Chapter 6

With fear in your throat, you realized there never was a choice. You climbed up on the soft fleshy edges and held back your disgust as you crawled further inside. Your flashlight flickered and something big snapped after your feet as you desperately crawled faster. The narrow tunnel rubbed against your back as you got only enough room to glance back the way you came. Another squeal as the thing´s heavy head splashed down in the grime. Your face contorted as you bit your lips and fought back the impulse to gag from the putrid stench that smeared over your body.

A heavy and floppy thud got your attention; you glanced over your shoulder.

The thing crawled up in the hole, its massive body slurped around the edges of the opening. It forced itself inside and licked the slick surface as it pulsed forward. It squealed and you crawled without any light in the end of the tunnel. The flashlight in your hand, turned off, in your attempt to spare you from the bulbous sight in your wake. In the dark, no need for hesitation existed, without any options you pursued the path ahead with death at your tail.

Soft and slimy surfaces against your palms, the rusty reek of blood invaded your mouth and nose. You raised your hand to seal the stench away, yet you immediately lowered it as your filthy fingers threatened to knock your senses unconscious. You crawled, your mind twisted as if the passage curved as a snake in mid-movement. Up, down, left, left, down, right, up. The squeals from the gluttonous swine behind you ruthlessly urged you on as it moved closer and closer with great effort in the narrow tunnel. You couldn´t see anything and feared the second your hand might reach down and not touch the ground but a bottomless rift where you would fall and break like a twig. Quickly followed by the obese mass of tumorous sore flesh that would squish you like a bug and slurp up your remains while painfully aware of the pain.

The walls opened up to your sides and branched out in the dark. You hit your head in a wall in front of you and you felt your heart beat hard in your chest as another choice showed up in your hour of crisis. Without anything to go on, you closed your eyes and instead let your hands choose your path blindly. The tunnel to the right tilted upwards and narrowed down as it forced you to crawl on your elbows and knees to fit through. Behind you in the far distance, your pursuer´s shrieks haunted you in your frantic fear.

Your mind, once full of an anthill with questions of the sudden madness that infected the world, shoved everything but your survival aside. Up, up, up away, from the bloated beast that grunted and squealed in its bottomless appetite.

Another turn, another crossroad, and you took to the left. The tunnel opened and let you crawl on your hands. Only compact darkness met your eye but you reasoned as there was a chance to escape as long you stayed on the move. Run, breathe, survive, repeat and crawl on for what felt as hours.

Shortly after the tedious crawling and turn to the right, you hit your head in another wall, without any options to escape to on the sides. Your heart stampeded as you held back a wail in your throat.

Dead end.

You struggled with your breath, tried to turn around in the narrow space, and hugged the wall in fear. From the way you came, a strained and greedy panting grew in strength as something heavy and sweaty snaked through the tunnels. You crawled up against the wall, both hands over your mouth, prayed that your breath would not betray your presence to the swollen swine. Despite the stench that searched for a way inside your nose, you didn´t trust yourself with your life.

It stopped.

A dark and heavy snort lurked a couple of meters ahead, in the crossroad of choices you failed to pick the right path too. It hungrily sniffed the air in snores while it dragged its head over the grime, back and forth. You could smell its stench of sweat and brandy from its pores.

You did not dare to turn on your flashlight.

As you sat there, one decision away from a brutal mutilation, you remembered the face, no, head, of the beast that you knew blocked your path behind you. It´s sickly purple, eyeless and circular head, the snotty vertical snout that sputtered thick white slime through its nostrils with each breath. The thick and intense stench of musk it sweated out with each exhale that turned you dizzy and nauseous as it filled up the tunnels.

It would suffocate you.

With fear in your chest, your hands began to tremble in the dark. You curled up in your tiny ball with your head against your knees. Your throat tensed up as you held back your tears. No means to ease your fear. No means to soothe and satisfy your pain as it ravaged your soul from within. Only one thought filled your mind.

I´m going to die.

