I'm Hiding

Adrian walked to the door and opened it. He stepped through it. He was suddenly back in the apartment of the Overlook Hotel. Back in the room with the blood-stained walls. He quickly turned around to go back through the door, but the door was now gone and to replace it was a broken, chipped, rotting piece of jip rock for a wall with bloody handprints raping it. Adrian looked around fiercely for the door to get out. He found it and ran to it. There was a note stuck under the door. Adrian picked it up. This note was placed in an envelope. On the envelope, it said "From Hell", but Adrian didn't read it. He just grasped it tight and opened the door. He walked through the apartment door and entered the Hallway of the Overlook Hotel. The walls were all bloody from top to bottom, and the ceiling rotting away and moldy. The distinct noise of a grandfather clock was ticking away in which seemed to be from all directions of the hallway. The sound just got louder until Adrian's ears started to gently bleed out his sanity.

Adrian then fell to the floor in terrible emotional and physical pain. He clenched his eyelids tight until he was seeing stars. When he opened his eyes, he was back laying in his bed in his grey room. He graced his hands across his ears to feel no blood. The note! It was right beside his head on the pillow. Adrian reached for it, grabbed it, and read it.

"I'm hiding"

…and that's all the note said.

"Hello? Is anybody home?"

Adrian heard a voice calling from downstairs; it sounded female and child-like. He ran down and found a little girl standing in the hallway connecting the stairs with the front door.

"Little girl, are you lost? How did you get into my house?" Adrian asked.

"Umm... I don't remember." replied the little girl.

"Can you tell me your name?" asked a concerned Adrian.

"You'll have to find me first!" She replied with a tiny laugh.

The little girl ran downstairs into the basement. Adrian heard the basement door open and slam shut. He then heard the girl call out to him.

"I'M HIDING! Hee hee hee!"

…… "Hiding…" Adrian remembered the letter.

Adrian stepped down the stairs and entered the basement of the house. It was the coldest and darkest part of the house and Adrian scarcely went down into it. Scattered along the floor were boxes of old clothes and other miscellaneous items. Adrian flicked on the light switch hanging over the bottom of the stairs.

"Little girl, where are you? You should come back upstairs. It's really not safe down here; you might step on a nail or something."

No reply.

"Little girl, please!"

Just then, a noise came from the far end of the basement. It was a crackling sound, and it was getting louder. Adrian followed the noise into the depths of his basement. The light barely reached far where he had walked. The crackling stopped and Adrian came upon an old bike he had long forgotten about. The back wheel was slightly turning and stuck in the spokes was a piece of paper. He remembered back when he was a kid when he would stick a baseball card in the spokes of his wheel and spin it. He realized right then that that was the noise he was hearing. Adrian grabbed the piece of paper wedged between the metal bars of the back wheel and brought into the light. It read:

"I'm not hiding anymore. You took too long to look for me. I went back out the front door. If you want to find me, then go through it and find me! Find me, Adrian!"

Adrian climbed back up the basement stairs and went back to the main floor of his house. He made way to the front door. The door had writing inscribed all over it in what looked disturbingly like blood.

"There is evil beyond where the good lies"

Over and over again...