Eight

My worries carried me to sleep that night and as I drifted off into dreamland I wondered if the whispering I heard next to my bed was a part of the dream I was entering, or if there were the ghosts chattering around me, making their plans right under my nose. 

I found myself in a strange building in this dream.  It was a very large open white room as you walked into the front door.  I was standing on a landing next to the front door taking in all I could see.  Across from me there was a waterfall flowing from somewhere behind the wall into a large fountain.  The empty space that lay between the waterfall and me was paved with a white stone tile and there were four steps down from the landing to that area.  I stepped down with care as there was no handrail and the steps were very steep.  I felt dizzy looking around me.  Large paned windows that filled the walls around ceiling to floor on the two walls next to the waterfall, behind me above the landing and steep stairs was a second stairwell that ran along the side of the wall over the landing with a small door at the top.  The walls were all paved with the same white stone tile as the floors, as were the stairs.  The windows were frosted so that only light was let in, but you couldn’t make out anything of the outside, nor could anyone see into the building from the yard. 

After spinning around the room, I realized someone was standing on the landing at the top of the larger second staircase that led up the wall.  They were wearing a white robe with a hood over their head.  Their head was bowed and I couldn’t see anything of their face.  The moment I noticed them they turned to the small door, opened it, and walked through into a blinding light.  I found my footing and hurried up the steep steps along the wall.  I felt my breath run out of my lungs and was gasping for air before I reached the top, almost as if the air was thinner the higher I went.  When I looked down to the waterfall it seemed as if I had climbed a great mountain inside the very large room.  The stairwell running behind me looked like there were several times more steps than those I had climbed.  I reached for the knob of the door to opened it.  As I touched the golden brass of the handle my fingers were singed from heat, the knob felt as if there were a fire on the other side of the door.  I wanted to know what was beyond this room so I used my shirt to decrease the heat of the knob and slowly turned the handle.  It steamed from my touch, releasing the white smoky vision around me.  I smelled sulfur as the door opened.  No fire on the other side of the door, but the light was so blinding I had to shade my eyes.  When my vision adjusted enough to make out the images around me I realized I had stepped into a long hallway.  Large windows were on the right of me, on the left were doors hung on the walls every few feet as if there were tiny rooms all down the hallway.  The hallway was very long so that at the end it seemed much smaller than where I was.  I saw the robed figure at the end of the hallway, opening another door and going through it. 

I started running towards the end of the hallway trying to catch up the the hooded person.  It seemed that with each step my movement was put into slower and slower motion.  I could feel the air around me dense as if I were trying to run in a swimming pool filled with water.  The impact of my feet on the floor made a loud clicking sound each time the two connected.  I noticed this as a strange occurrence because I was wearing sneakers and I didn’t imagine they could make such a sound. 

When I finally reached the end of the hallway I looked back at the other end, it seemed as though all of the doors were opened now and darkness was behind each door.  I felt a fear rise up in my back like pins and needles piercing my spine.  I held the knob of the door in my hand attempting to maneuver it open.  It was stuck, as if locked.  I shook it and tried to turn it but there was no use, the door would not budge. 

I felt like something was watching me, and that time was running out.  I turned to look down the hallway again, finding that the darkness was spilling into the light like an ink stain covering the walls, windows and floors.  I pushed hard on the door another time with all of my body weight while turning the stiff knob.  This time it moved slowly, as if the gears were grinding improperly against each other.  The door swung open and I fell into a darkness just like the hall was being flooded with. 

 The door shut behind me with a thud.  I was sitting on some sticky substance in complete darkness trying to adjust my eyes to the extreme change.  I heard a smacking sound several feet away from me.

“Hello?”  I called out to the darkness.

The smacking sound stopped for a moment, then seemed louder, closer.

“Is somebody there?” I called out again.

I felt a hot breeze on my neck like someone was breathing on me.  I waved my hands around the air looking for whatever was causing it.  Nothing seemed to be there, but the smacking sound was next to me and the hot breeze continued to breathe on my neck.

Tears and sweat were streaming down my face.  I was truly terrified.  I felt stuck completely where I sat and whimpered a bit, trying not to give a vocal accompaniment to the salty taste running into my mouth.

“It’s going to be ok.”  I told myself in my head.  “You have to get up and get out of here.”

I kept repeating the thought and took a deep breath.  I had never been afraid of the dark, but this was different.  It petrified me.  Even my breathing felt forced.  I knew logically that there wasn’t anything dangerous about the darkness, as I continued to rationalize internally.  This just felt like more than lack of light, it felt like it was alive.  I realized at that moment that it must be alive, in fact that was what I likely was hearing and feeling breathe on me.  Then I wondered if I might be inside a beast.