Chapter 4

Elisa Parker huddled in a corner of what had once been her classroom. Now it was merely a mockery of its former self, devoid of anything other than bloodstained metal grating and twisted desks. She had fallen asleep after a test, and when she woke, she found herself in the twisted world she now inhabited. She had sat there for nearly an hour, rocking back and forth, more scared than she has ever been in her entire seventeen years. When she finally found the courage to stand, she did so on wobbly legs. She had tried calling out before, but hadn't heard anything but her own beating heart. Now she stepped to the door of the classroom, and turned the knob slowly.

An oppressive heat poured from the doorway as it slowly creaked open. Elisa took a single step out into the hallway, and immediately felt that something was wrong. She felt as though she was being watched, and she felt a presence, a something that seemed to watch her, and it made her very uncomfortable. She crept out away from the door, then slowly, nervously, walked down the long hallway. After a few moments, her confidence increased, and her curiosity forced her to wander the hall, looking everywhere for a clue as to what had happened, and why she was the only person around to witness it. She tried calling out again, but silence was once again her only answer.

Something moved behind her.

She spun around, just in time to see something duck into a doorway a few yards behind her. In the dim light, she was unsure what it was she saw, but she was certain she saw something. As if to confirm her suspicions, the door that the something had vanished into slammed shut.

"Hello?" she called weakly. No answer. "Hello?" she called again, more boldly this time than the last. A muffled yelp came from down the hall, from inside the door that had just slammed shut. Elisa ran as fast as she could, wanting to find whoever had made that sound, to have someone's company in this hellish nightmare she was being forced to endure.

The door, marked men's room, opened very easily. Elisa practically jumped over the threshold, but was immediately taken aback by what she saw inside the room. The bathroom floor was made of stone, unlike the metal grating outside, and it was covered in a thick coating of blood. It was everywhere, but it seemed to be coming from the last stall in a row that lined the wall to her left. 

She moved cautiously, ready to run at the slightest hint of danger, until she reached the stall door. Her hand gripped the handle weakly, and she pulled. The door swung open, much harder than she thought it would, and she lost her balance and fell back onto the bloodstained floor. She nearly vomited at the touch of the warm sticky fluid that coated her hands. She stood, and wiped the blood off on her pant legs. Then she turned back to the stall, and nearly fainted when she did.

A body was in the stall.

That was all her mind accepted at first, but as it recovered from the initial shock, more details forced their way into her skull. The body appeared to be male, it wasn't recognizable, and pieces of flesh were torn haphazardly from it. It was held in place by hundreds of hooked chains that were attached to the stall, and a few of them went to the roof above. The corpse was opened from the throat to the groin, and the organs were strewn about the stall floor, and some hung from the chains. The body cavity was completely empty, as were its eye sockets, its nasal cavity, and the gaping hole where its bottom jaw would be.

Elisa, confronted with such an atrocity, could do nothing but stand there, tears streaming down her cheeks.

After a moment of silent grieving for whoever the poor soul had been, her insatiable curiosity kicked in and she was compelled to investigate the gutted corpse. She stood, her face inches from the ravaged face, searching for any clue as to what had happened to cause such a horrible death.

The corpse moved.

Its hand tore free from a chain and grabbed at Elisa's arm, pulling her close with surprising strength. "Help me Elisa, it hurts so much. Help…" she knew the voice immediately, it was her boyfriend, Mike voice.

"Mike! Oh my God! What happened!" She screamed, but the corpse sank back into the slack position she had found it in and she was left alone in the blood-covered bathroom, terrified out of her mind, and sobbing until she lost her breath.