The swine blocked your escape, it would find you in a matter of time, and you were convinced of this. You can hide, whimper and cry, it doesn´t matter, it will find you.

He always does.

The sniffs snarled as the beast´s head turned in one direction, which one, you didn´t knew. It could be yours.

You prayed and begged inside.

Don´t let it find me.

Yet you knew this risky hole would collapse and crumble if you did nothing. It would swallow you whole along with your nightmares if you let it. You saw no way out in the complete darkness and feared any noise would attract the squealing thing´s attention.

Please, please, please…

You begged and curled tighter up in your fetal position. Your insincerity rang false in the murky shadows. No prayers to god or hope for your life. Where would you go? You have yet to answer the question and if you are caught, then a worse fate than death awaits you. You are a couple of meters away from this fear and all you can do is sit and wait for the inevitable?

The swine turned its head once more.

You succumbed; hate against yourself hit you across the back of your mind. Worthless, why are you so worthless. Why can´t you make up your mind and prolong the misery further? Why can´t you choose?

You shook your head, and raised a hand over your head.

Nothing.

Your self-pity came to a halt as you swayed your arm in the air.

No ceiling, no walls, only cold.

Your eyes opened wide as you discovered how wide the hole over your head was. How your options expanded with one and you turned your head up.

Escape.

With caution, you found the edges of the tunnel above, no blood or grime but cold and smooth metal. Webs and bars with enough room to grab and pull up with. Your excitement grew while you cautiously rose up with your dark company nearby. You heard the heartbeats hit in your ears as the swine snarled in guttural hunger. No sign of light above but with the option of death or escape, you chose the one that would prolong your misery or grant you respite from this terror. Covered in filth, you climbed higher and higher, twined metal creaked under your feet as it bent for your weight. No reaction from the swine as it exhaled with great effort and moved around in the tunnel below. Your fingers ached as the metal seemed to sharpen in your grip and you clenched your teeth to not let out a sound.

A heavy series of thuds approached from above along with the first signs of light in this tunnel. A welcomed sight for you but the ease it carried snared in your throat. The infernal orange light that spread over the rusty webbing of stained metal on the opposite side as you felt it grow warmer. It slowly fried your clothes like a piece of fish in the frying pan. A reek of burnt blood and sludge marinated in musk from below and heated up. You reached the source of the noise and discovered an old industry fan as it slowly rotated on the opposite side of the webs. You followed its slow yet determined pace and spotted a second tunnel on the opposite side, separated by metal.

You continued on your climb, past the light and in the dark, yet something looked different above you. A small circle of light, not larger than a coin, grew closer.

An exit.

A disconnected smile spread over your face as you felt relief within your chest. The small circle grew larger as you climbed towards it, piece by piece. Freedom from this narrow hell baited you and you took it without any other choice.

Your left foot slipped.

You held on to the web, regained foothold after a couple of hectic seconds but the sound echoed through the tunnel in both directions.

A sharp snarl from below exchanged to silence. You stopped in your path as you held your breath and cringed. You slowly glanced down the seemingly endless tunnel below.

Ten seconds in complete silence.

Followed by a violent and bombastic squeal below you.

In the dark, soft flesh rubbed against steel and grinded against metal as your pursuer caught your track. Your heart raced like a rabbit under an eagle´s shadow, as you immediately climbed faster, away from your pursuer. The circle of light grew stronger above you yet you felt no relief, only fear as it urged you on.

You reached the edge, your bloodied fingers clawed against a solid floor and you heaved yourself out in liberation with a pained gasp for fresh air. No time to check the surroundings you pulled yourself out over the dark floor, the faint light fell over your body as you took in the open space around you.

A single candlelight on top of a bar counter.

Panic struck you down, no time for respite as the danger remained and the threat within approached in agony of a choir of agonized pigs. There was nothing to seal the hole with in your vicinity and it would come after you.

Escape.

You crawled, with your hands outwards in the circle of darkness, but stopped as your palm landed on something hard ahead of you.

