by the dust on the floor. Cautiously he approached that one, and with his one free hand pushed it open. The door creaked and groaned on its hinges as in a protest, scraping the floor with whatever rubble was stuck to the bottom of it.

The light flowed into the room like a giant wave of gold, casting long shadows from the various things on the floor. But one of the shadows wasn’t a shadow at all... 

It was a person.

The light seemed to temporarily blind the man sitting curled up on the floor in the farthest away corner, causing him to raise his arms in a defensive position and curl up even closer to himself. Emmet could do nothing but stare, for sitting there on the floor and slowly turning his gaze up to meet his was Simon.

He looked completely shocked, hair in a mess and hoodie severely dirtied up. His hands were severely and painfully scraped and bloodied, he must’ve fell somewhere before he got there. The remnants of tears glistered against the light as he stared up at him...

“What... happened?” Emmet carefully takes a step forward, gaining an even more panicked look from Simon, who had just started shaking his head frantically. Something was very wrong.

“N- No… No, no you shouldn’t be here- Emmet you need to run, get out!” he hisses out through stifled sobs

“What do you-”

“We don’t have time!! You have to put out the light and run! He’ll find you!!”

Emmet stared wide eyed back at him, completely frozen in shock.

“He?”

But before Simon could answer that, Emmet could tell something was off. His focus had shifted from looking directly at him to somewhere behind him, eyes completely empty of emotion and his expression seeming to dull into nothing. There was a low, disgusting cracking sound right behind him, before he felt a cold breath hit the back of his neck.

Whatever Simon had been trying to warn him about had found them…

Part 4/?

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3