"Hello?!" My voice echoed into the depths of the East Wing as dozens of tiny whispers until they vanished in the darkness beyond. I peered with caution, half hidden behind a marble pillar. Silence filled the void, and I had a sinking feeling I was alone, yet it felt like eyes were watching me.
I looked over my shoulder but found only the other side of the hallway to be just as dark and empty. Only the familiar red carpet ran through between two pillars, on and on, until only darkness lay beyond what my eyes could see.
Each pillar held glass bulb lanterns, usually lit with white gold flames to brighten the hall with its soft pink marble splendor and high ceiling.
I glanced up and saw only shadows. Some lanterns were dimmed while others were completely out, and the effect left shadows hidden behind pillars, along the upper walls, and across the ceiling.
I hugged myself as thoughts of being trapped in the dark chilled me, and I called out again, "Is anyone here?" Furthermore, it only echoed until the shadows swallowed it whole.
I was puzzled because the castle hallways weren't always so grim. I glanced out a window across from me; its paned glass stretched from floor to ceiling, and I saw only black beyond it. Perhaps the night was late, and I was wandering for some reason. But I couldn't remember why. I was dressed in my long pink silk robe and sunflower nightgown barefoot, so I couldn't remember what pulled me out of bed. I glanced behind me often, half expecting to see someone there, a strange presence in the air, but again, I saw no one. My skin trembled in the darkness, and frantically, my eyes searched for the closest lamp. With ease, I reached up, on my bare toes against the lush carpet, and went for the golden knob of a lantern hanging on a pillar. With a twist, a flame appeared inside the glass bulb, and there was light. It gave me the security I needed to feel just a bit safer as I went from lamp to lamp and turned up the white flames. Slowly, light pushed away at the shadows until only the dark lingered along the opposite ends of the hall. I smiled for a moment, thinking I was safe as I thanked the light for bringing warmth and beauty into the night, but something was afoot. I could tell when the ceiling wasn't right in my peripheral vision. There was supposed to be a mural, a vibrant painting of the kingdom in a long horizontal stretch across the hallway. I would often follow it with my eyes as I trailed through, my steps slow so that I could take into the fine colorful details from end to end. But when I looked up, my hand went for my lips to stifle a gasp.
What was supposed to be a white and gold glowing palace at the center of the mural was nothing but tall black towers of spikes. Surrounding it was supposed to be the water fountain and the endless springtime cherry trees, but they had been turned into leafless trees with dark branches stretched beyond a red sky behind them. Dancing demons and goblins with long spiked tails and bat wings filtrated the rest of the mural, their red eyes joyful and mouths filled with the arms and legs of little children. I had to shut my eyes and look away at the piles of pale bodies for the demons and goblins to devour. My throat throbbed as nausea churned in my belly, and then my heart quickened its pace. I rubbed my knuckles against my sternum to calm myself down as I frantically searched for any explanation for the sudden change in the mural.
"Who did this?!" I cried. I dared not to return my gaze to such a horrific display as the silence continued.
A sudden flickering caught my attention, and I gasped again when I saw a lamp flickering out.
"No, no, no!" I whined and rushed towards it, hands first to prevent the dark from ever returning.
I reached up, my breasts against the pillar, and began to turn the knob of the lantern. But then my toes lost their strength, and my foot flattened unexpectedly. I gasped and unintentionally grabbed the oval-shaped glass bowl, my fingers around its narrow neck, and pulled the lamp down like a lever.
Suddenly, the floor beneath me vanished. My feet met with nothing, and I fell back, mouth open to scream, but nothing came out. The hand that held the glass lamp slipped away and reached for air. The light above grew dimmer and dimmer as I sank deeper into the unknown. Loose cinnamon hair swirled around me over my cheeks and met with my hand, the darkness swallowing me up abruptly. My gown lifted, the bottom of my belly in a flip-flop motion until I landed feet first into the unknown blackness below.
At first, there was a dripping sound, like water droplets escaping from the ceiling and tinkling into puddles. And then I smelt old earth, like mud and rock.
I lay on my side, my cheek resting against something like hard mud, moist and uneven, but its coolness felt comforting. It took me a moment, eyes still closed, as a sharp and throbbing pain went from my feet to my thighs. When I curled my fingers in, my nails dug into the mud, and I cringed, thinking of the dirt under them. My eyes fluttered open, almost afraid to see where I had landed. Briefly, everything looked fuzzy. I saw what appeared to be large soft balls of light. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and looked out again. The large soft glow began to sharpen, and the fuzziness turned into dim light bulbs all along dark and moist rock walls. The humidity in this place made me weakly fan myself with my dominant hand as I eyed the strange, cavernous-looking place. Old lightbulbs trailed along the upper rock walls, some out, while others had bodies of old moths.