You glanced up and impulsively jerked your hand away. Without delay, the flashlight in your pocket ended up in your other hand and with it aimed forward; you shed light over the unknown ahead.

A body, covered in grime and dark from blood. A young woman with long and stained hair rested with her face in the dirt and both hands over her head. A dark jacket over her shoulders, a dirty and ragged pair of pants, but no shoes over her feet. No movement, no response and only darkness bathed her body in shadows from your light.

Your body trembled as you held back a gasp and crawled away from the sight. Dead, death, mutilation, violence and despair. Another unfortunate soul that failed to escape her fate. You shunned away and involuntarily glanced down the tunnel you crawled up from.

Movement in the dark caught your eye as the swine came into view of the squares of light below.

The squeals grew in strength as flesh and skin peeled away like assaulted by a thousand cheese graters at once, the fat and body pushed on all sides as it forced itself upward in thrusts towards you. A thick collar of skin around its neck pulled back to reveal the purple swine head that opened its maw and let out another shriek. Its snotty nostrils let the sluggish mucus pour over its skin as the beast moved forward. It bled heavily from the passage yet didn´t stop as it thrust itself on with you in its blind sight.

You let out a tiny whimper as you backed away from the hole and bumped in the body behind you. You found yourself trapped between another set of choices.

Block the path or your flesh will satisfy its desire,

You cringed as you reluctantly and desperately grabbed hold of the woman´s back with your dirty hands. You struggled to move her, a mass of dead meat that refused to budge. Your arms ached as you mustered the strength to lift this sacrifice to the feeder tray.

The legs reached the dark circle; you changed position and began to kick down the other woman with your feet on her shoulders. Without remorse, or anything but desperate survival, your efforts paid off as the body´s forelegs slide over the opening in the floor.

"Help me…"

You froze as the whisper reached your ears. The body began to move as if it struggled from a deep slumber. She glanced down and realized as panic dawned upon her eyes what happened around her as the squeal echoed in the room.

"No… no… no!" She turned to you, feebly reached out with her hands in a plea. "Please… help me… Don´t do this… please… help me…Please!"

Her whisper cut short as the swine´s head dived up and its maw closed around one of the woman´s forelegs. Bone broke loudly and she screamed in agony as the strong toothless jaws closed around her limb.

"NO! HELP!" She cried, you could see her tears as she desperately clawed towards you and the swine pulled her down back in the hole.

She clawed over your legs, you cried out and quickly backed away as she dropped your flashlight. The woman tried to reach you while her thighs were swallowed up by the darkness.

"I don´t want to go back! Please! Not again! Not again!" Another slow pull and she struggled against her captor with both hands over the edges. "Why did you do this to me!? Why did you do this?! What did I do!?" She reached out after you and lifted her head as the hole appeared to shrink in front of you.

You saw the tears in her eyes as she silently begged you for mercy.

"Why?..."

A loud grunt from below, bone broke as her shoulders snapped and she fell down the hole. You desperately covered your ears and turned the other way while her screams rang out from the hole as it closed together like a wound.

"I am sorry…" You mumbled, too late as the floor closed up.

Silence returned.

Yet her screams haunted in your ears, like an insect inside your ear drum that could never escape its predicament.

Without time to relish in the silent peace, the prize for it drove its nail inside your heart.

Pain.

Pain in your stomach, in your chest and in your abdomen, all drove you to tears as you curled up in a ball on the floor with the light of the flashlight in your face. Your hands trembled; you shivered and quaked with eyes closed as you apologized in weak excuses.

"I am sorry… I am sorry… I am sorry…"

Around you, the stench of rust and blood evaporated away as you cried and lamented your choice. Exhaustion took over from the ruthless crawl in the darkness below and you fell asleep on the floor and rested on a pillow of tears.

You are still alive and within, you felt relief through the smoke screen of guilt.

Yet you smiled.

Why?

You woke up on that floor, puzzled and confused, yet daylight found its way in to greet you to a new day.

