Disclaimer: It's sad that in our cold hard world we need disclaimers.
A/N: Well, here it is, the third chapter. Hope you like it. Of course, you probably do, or else you wouldn't be reading this right now. Yeah, Hermione is having a rather crappy time right now, but it all has a purpose in the end. So get off my back. *Rolls eye with exasperation* You people just nag, nag, nag. I'm just rather sick of reading about Harry's misery, is all.
...If I smile and don't believe
soon I know I'll wake from this dream
don't try to fix me I'm not broken
hello I'm the lie living for you so you can hide
don't cry Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping
hello I'm still here
all that's left of yesterday Evanescence, Hello
Chapter Three: I had taken me awhile to know I was not dreaming. But everything was so surreal; my mind had trouble admitting to what I saw. I couldn't accept what I was seeing. I wanted to lie to myself, to tell me that it wasn't true, but deep down I knew it was true, and that made it even harder to hold back the tears.
It was like a scene from a movie. A bad, terrifying horror movie. Nothing seemed right; it was almost surreal in the room, with everything flicking in and out, one minute torn to pieces, then next back in order. I couldn't even tell which was real; the chaotic mess of a hideous murder, or a living room the way it had been for fifteen years. The only sound in the room was one that only I could hear; the steady thump, thump, thump of my heart pounding in my ears. My breath came in shallowly, and I could feel a sharp pain whenever I inhaled.
I stood there for an indeterminable amount of time, not moving, not thinking, and not truly seeing. I just couldn't accept it. My parents were dead. Lying there, on the floor, their insides torn out, nothing but a skin left next to a bloody pile of meat and blood. The unfamiliar stench of coppery blood attacked my nose, and I fell over, retching out all the contents of my stomach. I fell forward into the puddle of vomit, ignoring the slimy, acid-like burn as it touched my face, and felt something within me shatter. Inside I just broke into thousands of tiny pieces. The old nursery rhyme came into my head, "All the king's horses, and all the kings men, couldn't put poor Hermione together again."
After an eternity, I finally pulled myself up, and looked around. I was gasping for air by then, and was bordering on hysteria, but I managed to pull myself together long enough to try and figure something out. I tried to think of something, but my mind was blank, seeing nothing but that room. Furniture was flipped over, broken into pieces, and glass shards adorned the floor in a bizarre flower pattern that only I could see. Curtains were ripped from the windows, and the once blue walls were now splattered with blood. Pieces of muscles and sinew hung from the lamps like some horrible ornament arranged on it as if by a madman.
'I have to get out of here' some deep level of my mind thought, but I was rooted to the spot. I didn't want to leave this room, to face whatever was waiting for me; I just wanted to pretend that everything was normal again. I didn't want to recognise that I was the only one left, that I was the only one who wasn't dead. It was only when I saw my father's heart, lying on the floor next to him that I rushed back in fear. I started backing out of the room, but my legs met something, and I fell over. I had tripped over another body.
The man, who I later realized was the Death Eater, was lying on the floor spread-eagled on the floor, staring up blankly at the ceiling. His throat was sliced, a huge gap carved into it around five centimetres wide, and three centimetres deep. Blood still gurgled out of the wound, though it was obvious he had been dead for some time. Flies gathered around the wound, eating away at the cold, bloody skin and sinew that hung from it. The smell of rotting flesh invaded my nose, and I could see that the skin was turning a mottled grey-purple colour.
For a brief, terrifying moment, I laid back on the body, feeling the soft, rotten body moulding with my own. I was frozen in place, but I wish I had moved, for what happened next was something that I hadn't planned on. The bodying, flattening slightly under my weight, and softened by death, gave way beneath me. The skin split open, and a rush of blood erupted out. Everything spilled out; the lungs burst out of the chest, followed by a festering heart that was full of holes. Guts ruptured out of the stomach, full of maggots and worms, writhing and twisting out of the corpse in another torrent of blood. The eyes imploded into the head, and the brains oozed from the ears and empty eye sockets, liquid save for a few small pieces of wrinkled mass. In a matter of seconds all that had been inside that man was now on the outside, and the smell was nothing like I had experienced before.
