If I stared at one particular shadow long enough, it appeared to move, spastically so, but when my eyes closed, movement ceased once more.
I looked up at the sky, staring at the fuzzy tones of grey and white as I tried to discern the odd emotion that swept through me. My heart felt like it was racing, but when I noticed it, a warm, comforting light shone through the clouds and I forgot what I was doing.
The hum continued, and for some strange reason, a sense of sickly calm settled into me. I fought against it at first, but why? Calm is good. Happiness is good. So why did it feel off?
The thought slipped away as fast as it had come.
The hum slowly turned into a gentle twinkling. It reminded me faintly of the tune I would listen to as a child, from the music box my mother had gifted me as I turned 8 years old. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, the tune started playing in a light, series of chimes.
I tried closing my eyes, but, to my confusion, they were already closed. I tried opening them instead.
As soon as my eyes cracked open, a blinding light flooded my senses, the music stopped, and I wrenched my eyes shut again hastily. The scene from before appeared behind my eyelids once again, although I could swear it was darker than I remember it, and the shadowy figures had disappeared. Beautiful, crimson splotches of what I assumed were roses now dotted the ground in their place.
The familiar melody had stopped, replaced once again with an electical hum, although the humming was louder and had a less calming effect than before.
Calmness overtook me once again, but I could feel something wearing at the edges of the calm, trying to gain my attention. I tried focusing on that emotion, and I could swear I recognized it, but the thought quickly slipped from my grasp.
My gaze returned to the ground, and I saw the crimson roses seemed to have gotten bigger. Strange, that roses grow so quickly. I stared at it longer, and I realized I wasn't looking at roses anymore, as I caught a glint of light reflecting from the crimson splotches. It was faint, but it was there. The hum stuttered slightly, and for a breif, terrifying moment, the calm slipped away and an intense panic overtook me.
Quickly as it had gone, the calm returned, but with not as much intensity, the hum resumed, and the crimson roses returned to their original size.
I began to see the cracks in the wall, and the synthetic calm that had been forced on me wore off, panic and confusion settling in its place.
To my horror, I realized I couldn't move, and opening my eyes had suddenly become much more of a trial. Sometimes I felt as though I had opened them, but the same scene greeted me as before.
A shadow appeared in the distance.
It moved, or at least I think it did, at a slow pace, and as I strained my eyes to see it, the blurry figure seemed to be growing larger.
Flashes started consuming my vision. Blindly bright and disorienting, it wasn't until several flashes later I realized the figure had gotten startlingly close, and I could begin to make out small details. It appeared human, but from what I'm guessing what was 20 feet between us, it threw off such a strong stench of decay that I dismissed any thoughts I had of this creature being human.
Panic began to rise in me, and I felt dread begin to swirl in my stomach. More flashes followed, until the figure was merely meters from me. I could see it now, despite the fuzziness around the edges.
A white mask stared at me, the black voids where its eyes should be boring into me. The mask appeared to be grinning an exaggerated grin, and I saw streams of some black, viscous liquid dripping down it from the eye and mouth holes. More of the substance, along with blood, collected at the neck of the thing, staining its clothes at the collar. It took a few steps forward, and I felt the urge to lean back as the smell of decay heightened, and my eyes stung from the pungent smell. From the way the black liquid almost seemed to bubble at the eyeholes of the mask, I wondered if there even was a face under the mask, or if that liquid corroded the face away.
The thing reached a hand up, as though to touch my cheek, but its fingers stopped, hovering mere millimetres from my skin. There was no warmth radiating from it. Only an icy, unsettling cold.
It stared at me for what felt like hours. I was frozen, paralyzed with fear although adrenaline coursed through my veins and urged me to run, to escape, to get anywhere but here. My heart felt like it had come to a standstill, and many moments I had realized I stopped breathing, willing it to leave, willing its fingers to never touch my face.
Then, it spoke.
I knew, somehow, that the voice did not radiate from the face behind the mask, if there was one, but from the mask itself. It's smooth voice both terrified me and soothed me.
"I can't wait to meet you," It said, and its words confused me, causing a my adrenaline to spike as a shot of fear ran through my system. Meet me?
Then, it's fingertips grazed my skin, and my mind went numb for a blissful moment before the scene disappeared entirely, and I woke up.
"Short" A/N here. I've been working on trying to focus less heavily on detail, and more on actions, but I find that difficult. Obviously, I enjoy making the first chapter very descriptive(with the exception of one-shots) but tell me how I did maybe? I don't trust my own opinion on my writing, because I think too highly of it when it's horrible, and when it's good I think too lowly of it.
If you enjoyed it, please, please let me know. I mainly do this on mobile, so for some reason the inbox doesn't work or anything, but I am able to check the reviews of my stories. Even if you say one word, any support is appreciated. I have a bad habit of dropping stories when nobody seems to read them, so, if you at least read it, review something like "suitcase" or "quad" for all I care. As long as I know someone is reading it, I'll keep updating.
Also, point out any spelling errors spellcheck might have missed. I do not care for trivial things that can be spelled the "American" or the "English" way, like "color" and "colour", or "grey" and "gray".
Hopefully see you in the next chapter, any who might read and enjoy this. Rated M right now to play ot safe(seriously I do not hold back on gore. You'll se later. You have been warned.)