Chapter 3 – A rude awakening
When Sari and I returned to our apartment I cooked us a pasta bake, she engaged me in conversation after we ate.
"So, what did you think? Are you going to join?" She asked me, eagerly anticipating my reply.
"It wasn't what I was expecting." I replied.
"So is that a yes?" Sayori excitedly asked.
"It's a yes. I'll join. I've been here for three months and I've yet to really speak to anybody else except you. Not that you're bad company Sari." I really do need more friends.
"Yay! Thank you so much! You won't regret it. Any who I'm going to hit the hay, all this food has made me so sleepy. Night Flynn." She gets up and pecks me on the cheek before walking off to her bedroom. I decide I should probably sleep as well, I have a lecture to give tomorrow on the metaphysics of morals, something even I found to be rather dull. After getting into bed I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. However, I was awoken.
Knock knock knock.
I open my eyes, was that knocking I just heard?
Knock knock knock.
I pick up my phone from my bedside table and look at the time, it's 3am. Who rouses one from their bedchamber at such an early hour? I stand up and walk out of my bedroom to check if Sari is in her room, she could have locked herself out without her phone. She sometimes goes on midnight walks when she can't sleep, a practice I am not overly fond of but nonetheless, she is an adult capable of making her own decisions. As I enter her room I see that Sari wrapped under her duvet sound asleep.
Knock knock knock.
There's that knocking again! Despite being in a new country with different customs and social norms, I don't believe that Americans frequent intrusions on one's home at such unholy hours. With that in mind, I decide to take a precaution, and walk back to my bedroom and retrieve the Glock 17 from my bedside drawer. I also put on a t-shirt and sweat pants so I don't welcome our guest in my underwear. I'm more than likely being paranoid, but something seems wrong. Something feels wrong.
Knock knock knock.
Upon hearing the knocking again, I cautiously walk over to the front door, setting down my feet as quietly as possible so as to not alert our guest of my presence. Upon reaching the door, I look through the circular spyhole to see who it is and, to my surprise, nobody is there. It must have been somebody playing a prank, I suppose there must be trouble makers even in the Americas. I turn around and start to walk back to my bedroom.
Knock knock knock.
What? I quickly turn back around and look through the spyhole. There is nobody on the other side of my door. Did they run off? At this point I begin to lose my temper. While I try to be polite, that is the epitome of being British after all, being awoken at 3am to a loud knocking is enough for even one of my calm demeanour to begin to anger. I turn the latch and open our apartment door. To say I was surprised is an under-statement. I was horrified. What I saw before me was not the usual corridor going from left to right, lined with doors to the apartments of other tenants living within the complex, but a corridor stretching into the distance. Just as I was about to close the door, a force drags me into the corridor, throwing me face first onto the floor. What the fuck just happened!? What the fuck dragged me!? I push myself off the ground and turn around to see the door to my apartment closing. I desperately sprint towards the door like a leopard hunting its prey.
"No no no no no no no! Fuck!" My fervent exertion is not enough, and I reach the door just as it closes. Panicking, I bang my fists on the door and scream for Sayori.
"Sari! Open this door! Please! Open this fucking door!" I shout as loudly as I can while hammering my fists on the wooden frame. The door begins to dissolve away, until only a white tiled wall remains. What the fuck is going on!? I feel a burning sensation on the left side of my face and instinctively touch it with my hand, I must have cut myself when I was pulled into the corridor. At this point, years of unfortunate military reflexes kick in, heightened by my terror. I turn around and raise the pistol to my eyes, and adopt the Centre Axis Relock position. The corridor is almost perfectly white, with tiles lining the floor, walls and ceiling. I slowly walked down the corridor, my pistol pointing towards the end of the corridor every step of the way. I analyse every single element in this hallway, the tiles, the lights, even the cold, damp and musky smell. I hear the patter of my exposed feet on the tiles and I travel through the hallway. The lights begin to flicker and I instinctively turn around to see if something is behind me, my eyes darting around to detect any potential enemy threat. Nothing. I turn back around and continue to walk towards the end of the corridor. As I continue my journey, I notice something awry. Something begins to leak from the tiles. I temporarily stop walking to observe the substance slowly dripping from the walls, lining them in an unnerving colourant. I touch the substance with my left hand and immediately realise what this is. It's blood. Red. Human. Blood. Petrified, I begin to hyperventilate, and take several tumultuous steps backwards while desperately wiping the blood on my trousers in a vain attempt to clean my hands. As I finish reaching the end of the corridor there is nothing but a splintered wooden door, Victorian in design and embellished with the pretentious patterns one would expect from the artists living at the height of the British Empire. I remove my left hand from my pistol and gently place it on the door handle, still pointing my Glock towards the door just in case I needed to engage a combatant. I pushed the handle down and slowly opened the door when, suddenly, I was pushed back by the same force which dragged me in here. I slide across the tiled floor all the way back to the start of the corridor, with friction burn causing immense pain across my forearms. I rolled over onto my front and pushed myself up from the floor, and immediately pointed my pistol towards the now open door. As I tentatively walked towards the door and, despite my exposure to this strange series of events which I could only describe and supernatural at this point, I was unprepared for what happened next. A woman walked through the door way. Her faced was disguised in shadow and I was unable to make out any distinguishing fingers.
"Only me." She said, in a low, husky voice. Then, without warning, a tsunami of blood rushed past her and towards me, filling the corridor with a tidal wave of death.
"What!? What the fuck!?" My eyes widened in horror at my approaching end, I turned around and ran, but towards what? A tiled wall, a corridor with no exit, a dead end in more than one way.
"Sayori help me! Help me please! Sayori!" The tidal wave swallowed me, engulfing me in a sea of despair.
"Flynn! Flynn! Wake up! You're having a nightmare!" A familiar voice called to me in the distance. I opened my eyes and saw that Sari was shaking me, her face was contorted into an expression of immense concern for my wellbeing.
"What the fuck, what happened? Where am I!?" My heart was beating out of my chest and my lungs burned from the excessive hyperventilation.
"You're in your bedroom, it's 3am." Sari said, sitting down on the bed next to me. What the fuck just happened? That was one hell of a nightmare. I've had bad dreams before but nothing quite like that.
"I'm fine Sari, it was nothing, I've had much worse." In truth, I had not. I have never ever experienced such terror in my life, not as a soldier, and not in my nightmares.
"No, I'm not leaving you alone tonight. Scooch over." Sari pushed me and I moved over to the other side of my bed. She climbed into bed next to me.
"Were you there again?" She said, turning over onto her side to look at me. I was lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, still shook up from my nightmare. It felt so fucking real.
"No. I wasn't there. It was nothing. Don't worry about it. I'm always alright." I said, still staring through the ceiling.
"Okay well, wake me up if you need anything." She said, closing her eyes and drifting off into a deep slumber. Despite my attempts to drift back off to sleep, I didn't really want to. I couldn't get the nightmare out of my head, it felt so real. I had to check something. I stood up and walked to my en-suite, turning on the bathroom light as I looked in the mirror. To my relief there was no damage to be seen. The cut on my head, the burns on my arms, all missing. Nonetheless I couldn't get the dream out of my head, it was so vivid. So real. I walked back to my bedside table and checked my pistol to put my mind at ease. I repeatedly moved the slide back and forth to eject the rounds, counting them as they fell onto the bed. There were two bullets missing.