A deep cry rose from deep in my lungs, low and hysterical. I scrambled backwards, my hands slipping in the blood, my hand being sliced by shards of the broken glass. I backed out of that room as fast I could crawl. I slammed the door when I reached the hallway, not wanting to see that horrible sight anymore, though it was already burned into my memory. Curling up into a foetal position, tears threatened to come to my eyes, but I wouldn't let myself cry. It wasn't the time.
How had that man died? I knew he was the Death Eater who had butchered my parents, but how had he died? Why was he the one lying in the front room, and not me? I knew that I should be the dead one, not him. What had killed him? It was only then did I notice that I was holding a large carving knife in my hand.
At that moment, all reason left me. I had killed a man. Slit his throat with the very knife in my hand. I had killed a man, and watched him die. It should have been him who had killed, who had watched me die, not the other way around.
Why was I alive? Why didn't the man have enough decency to kill me too? Why did I kill him first? Why couldn't I be dead like my parents too? All these were thoughts I had as I lay on that cold wooden floor in the front hallway, screaming within my own head. I wanted to be dead.
That desire I always had, the one where I wanted to just float away into nothingness, came back at me full force. Why don't I just leave myself? I asked myself, thinking of that dark, cool place where everything was happy again, where I was happy again. Life was just too hard for me to want to live on anymore.
Time seemed to be moving slowly as I lay there, and what seemed like hours were only a few moments. I stared up at the ceiling, which seemed to close in on me, and it was then that I noticed a strange green glittering glow came from the front window. Now curious, and not exactly in the right of mind, I stood up, and went to the door. I wish now that I hadn't, but my mind was functioning like that a child's, and so I opened the door.
Green skulls hung up in the air, thousands upon thousands glittering in the night sky, all seeming to stare down at me and laugh. People were running down the street, screaming shrilly as men in black cloaks and masks chased after them, cursing them with a variety of spells. Men were bound with silver cords, and were dragged away into huge large piles of writhing bodies. The Death Eaters would then set the bodies on fire, and laugh as the muggles burned alive. I don't know which made me sicker, the muggles loud screams as they were burned alive, or the cruel, merciless laughing of the evil men. The sick feeling intensified as a breeze sent me a foul waft of burning skin to my nose. Woman were merely stunned, to be dragged away for the lewd men's sick pleasures.
Fires erupted periodically all over the place, the screams absolutely horrible, and all I could do was stand there and watch it happen. It was exactly as I had pictured the world to be like, back in the Department of Mysteries; it my worst nightmare come true.
It was then that I noticed how vulnerable I was at that moment. My wand was gone, Merlin knows where it was, and a small kitchen knife would be nothing compared to a Death Eater hurling the Death Curse at me. I decided it was best to get back inside. But as I turned to go back inside to hide, a horrible screeching sounded from behind me, and I paused in my tracks. That sound was familiar, yet I couldn't place where I had heard it.
I turned around quickly, in order to see what it was. I wish that I hadn't. The things were the most wretched creatures I had ever seen. The things were tall, almost twelve feet tall. The arms of the hideous being were overly long, maybe appearing so because of the metre long claws. They walked in a hunched back sort of way, causing their claws to drag on the ground in a sickening scraping sound. The skin was waxy, and a pale tan colour. A black, oily looking substance seemed to be coming from the creatures. The bodies were thin, only about twenty centimetres in width at the thickest point, with limbs as thin as two wands placed together side by side. The hands had four fingers, which ended in four very long, very thin, and very sharp claws. The legs were of bent forwards, like the creatures were crouching down, and ended in two feet that were humanly normal save for the five curved claws extending outwards from the toes. Also, connected to their backs were a set of wings; long, blackened leathery wings like those of a bat.
It was the heads that scared me the most, though. The heads were round, perfectly round, and sat upon a neck as thin as my wrist. The mouth took up half of the head, a gaping whole that seemed to take up the entire front of the head. The mouth was as tall as my hand, and I have long fingers, and filled with the most deadly set of teeth that I have ever seen. There was no nose above the mouth, only two large black eyes the size of lemons practically on the top of the head. When the creatures opened their mouths, the entire top of the head swung farther back than anyone could imagine, and you could see dozens of rows of sharp fangs. They could easily fit a human head inside of the mouth and chomp it off in one bite. I know that for that's what those things were doing; they were biting of peoples heads, then tearing apart the bodies, eating the warm, moist flesh within. The things were dragging bodies behind them, the corpses skewered by the long claws. Hundreds of them, all grabbing at people and tearing away their insides. And one of them happened to notice me. Shrieking out their horrible cry, several of them started bounding towards me. I screamed out with fright, and ran back into the house, just barely shutting the door before they bounded on top of me. I fell back when I entered the house, slipping on a trail of blood I had left behind. I slid back on my back to the staircase, now out of my mind with fright, the knife in my hand held out in front of me. I scrambled to my feet, and started to look vainly for my wand. But I couldn't find it. I realised that my wand must have been with the Death Eater, but no force on that earth could ever make me go back into that room. Especially since now blood was leaking out under the crack in the door.