You sprung up and crawled back as the nightmarish events played up in your mind. Your stare gazed around in the room as if the next unspeakable horror waited around the corner.

No sign of blood, or darkness, daylight illuminated a larger room with a bar counter and shelves full of bottles to your left. The flashlight rested next to your side, its battery still alive. You picked it up and shut it off before you stuffed it down your pocket. There you noticed that your clothes carried no trace of the filth you crawled through. No red or dark stain decorated your leather jacket or pants, or the soles of your shoes. You frowned and wondered how this was possible, if you dreamt the chase or not.

Before you could reach an answer, you had to confirm that you were safe.

With a cautious look, you peeked over the dark wooden counter.

The room was larger than the bar you remembered. Several tables and chairs, with wall mounted seats along the establishment´s decorations. Paintings hanged over the walls, covered in a thick layer of dust that rendered them to nothing but blots in a frame. The tablecloth, grey and dull, covered in dust like the floor and the tiny ceiling lamb over your head. A candlestick to your left and its candle long burnt out with a pile of melted wax at its foot. Two pool tables to your far left, the triangle of wood rested on one of their green carpets in endless wait for the game to be set up and played.

Like the rest of the buildings you seen, no other person awaited you inside, and the lack of footprints over the grey floor spoke of rarity from visitors in a long time.

You sighed and slowly moved up.

You asked yourself where you were.

A small object near the melted candle caught your eye. A small matchbox with a text printed over its surface.

You reached for it and grasped your hand around its shape.

You acquired matchbox

The text read "Annie´s Bar" in slinky blue letters. You frowned and tried to make sense of it.

A faint rattle of something heavy inside triggered your curiosity. Another choice showed up.

Open matchbox? Yes? No?

Yes.

You slid it open and emptied the contents in your open palm. It was a piece of white crayon, similar to the ones used on a chalkboard, and with a small note wrapped around it.

Without any pause, you opened the note and discovered a tiny, text that forced you to squint to become readable and yet ran out of space for its message as its folds obscured parts of it.

T. Moore

Draw the…

Hurr… efore sh…

Class…

…ave your…oul.

You frowned and put the note in your notebook and the crayon in your inner pocket.

You acquired white crayon.

You acquired Moore´s warning.

As you gathered your strength to walk, you looked back to the spot where the hole been the night before. No trace of it existed, yet you felt the phantom pain of the woman´s fingernails over your legs as you rubbed them with one hand.

You shook with your head and scattered the idea as you headed towards the front door. Your first priority was to find something to eat, and where you were. You didn´t bothered to check the bar for supplies as you didn´t wanted to risk the dark and nightmarish realm to return if you hesitated or lingered for too long. Maybe the owner of that car still waited? Maybe you could find help from a Samaritan in your endless escape?

But deep inside, you hoped you wouldn´t run into anyone, as people followed with questions, questions you rather not answer.

Would it be such a good idea to leave the relatively safe bar for a place where anything could hide in the compact fog outside?

You considered it for a couple of moments and sighed heavily. Your phone mercifully quiet.

The walls crept in on you as you considered the options, closer and closer to seal you inside their cage, a tiny box to suffocate you with and break your limbs, one by one.

Your breathing increased as your hands began to tremble. You realized this fear would paralyze you like before, you couldn´t afford to freeze up. You needed something to put your nerves back in place if this happened. You needed a "glue" to keep the broken shards of your soul in place before they crumbled apart from your fear and despair.

As you felt up the door, you unlocked it from your side before you headed out and back in the foggy dis you tried to escape from.

"It wasn´t my fault… It wasn´t my fault… It wasn´t…"

It seemed you had a long way to go. But this time, you had a clear goal in your mind.

Find a map over this area…

…and the closest drugstore.

(Author´s Note: A little slow with the update I know, but I have been going through a rough time lately and to get in the mood to write has been difficult.

Hope you understand.

Please review with feedback about the chapter, it would be really appreciated and I am grateful for it.

Next chapter comes when it comes...

...See you all next time.

:)