Haunting

Apr 26, 2009 by Andrew Kunz

Why was he still chasing me? What did he want from me?

I wasn’t even sure where I was anymore; the hallway I had been running through for the past few minutes still looked the same as it did when I first entered it. I didn’t recognize anything on the other side of the windows, nor did I take any time to stop and look at what was outside, not with him still chasing me. I wouldn’t even look over my shoulder to see if he was still there; I knew he would be, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t even know who he was, or even if it was a he. After what seemed like an eternity the hallway changed and I could see a door in the distance. I pushed myself to run as fast as my legs would allow me, but it didn’t seem like it was fast enough; the door never got any closer.

I could hear his breathing now and I instinctively glanced over my shoulder, but there wasn’t anyone there, just the hallway stretching out behind me endlessly. I turned to face the door that I had been running toward, but before I had started running again I heard the man behind me and felt his breath on the back of my neck. The hairs on my neck stood on end and a chill ran from my crown to the soles of my feet as I listened for the sound of a heart, but never heard one. The instant that I turned around I felt his cold hands wrap around my throat and could feel him trying to choke me.

His hands were like icicles on my skin, sending shivers raging through my veins as the blood pumped frantically to pass through the tight grip he held me in. I gasped and tried to force oxygen down into my lungs, but his grip made it impossible to get anything in or out of my lungs and slowly my sight began to dim away. Tears began to gather in the corner of my eyes as I tried to focus on the man’s face, but it was too blurry to make out any features. My fingers that were around his wrists began to sting and go numb and eventually flopped lifelessly at my side as I continued to gasp for air.

I opened my mouth to say something, but before even a gasp escaped me, I was being pushed in the direction I had been running in. I tried to turn my head to see what I was going to be pushed into, but the hallway hadn’t changed; the door was getting closer to us this time, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it to the door or not. Everything below my neck was stinging; like it was on fire and my head felt like it was spinning around on an out of control Merry-Go-Round. I wanted to be sick, but I knew it wouldn’t get past the man’s grip on my throat and I would choke and die on that before I died from not being able to breathe. I tried my best to focus my eyes on the door as it opened by itself and I was thrown into the opening. The instant I was over the threshold the door almost vanished and I found myself falling through thick, black shadows. My body was still burning, but I could breathe again, so I worked my lungs as fast as I could to get the oxygen and the blood pumping through my body again, but I wasn’t sure how long I had until I wouldn’t need oxygen or blood. If the ground was far enough below me I would be killed by the impact and this attempt to catch my breath would be futile, but if it was only a couple more feet, I would just end up with a few broken bones, stranded in darkness for the rest of eternity.

I tried to manoeuvre myself so that I was looking in the direction I thought was down, which I was pretty sure was down because my hair was flailing around above me rather than in my face as it had been before. There was nothing below me, but more darkness. No differentiation between what would soon become the ground and what were the walls or even the ceiling, if there were even walls, a ceiling, or a floor.

Once I had managed to circulate enough oxygen and blood through my body I opened my mouth and screamed as loud as I possibly could. Once my lungs were empty again and I couldn’t hold the scream for any longer I shut my lips, took a deep breath in through my nose and listened to the darkness and after a moment my scream echoed back to me higher than I remembered it being. I had to cover my ears with my hands to keep my rebounding scream from shattering my ear drums, I could already feel my cold blood running from my ears against my fingers. Then suddenly the darkness below me gradually began to get brighter and brighter as I fell toward it; my screaming was still echoing in the background, but it was slowly fading into a beeping sound. Eventually the darkness below me had changed from absolute black to absolute white and it was getting closer now, the walls of black around me were disappearing into the white blob.

The name’s Andrew, I’m 19, I love to read anything I can get my hands on, and write anything that comes to mind; People say I’m fun, exciting, and interesting, to say the least; I’m an addict of music, can’t live a sane life without it, and I listen to quite a lot of different genres; and I love to watch Movies. My website’s called Anime Gallery. You can read more of my writing there.