I didn't know what to do. I was alone, in the middle of a Death Eater battle, without a wand. Suddenly feeling sick, I ran upstairs to the bathroom, and threw up. I flushed the toilet, then looked at myself in the mirror. My appearance shocked me; my face was one huge bruise, puffy and blue. My lip was split, tinted with a hint of green. Just what I needed, an infection. My neck had several slashes on then, and finger-shaped red marks encircling it. My t-shirt, the one I had fallen asleep in, was barely hanging onto my body, and was soaked in blood. Whether it was my blood, or someone else's was beyond my knowledge. I had several cuts on my abdomen, but one was especially deep, and still steeped out blood. A black, tar-like gunk stuck to it, turning the skin around it a sickly blue-black colour, which was burning furiously. I recognised it as the black stuff that was coming off of those horrid creatures. There was blood dripping down my legs, and I wildly wondered if my period had started. It hadn't, for it had passed two weeks before, and the area ached more than it usually did during my period. I was suddenly very afraid of what had happened earlier in the night. I was glad that I couldn't remember any of it. It amazed me, though, how I hadn't noticed the pain before then.
I was lost in my thoughts, just staring at my puffy face, still wondering what I would do. I knew I had to hide, but where? Certainly not in the house; eventually Voldemort would come looking for the dead Death Eater downstairs and kill me for killing his follower. But I couldn't hide elsewhere, for I was certain that the second I walked out of the door one of those horrible creatures would pounce on me and tear me to bits. I sunk down to the floor, clutching my hair, not knowing what to do. All I wanted was for Harry and Ron to be there. They would know what to do. Or maybe Dumbledore. He certainly would know what to do. If only I could contact him.
At that moment, a soft hooting sound came from my room. "Oh," I thought to myself, "Gypsy's home." Gypsy's home. Then it came to me. I could send a letter to Dumbledore! Why I hadn't thought of that before then was beyond me. It was strange how everything seemed to evaporate from my mind in the midst of a tragedy, for normally I was a level-headed thinker.
I left the bathroom, practically crawling from my newfound pain, and dragged myself to my bedroom. Gypsy saw me, and flew onto my shoulder. I stood up, and after a moment of nausea, I started to write the letter. Crookshanks came out from the closet and started circling my legs, but I ignored him. After writing a short note, already splattered with blood, I tied it to Gypsy's leg and sent her. I watched her fly out into the night, and had to quickly close the window when one of those creatures flew at me. It was shocking to look out on the village. It was like looking at a fiery inferno, a true vision of Hell. That was what Pandemonium, the capital of Hell, looked like. And I was stuck in the middle of it.
A creaking sound came from behind me. I turned around quickly, my hand tightly holding the knife in a death-like grip. My breath came quickly, almost as if I was gasping, as my body strained to hear a footstep, a rustle of material. Surely enough, I head the floor squeak. Feeling as if my throat was closing, determined to deprive me of oxygen, I slowly crept to the doorway. My whole body shook, and another wave of nausea passed over me again. Walking to the door felt like I was walking to a grave, and had a horrible feeling that if I were to look in that grave, I would see myself lying in it. There was something bad in that hallway, and I wasn't so sure if I wanted to see it. It could very well mean my own death.
Another growl sounded from the hallway, and I knew then that it was aware of my presence. Strangely enough, that almost made me feel better, to know that it was aware of me. At least something in this world acknowledged me. But that growl that I heard, didn't seem normal. It felt oily, slimy, like it didn't belong in this world. It filled me with hatred, for I knew that thing didn't belong on this earth. It was wrong, and had to die. The growl was so different, it made my hair stand up on end.
