Fifty-some hits and no reviews! That's a new one – that bad, huh? BTW, It might be for the best if you don't try to visualize certain parts too hard. And never write this kind of thing in the still darkness at one o' clock in the morning.
Bound
He exited the room and closed the door behind him, beginning to hyperventilate as the full extent of what he'd seen registered in his brain. No, it couldn't be real! It was a waking nightmare, just that, and when he looked back in, he'd see a normal bedroom, even if he still couldn't remember where it was. Willing himself to open the door a crack, he glanced back, and the coppery smell of blood overwhelmed his senses. He slammed the door shut. Tommy licked his lips, dry from breathing through his mouth the entire time he'd been in shock after waking, and tasted that coppery tang on them from when he'd wiped his mouth with his hand after throwing up, the blood his own from the wound in the back of his skull. Fuck. It was no hallucination. But this didn't change things; he still had to go on – what else was there to do?
Leaving the morbid room behind for good, Tommy moved along the hall, creaks of the floorboards accompanying him with every step, no matter how carefully he tried to tread. The place he was in – it was no mere house. Judging from the dark, lengthy expanse of the corridor, it was a mansion, a manor, and a fairly large one at that. Bloody footprints led out from the room, getting fainter as the blood had dried; someone else had been in that room, most likely the killer. He walked past the doors similar to that of the room from which he came, because the last thing he need was to stumble upon any more of such disgustingly horrifying scenes. Only a few snatches of moonlight dared to intrude upon the construct's interior, as though fearful they'd be engulfed by the sick, self-contained world within. Tommy couldn't blame them; the manor reeked of something unholy, stagnant and festering – the dead body no longer seemed at all out of place.
The twisted atmosphere must have thrown his imagination into overdrive, for he heard a constant, soft whisper in his head, lowly murmuring something wholly unintelligible as though far in the distance. He shook it off – this was no time to be lost in random tricks of the mind. He came across another blood-painted writing – a single word – in the hallway. It was neater than those in the bedroom, but obviously in the same handwriting:
SURVIVE
He laughed, the sound having a faintly hysterical note to it. Survive? He intended to. After all, he was THE ONE, wasn't he? What did that mean, anyway? Did the killer spare him for some reason unbeknownst to him? Was this some kind of disgusting, sadistic game?
No, no more of those thoughts, those questions. They weren't helpful, and only would lead down the road to paranoia. He had to keep it together if he was to stand a fair chance at getting out of this hellish mansion. A bit of cold water would bring him around, he figured, and he needed to wash the wound at the back of his head, so he searched for a bathroom, finding one eventually after passing several more closed bedrooms.
Entering, Tommy noted that it smelled faintly repugnant, as of rotting meat, a stench that nearly drove him off, if not for the fact that it was so faint that he simply assumed it was coming from the toilet; someone had probably forgotten to flush or something. He turned to face the mirror, a long-haired brunet staring back at him with bloodshot, sleep-deprived eyes and weary countenance. The cold water he splashed on his face felt refreshing, though, so much so that he almost forgot his troubles, temporarily. He ran his fingers through his hair, massaging around the wounded area and cleaning it out.
Rising from his hunched position over the sink, he noticed that the shower curtain was shut, occluding the view of something behind it. The odor wafted from that direction, too, and though he was scared to see what may lie behind it, curiosity got the better of him, and he slid the curtain to one side.
"OH SHIT!" He screamed at the sight of the bloated cadaver lying face up in the tub, its skin a mottled mix of hues of blue, green, and purple. The corpse was of a young woman, Asian features still distinguishable in spite of the balloonish proportions to which her face had blown up. Drowning was not the cause of death, however; she'd died of asphyxiation, her own long, jet black hair tied tightly around her neck, twisted into a makeshift rope, strands floating in a spidery arrangement around her torso. Her yellow shirt and jeans were stained crimson, as was the water in which she was half immersed; blood must have seeped out from the single visible open wound on her body that must have been inflicted before death – an owlish arrow carved deep into her right forearm.
Tommy gagged, stumbling back and dry heaving. This...this was insane! He had to get out of there, out of that god-accursed mansion. Before he dashed out of the room, however, he spotted a picture held in the dead young woman's hand. It was faded and water-stained, but he felt a need to take it and see what had been so important that she would clasp it to her in death. The picture came loose from her grip as he tugged on it; he looked over what he'd acquired.
He gaped at the picture, jaw dropping. He stared into the mirror. The faces were the exact same. The picture was of him.
A stream of expletives escaped Tommy's mouth. How the hell? The boy in the picture was tied to a pole, gagged, and bleeding from dozens of wounds, a look of defiance in his eyes despite the blue-black ring around the left one. Barbed wire looped his arms, causing tiny rivulets of blood to drip down them, and a nasty red welt spread over his face. The teenaged boy looked over his own body; not a single scar or other trace of such abuse showed.
Was it some kind of macabre warning? A lost memory? Or worse, a prophesy of what's to come?
Tommy's head swirled with disgust, bewilderment, and fear, and in this, he did not notice the shadow lurking behind him, the whispers increasing in volume as it became ever more opaque.
A horrendous, agonized screech filled his ears, jolting through his head as though it was a physical blow, ringing and reverberating as the apparition continued its shrieking. A glimpse at it revealed it to be the young Asian woman in the tub, only not at all disfigured, translucent and wispy, her hair, arms, and legs fading into nothing. Her face was utterly expressionless and focused upwards; her mouth was not open, yet sounds continued, screams fading into mournful wails, as though she had not been aware of her death. Suddenly, she turned to face Tommy, not ceasing her cries as lifted an arm at him, then swooped towards him, coldness radiating from her as from ice.
Tommy screamed, dashing out of the room and down the hall and a flight of stairs, nearly falling down them in his frenzied movements. The voice followed him, and he felt the frigid tendrils of the apparition's power reaching out to him, chilling the air around him. He ran down another hallway, this time leading to a dead end, save for a door; he opened it after fumbling with the doorknob, dashing inside, only to be met with what seemed to be another dead end. Frantic, his eyes searched the dark for a way out as the ghost closed in one him, finding a door latch on the floor. Tommy lifted it and clambered down the ladder, looking up in bewilderment when the wails abated. The specter stopped its chase, hovering above the cellar. After a pause, its expression abruptly took on a look of abject horror, and with a scream of pain, shock, and grief that shook Tommy to his soul, she evanesced.
He turned and rested on the ladder, gasping for breath. What could have stopped the ghost? Whatever it was, it was worth investigating, and for this reason, he turned climbed back up, turned on the light in the cellar, and descended again, wan rays yield the slightest of illumination of a dark room. As his eyes adjusted, his heart stopped as he came to understand all too well why the ghost had ceased her pursuit...
A/N: Yarr. Uh. I don't feel very well - I think I'll go hurl now. Made sure my descriptions were accurate through research. Writing this gives me the creeps (heart's pounding right now), and I don't expect many readers to like this, so continuing this will be hard. I don't think I'll be having much sleep in the foreseeable future. Guess I'm a bit of a 'fraidy cat. But the plot makes it worth it, methinks.
Actually toned it down a bit from the original. Methinks whomever enjoys this fic is either the type to like horror flicks or is mentally unbalanced... Pot calling kettle black, hum?