It has been days since I began drawing a map of this place. Yet something gnaws at me, something that refuses to make sense. The room where I stay has the number "6" carved above the door. Across from it, separated only by a wide, staring window, stands another room marked "9," after that "10". Where are the other rooms?
I kept mapping anyway, though the gaps grew like open wounds on the paper. Some spaces remain unfinished, deliberately concealed from me, like secrets the building itself refuses to give. For instance, room 10.
The door never opened. Each time I try the knob, it resists, feels locked from the inside. But when I step back, the metal rattles violently, twisting as though a frantic hand grips it from the other side. And when it fails to open, the door shudders beneath impatient fists hammering from within.
I wrote an entry in my diary, just so the silence doesn't erase me:
*"If you don't want to end up like the others—like those things—listen carefully. Do not, under any circumstances, shoot them. Don't make that mistake."*
I am not sure why I wrote it, only that I had to. I haven't fired a weapon here for a while, yet I keep finding shotgun shells tucked into corners, placed as though someone—or something—wants me armed, but why now? Anyway, I keep them close, though I dread what they might summon if used.
The thought of escape haunts me like a fever. As the moonlight leaked into my room, casting its cold glow across the floor, I told myself, *Tonight I'll find a way out.*
I hurried down the hall, clutching my pen, forcing my thoughts onto paper before they withered into silence. My hands swept bottles of medicine and cans of food into the bag, my eyes drawn back to the door where I first saw it—that hunched figure gnawing at what used to be a body. I was about to climb the stairs when I froze.
Footsteps.
They were running deeper down the passage, too quick, too deliberate to be an echo of my own.
And despite everything in me begging not to, I followed.
One of those things dragged itself toward the room. Its steps were slow, deliberate, and wrong. Then I heard it—a gasp. Human. Fragile. I had no weapon, only the pounding in my chest. "I know I'm going to regret this," I whispered, and forced myself toward the door.
I pressed against the wall, breath held, and dared to look inside. The creature loomed over someone, its shadow stretching across the floor. I couldn't see the man's face, but I knew he was alive.
I wanted to move. To help. But for a moment, I couldn't. My body refused. I watched as the monster gripped the man by the throat and pressed its forehead against his. A sound rose from it—thin and hollow, like wind clawing through a broken chimney.
Then I saw the man's face. Elliot.
His eyes began to distort before me, his lower lids sagging, swelling grotesquely as if something inside was pulling them down. His screams were unbearable, guttural, soaked in agony. I couldn't fathom what was happening to him, but I knew I couldn't watch any longer.
"Hey! Leave him alone!" I shouted, voice breaking through the horror.
The thing froze, then let Elliot collapse to the floor. Its head turned toward me, slowly, too slowly. Then it stepped forward.
"Shawn! What are you doing here?" Elliot's voice cracked behind me.
"Stay back!" I barked, standing straighter than I felt, fists clenched.
It closed the distance in silence, then slipped its long fingers around my neck. The pressure was ice-cold, suffocating—until suddenly it recoiled, snarling, its hand twisted as though seared.
I reached for my collar, *the fey root*. Realization struck—it was burning it. Hurting it.
I smirked despite the pounding fear, raised my fingers in mock challenge. "Scared already?" My laugh was hollow, but I forced it through.
The creature's head tilted back. Its groan turned into a roar, so loud it rattled through the walls, vibrating inside my bones. The sound carried. It summoned others.
And in that instant, I knew every monster in this place had heard.
"Come on—we need to get out!" I seized Elliot's hand and pulled him from the room. We stumbled up the stairs, breathless, just as the door behind us slammed shut on its own. It always did that, sealing itself like it was alive. But this time, something inside me whispered it wouldn't hold.
The pounding began almost immediately. Heavy bodies colliding with the door, one after another, a rhythm of violence. The glass pane quivered, cracked like a spider's web spreading.
"What do we do?" Elliot's voice was shaking.
"Don't panic," I said, though my throat felt dry. I lifted the shotgun, the cold weight steadying me, and pointed it at the door. "Go to room 6, there are sheets. Two in the rack, one on the bed. Tie them together."
His eyes darted between me and the breaking glass.
"Listen—if they're all here pounding on that door, the room below the window should be empty. Use the sheets as a rope. Climb down. Get as far from this place as you can. Hide if you have to. Don't look back."
"And you?" His voice cracked.
I lied without hesitation. "I'll be right behind you." I forced a smile, even managed a wink.
He believed me.
Elliot moved fast, fumbling but determined, knotting the sheets with trembling hands. I started to count, forcing him to hurry. "One!"
He threw the makeshift rope out the window and gripped it, lowering himself into the dark. My finger rested on the trigger. The door shuddered again, wood splintering.
"Two." I could barely hear my own voice over the pounding. Elliot's figure disappeared below the window. Relief slipped through me like air through a crack. He was out. Safe—or safer than here.
The sound came then—the door unlatching, metal twisting, wood snapping apart.
"Three."
The door burst inward, a deafening crash that shook the frame. Shapes flooded the room, their howls rattling the walls.
And at last, my finger tightened. The shotgun roared.
Each shot threw them back, "I am getting good at headshots!" I gloated.
I had only a few bullets left. "Bang, bang, baby," I muttered with a hollow laugh, firing into the swarm until the click of an empty chamber betrayed me.
Silence. No more shots. Only their steps are closing in.
The sound of the door opening echoed; it came from below. Why has it never opened before? Why is it opening now?
But it didn't matter; I was surrounded.
"You've got the poison root," I whispered to myself, a desperate kind of courage. I knew I wouldn't make it. Fear pressed against my ribs, but I spread my arms wide, refusing to cower. If death wanted me, it would have to look me in the eyes.
They rushed me, and the world collapsed.
The pain was indescribable—like a dozen spears thrust through my chest, tearing through organs one by one. Heat surged in me, burning from the inside out, as though fire replaced blood in my veins. My skin felt as if it was splitting, stretching over breaking bones. My body rattled with impacts like being struck again and again by something vast and unrelenting.
Through blurred vision, I caught fragments—blood dripping from my nose, my trembling hands, the world tilting out of focus. My heart hammered erratically, racing, faltering, then slowing into near silence. I felt my soul peeling away, slipping from me like smoke.
The last thing I heard was the groan of a door opening.
Hands gripped my ankles. I was dragged backward across the floor, my head lolling, breath rattling. The door slammed shut before me.
Then came the numbness. The merciful, terrifying numbness. Pain dissolved into nothing, my body growing weightless, hollow, until there was nothing left to see, nothing left to feel.
And then—nothing at all.