I hadn't realized that I had stopped walking towards the door. That low guttural moan coming from the hallway had stopped, and I snapped back to my senses. Without a pause, and only one skip of my heart, I stepped out into the hallway. No one was there.
Looking around in confusion, I looked around wildly. I could have sworn that I had heard growling, yet no one was there. The hallway was completely empty.
"I must be losing my mind," I muttered to myself. I wish now that I hadn't. In fact, there were a lot of things I wish I hadn't done that night. Speaking aloud was one of them, for all of a sudden, the low guttural growls sound from around me, and a loud clicking noise echoed through the air. I looked around wildly, and saw thousands of these little creatures bound up to me. Again, that feeling of absolute horror and disgust filled me when I saw the creatures. The tallest ones reached mid-calf on me, and were one of the most wretched things I had ever seen. The bodies were those of a spiders, but with two legs on each side. Four long necks protruded from the spider-body, with a head wresting on each one. The heads were in the very least like a dogs, but a sort of dog I had never seen before. The head had two snouts, but were connected to one head. The skin was a mottled grey-green colour, and hung from the bones like it was rotting off.
I felt shock and repulsion when I saw them, but it didn't last long. With blood-curdling screams, the creatures dived on me, and immediately started to bite at my skin. I could feel small chunks being ripped from my face, neck, and body, and no matter how many I killed with my ever slashing knife, they just kept coming. I thrashed around, throwing myself into my room. I kicked the door shut, and attempted to pull off the rest of the things. I managed to kill them all, but by that time I was severely bleeding, and knew I need medical attention. I had no choice but to crawl out the window. But as I opened the window, a crash sounded from behind me, and the little things rushed in, followed by one of the winged things. The small things dove at me, and I fell out the window. It was a long fall, almost seeming to take a lifetime. Everything had slowed down, and it seemed as if I were floating. But then I landed on my back, my head smashing into a rock, and felt a deep spasm of pain rush through my body. The last thing I saw was the tall creature flying out of the window, and landing at my feet. I tried to get up and run, but my body seemed to want to give up. Everything went dark, and soon I was in the dark utopia that was quickly becoming a familiar place to me. And I was happy about it. It was the one place where all of the pain was gone.
A/N: Well, here it is, the third chapter. Hope you like it. Of course, you probably do, or else you wouldn't be reading this right now. Yeah, Hermione is having a rather crappy time right now, but it all has a purpose in the end. So get off my back. *Rolls eye with exasperation* You people just nag, nag, nag. I'm just rather sick of reading about Harry's misery, is all.
...If I smile and don't believe
soon I know I'll wake from this dream
don't try to fix me I'm not broken
hello I'm the lie living for you so you can hide
don't cry Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping
hello I'm still here
all that's left of yesterday Evanescence, Hello
Chapter Three: I had taken me awhile to know I was not dreaming. But everything was so surreal; my mind had trouble admitting to what I saw. I couldn't accept what I was seeing. I wanted to lie to myself, to tell me that it wasn't true, but deep down I knew it was true, and that made it even harder to hold back the tears.
It was like a scene from a movie. A bad, terrifying horror movie. Nothing seemed right; it was almost surreal in the room, with everything flicking in and out, one minute torn to pieces, then next back in order. I couldn't even tell which was real; the chaotic mess of a hideous murder, or a living room the way it had been for fifteen years. The only sound in the room was one that only I could hear; the steady thump, thump, thump of my heart pounding in my ears. My breath came in shallowly, and I could feel a sharp pain whenever I inhaled.
I stood there for an indeterminable amount of time, not moving, not thinking, and not truly seeing. I just couldn't accept it. My parents were dead. Lying there, on the floor, their insides torn out, nothing but a skin left next to a bloody pile of meat and blood. The unfamiliar stench of coppery blood attacked my nose, and I fell over, retching out all the contents of my stomach. I fell forward into the puddle of vomit, ignoring the slimy, acid-like burn as it touched my face, and felt something within me shatter. Inside I just broke into thousands of tiny pieces. The old nursery rhyme came into my head, "All the king's horses, and all the kings men, couldn't put poor Hermione together again."