Cobwebs collected along the thin copper wiring of each bulb, where spiders had easy meals with the moths mesmerized by the only lights. I looked up and saw a few rows of copper pipes just a couple of feet above, projecting tiny bits of steam. Little bits of water dripped from the lines and landed in small puddles along the poorly made-stairwell below me. I tried to look beyond the old stone steps, but the cavern dipped deeply into the earth, with nothing but pipes and lightbulbs to notice.
Slowly, I got up and turned around to see more rocky walls and a ladder. My eyes followed the ladder up, and the hatched door was shut. If I climbed the ladder, I could probably push the hatch open and escape this strange place.
"Camille..." a feminine voice whispered. It sounded vaguely familiar; its effect lifted hairs along my neck. I twirled around with a start and saw nothing except the descending stone steps.
I held my breath and waited.
"Camille..."
My heart thumped, and I straightened up, eyes on the steps to the unknown below me. It was a voice I'd never thought I would hear again, one that only rang in my ears just barely a season ago.
"Mother?" I lifted the skirts of my gown away from the mud and carefully tapped down the shabby steps. The stairs were tall and wide, enough for ten men to travel side by side but also slippery at once. Barefoot, I could feel the warm heat of the water that dripped into tiny pools and trickled down the steps like a little stream to guide me. The stones began to vanish until nothing but hard mud ran steeply. I kept my eyes to my feet and trailed a hand against a wall, my other holding my skirts up. The soft squished unpleasantly between my toes, making me suck in through my teeth. I felt like a child again with my feet and hands caked in mud, a nostalgic feeling that distracted me from the anxiety that grew in my chest. The air was stiff, not a breeze to be felt, and almost too thick to breathe. It was warm and heavy, an old stale air that may have lingered for a long time.
A flickering light bulb pulled my eyes away from my feet, and only a second-long glance before my heel slid across a fresh puddle. My head reeled back, I gazed up at the copper pipes, and my rear tumbled onto the earth with a hard smack. Feet flew in the air, and then I was gone.
With a high-pitched wail, my body slid down further and further as I tried to twist and grip my nails to anything, but the walls were too smooth and the mud too slippery.
I spun on my bottom, arms, and legs in the air like a potato bug on its back, screaming as I slid down further and further on the mudslide. And then my right shoulder slammed into something hard, followed by my thigh and leg, until I was at a halt. I trembled in pain, a sharp ache all up my right side as I just laid there for a while to recover, groaning. It took me a few breaths before I could roll on my left side, nursing my shoulder, unsure of what I had run into. I folded my legs in and sat up, the blockade behind me. It was supposed to be only a glance over my shoulder, but my eyes were unexpectedly glued to the titanic structure before me. I gasped; the rest of my body caught up until I sat in the mud and stared with my mouth wide open.
It was a behemoth of a single door.
I've never seen a door as big. It appeared to be made of cedar wood. Its width almost stretched from end to end of the cavern and was held together by iron bindings. Two massive tree-trunk-sized blockades held the door in its place, locked, with its iron workings along the top where the pipes and gears came together. It all towered over me. Overwhelmed by the door's eerie presence, I crawled backward to give myself a little space.
What was behind such a door?
I struggled to stand up, my side in an ache as I rubbed at my shoulder. I couldn't stop staring at the painted emblem at its center, a fine detail of a dragon curled into itself, its long spiked tail almost in its mouth as it formed a perfect circle with its body. It looked unfamiliar.
There was complete silence as I tiptoed to the door, not even a drip of water or the crawling of a spider. My breathing shook, and I slowly laid a hand on the wood to feel its thickness. The main two questions were this: was this door to keep something inside safe? Or was it supposed to keep the rest of us safe from what lay inside?
My muddy fingers brushed against the wood, its finish lacking, with splinters and mounds of cut-off tree branches. Fingertips tapped at the iron bindings, not yet rusted. The bindings were fresh, with no stress among the hinges. This door felt recent.
Boom!
A thunderous bang erupted from the other side.
I gasped and jumped back, a hand to my heart.
The door barely budged when another loud bang slammed in my face. Bits of rock trickled from the ceiling by the force of the blows, and I stepped back further, my eyes unable to pull away. I imagined it to soon burst open, a giant dark demon creeping out of it with horns as long as I am tall, teeth sharp, and ready to bite me. My breathing quickened, knuckles to my sternum again to rub away the anxiety that was building up again.
It darkened.
The lightbulbs all flickered out. Nothing but darkness enveloped me. I couldn't see the door, not anything! I was gasping then, my chest tightening like someone took a fist to my lungs and squeezed to hear me gasp for air. With kneels buckled, they crumbled beneath me, and I was overwhelmed with doom.
"Please!" I cried, "I'm scared of the dark!"
Another loud bang.
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