After an eternity, I finally pulled myself up, and looked around. I was gasping for air by then, and was bordering on hysteria, but I managed to pull myself together long enough to try and figure something out. I tried to think of something, but my mind was blank, seeing nothing but that room. Furniture was flipped over, broken into pieces, and glass shards adorned the floor in a bizarre flower pattern that only I could see. Curtains were ripped from the windows, and the once blue walls were now splattered with blood. Pieces of muscles and sinew hung from the lamps like some horrible ornament arranged on it as if by a madman.
'I have to get out of here' some deep level of my mind thought, but I was rooted to the spot. I didn't want to leave this room, to face whatever was waiting for me; I just wanted to pretend that everything was normal again. I didn't want to recognise that I was the only one left, that I was the only one who wasn't dead. It was only when I saw my father's heart, lying on the floor next to him that I rushed back in fear. I started backing out of the room, but my legs met something, and I fell over. I had tripped over another body.
The man, who I later realized was the Death Eater, was lying on the floor spread-eagled on the floor, staring up blankly at the ceiling. His throat was sliced, a huge gap carved into it around five centimetres wide, and three centimetres deep. Blood still gurgled out of the wound, though it was obvious he had been dead for some time. Flies gathered around the wound, eating away at the cold, bloody skin and sinew that hung from it. The smell of rotting flesh invaded my nose, and I could see that the skin was turning a mottled grey-purple colour.
For a brief, terrifying moment, I laid back on the body, feeling the soft, rotten body moulding with my own. I was frozen in place, but I wish I had moved, for what happened next was something that I hadn't planned on. The bodying, flattening slightly under my weight, and softened by death, gave way beneath me. The skin split open, and a rush of blood erupted out. Everything spilled out; the lungs burst out of the chest, followed by a festering heart that was full of holes. Guts ruptured out of the stomach, full of maggots and worms, writhing and twisting out of the corpse in another torrent of blood. The eyes imploded into the head, and the brains oozed from the ears and empty eye sockets, liquid save for a few small pieces of wrinkled mass. In a matter of seconds all that had been inside that man was now on the outside, and the smell was nothing like I had experienced before.
A deep cry rose from deep in my lungs, low and hysterical. I scrambled backwards, my hands slipping in the blood, my hand being sliced by shards of the broken glass. I backed out of that room as fast I could crawl. I slammed the door when I reached the hallway, not wanting to see that horrible sight anymore, though it was already burned into my memory. Curling up into a foetal position, tears threatened to come to my eyes, but I wouldn't let myself cry. It wasn't the time.
How had that man died? I knew he was the Death Eater who had butchered my parents, but how had he died? Why was he the one lying in the front room, and not me? I knew that I should be the dead one, not him. What had killed him? It was only then did I notice that I was holding a large carving knife in my hand.
At that moment, all reason left me. I had killed a man. Slit his throat with the very knife in my hand. I had killed a man, and watched him die. It should have been him who had killed, who had watched me die, not the other way around.
Why was I alive? Why didn't the man have enough decency to kill me too? Why did I kill him first? Why couldn't I be dead like my parents too? All these were thoughts I had as I lay on that cold wooden floor in the front hallway, screaming within my own head. I wanted to be dead.
That desire I always had, the one where I wanted to just float away into nothingness, came back at me full force. Why don't I just leave myself? I asked myself, thinking of that dark, cool place where everything was happy again, where I was happy again. Life was just too hard for me to want to live on anymore.
Time seemed to be moving slowly as I lay there, and what seemed like hours were only a few moments. I stared up at the ceiling, which seemed to close in on me, and it was then that I noticed a strange green glittering glow came from the front window. Now curious, and not exactly in the right of mind, I stood up, and went to the door. I wish now that I hadn't, but my mind was functioning like that a child's, and so I opened the door.
Green skulls hung up in the air, thousands upon thousands glittering in the night sky, all seeming to stare down at me and laugh. People were running down the street, screaming shrilly as men in black cloaks and masks chased after them, cursing them with a variety of spells. Men were bound with silver cords, and were dragged away into huge large piles of writhing bodies. The Death Eaters would then set the bodies on fire, and laugh as the muggles burned alive. I don't know which made me sicker, the muggles loud screams as they were burned alive, or the cruel, merciless laughing of the evil men. The sick feeling intensified as a breeze sent me a foul waft of burning skin to my nose. Woman were merely stunned, to be dragged away for the lewd men's sick pleasures.
Fires erupted periodically all over the place, the screams absolutely horrible, and all I could do was stand there and watch it happen. It was exactly as I had pictured the world to be like, back in the Department of Mysteries; it my worst nightmare come true.
It was then that I noticed how vulnerable I was at that moment. My wand was gone, Merlin knows where it was, and a small kitchen knife would be nothing compared to a Death Eater hurling the Death Curse at me. I decided it was best to get back inside. But as I turned to go back inside to hide, a horrible screeching sounded from behind me, and I paused in my tracks. That sound was familiar, yet I couldn't place where I had heard it.
I turned around quickly, in order to see what it was. I wish that I hadn't. The things were the most wretched creatures I had ever seen. The things were tall, almost twelve feet tall. The arms of the hideous being were overly long, maybe appearing so because of the metre long claws. They walked in a hunched back sort of way, causing their claws to drag on the ground in a sickening scraping sound. The skin was waxy, and a pale tan colour. A black, oily looking substance seemed to be coming from the creatures. The bodies were thin, only about twenty centimetres in width at the thickest point, with limbs as thin as two wands placed together side by side. The hands had four fingers, which ended in four very long, very thin, and very sharp claws. The legs were of bent forwards, like the creatures were crouching down, and ended in two feet that were humanly normal save for the five curved claws extending outwards from the toes. Also, connected to their backs were a set of wings; long, blackened leathery wings like those of a bat.
It was the heads that scared me the most, though. The heads were round, perfectly round, and sat upon a neck as thin as my wrist. The mouth took up half of the head, a gaping whole that seemed to take up the entire front of the head. The mouth was as tall as my hand, and I have long fingers, and filled with the most deadly set of teeth that I have ever seen. There was no nose above the mouth, only two large black eyes the size of lemons practically on the top of the head. When the creatures opened their mouths, the entire top of the head swung farther back than anyone could imagine, and you could see dozens of rows of sharp fangs. They could easily fit a human head inside of the mouth and chomp it off in one bite. I know that for that's what those things were doing; they were biting of peoples heads, then tearing apart the bodies, eating the warm, moist flesh within. The things were dragging bodies behind them, the corpses skewered by the long claws. Hundreds of them, all grabbing at people and tearing away their insides. And one of them happened to notice me. Shrieking out their horrible cry, several of them started bounding towards me. I screamed out with fright, and ran back into the house, just barely shutting the door before they bounded on top of me. I fell back when I entered the house, slipping on a trail of blood I had left behind. I slid back on my back to the staircase, now out of my mind with fright, the knife in my hand held out in front of me. I scrambled to my feet, and started to look vainly for my wand. But I couldn't find it. I realised that my wand must have been with the Death Eater, but no force on that earth could ever make me go back into that room. Especially since now blood was leaking out under the crack in the door.
I didn't know what to do. I was alone, in the middle of a Death Eater battle, without a wand. Suddenly feeling sick, I ran upstairs to the bathroom, and threw up. I flushed the toilet, then looked at myself in the mirror. My appearance shocked me; my face was one huge bruise, puffy and blue. My lip was split, tinted with a hint of green. Just what I needed, an infection. My neck had several slashes on then, and finger-shaped red marks encircling it. My t-shirt, the one I had fallen asleep in, was barely hanging onto my body, and was soaked in blood. Whether it was my blood, or someone else's was beyond my knowledge. I had several cuts on my abdomen, but one was especially deep, and still steeped out blood. A black, tar-like gunk stuck to it, turning the skin around it a sickly blue-black colour, which was burning furiously. I recognised it as the black stuff that was coming off of those horrid creatures. There was blood dripping down my legs, and I wildly wondered if my period had started. It hadn't, for it had passed two weeks before, and the area ached more than it usually did during my period. I was suddenly very afraid of what had happened earlier in the night. I was glad that I couldn't remember any of it. It amazed me, though, how I hadn't noticed the pain before then.
I was lost in my thoughts, just staring at my puffy face, still wondering what I would do. I knew I had to hide, but where? Certainly not in the house; eventually Voldemort would come looking for the dead Death Eater downstairs and kill me for killing his follower. But I couldn't hide elsewhere, for I was certain that the second I walked out of the door one of those horrible creatures would pounce on me and tear me to bits. I sunk down to the floor, clutching my hair, not knowing what to do. All I wanted was for Harry and Ron to be there. They would know what to do. Or maybe Dumbledore. He certainly would know what to do. If only I could contact him.
At that moment, a soft hooting sound came from my room. "Oh," I thought to myself, "Gypsy's home." Gypsy's home. Then it came to me. I could send a letter to Dumbledore! Why I hadn't thought of that before then was beyond me. It was strange how everything seemed to evaporate from my mind in the midst of a tragedy, for normally I was a level-headed thinker.
I left the bathroom, practically crawling from my newfound pain, and dragged myself to my bedroom. Gypsy saw me, and flew onto my shoulder. I stood up, and after a moment of nausea, I started to write the letter. Crookshanks came out from the closet and started circling my legs, but I ignored him. After writing a short note, already splattered with blood, I tied it to Gypsy's leg and sent her. I watched her fly out into the night, and had to quickly close the window when one of those creatures flew at me. It was shocking to look out on the village. It was like looking at a fiery inferno, a true vision of Hell. That was what Pandemonium, the capital of Hell, looked like. And I was stuck in the middle of it.
A creaking sound came from behind me. I turned around quickly, my hand tightly holding the knife in a death-like grip. My breath came quickly, almost as if I was gasping, as my body strained to hear a footstep, a rustle of material. Surely enough, I head the floor squeak. Feeling as if my throat was closing, determined to deprive me of oxygen, I slowly crept to the doorway. My whole body shook, and another wave of nausea passed over me again. Walking to the door felt like I was walking to a grave, and had a horrible feeling that if I were to look in that grave, I would see myself lying in it. There was something bad in that hallway, and I wasn't so sure if I wanted to see it. It could very well mean my own death.
Another growl sounded from the hallway, and I knew then that it was aware of my presence. Strangely enough, that almost made me feel better, to know that it was aware of me. At least something in this world acknowledged me. But that growl that I heard, didn't seem normal. It felt oily, slimy, like it didn't belong in this world. It filled me with hatred, for I knew that thing didn't belong on this earth. It was wrong, and had to die. The growl was so different, it made my hair stand up on end.
I hadn't realized that I had stopped walking towards the door. That low guttural moan coming from the hallway had stopped, and I snapped back to my senses. Without a pause, and only one skip of my heart, I stepped out into the hallway. No one was there.
Looking around in confusion, I looked around wildly. I could have sworn that I had heard growling, yet no one was there. The hallway was completely empty.
"I must be losing my mind," I muttered to myself. I wish now that I hadn't. In fact, there were a lot of things I wish I hadn't done that night. Speaking aloud was one of them, for all of a sudden, the low guttural growls sound from around me, and a loud clicking noise echoed through the air. I looked around wildly, and saw thousands of these little creatures bound up to me. Again, that feeling of absolute horror and disgust filled me when I saw the creatures. The tallest ones reached mid-calf on me, and were one of the most wretched things I had ever seen. The bodies were those of a spiders, but with two legs on each side. Four long necks protruded from the spider-body, with a head wresting on each one. The heads were in the very least like a dogs, but a sort of dog I had never seen before. The head had two snouts, but were connected to one head. The skin was a mottled grey-green colour, and hung from the bones like it was rotting off.
I felt shock and repulsion when I saw them, but it didn't last long. With blood-curdling screams, the creatures dived on me, and immediately started to bite at my skin. I could feel small chunks being ripped from my face, neck, and body, and no matter how many I killed with my ever slashing knife, they just kept coming. I thrashed around, throwing myself into my room. I kicked the door shut, and attempted to pull off the rest of the things. I managed to kill them all, but by that time I was severely bleeding, and knew I need medical attention. I had no choice but to crawl out the window. But as I opened the window, a crash sounded from behind me, and the little things rushed in, followed by one of the winged things. The small things dove at me, and I fell out the window. It was a long fall, almost seeming to take a lifetime. Everything had slowed down, and it seemed as if I were floating. But then I landed on my back, my head smashing into a rock, and felt a deep spasm of pain rush through my body. The last thing I saw was the tall creature flying out of the window, and landing at my feet. I tried to get up and run, but my body seemed to want to give up. Everything went dark, and soon I was in the dark utopia that was quickly becoming a familiar place to me. And I was happy about it. It was the one place where all of the pain was gone.