House
I was standing in a room.
I knew that I was asleep.
It was this knowledge that left me filled with trepidation and fear, for I also knew what was to come. What I didn’t know was how it would end: if indeed it would end.
I was back in this house again.
The room was all too familiar. The clutter of antique furniture, from bookcases to luxurious couches and leather arm chairs, lamps, ornaments and paintings: oil paintings of various sizes but all encased in thick gold coloured frames with a distinguishable veneer of age. The lighting in the room was dimmed, but still illuminated sufficiently so as to able to clearly identify my surroundings. It may have been dark outside. I wasn’t sure and it didn’t seem important.
Whatever would happen would take place in this house.
As previously, I possessed no sense of smell. If there was relevance for this, I was not yet aware of it.
I did, however, possess my sight, hearing and sense of touch, all of which were at their most heightened.
In the corner of my eye I sensed a slight movement and turned rapidly towards it.
There was nothing there, or at least nothing that I could see. I carefully glanced around the room, and on seeing nothing else to give me concern, I walked slowly to the large wooden door that I knew lead to the hall way. My footsteps sounded heavy on the varnished wooden floorboards. I focused solely on the door and tried to put any images at bay that would distract me into believing that things were happening behind me. My resistance held as I reached the door and firmly grasped the large round brass doorknob and turned it slowly. Although the door was of a great size and the thickness and weight of the wood was apparent, it opened with unexpected ease.
I allowed it to open to its’ full extent, and when it was so, I stood back a little and peered into the dimly lit hallway.
The sweeping staircase formed the centrepiece. From its’ inviting base of polished wooden banister rails, and thick sumptuous carpeting, it rose majestically up before splitting into two stairways and into the darkness of the landing. I could make out the silhouette of a grand chandelier hanging directly above the staircase, peering out from the blackness.
As I walked slowly towards the bottom stair the door behind me closed and, simultaneously, the chandelier stirred in to life illuminating the entire hallway. The walls were adorned with similar oil paintings as were in the previous room. The floor was a chequered black and white marble tile, and the carpet on the staircase was revealed to be the colour of rich crimson. The rest of the hallway was sparsely furnished, with a green velvet chaise lounge against the wall to my left.
When I had reached the bottom stair I inhaled deeply and then began to climb the staircase. I had taken no more than four steps when I found myself at the top of the stairwell. Looking down behind me, the stairs were laid out, and must have totalled at least thirty in number. I was overcome with dizziness and reached for the banister rail to prevent myself from tumbling down the staircase. The sensation soon passed and I steadied myself before letting go of the rail. The landing was laid out to a large square surrounding the stairwell.
The floor of the landing was carpeted as the stairs and there were more of the same paintings on the wall. All of these, however, were portraits. The paintings ages being determined by the styles of dress worn by the subjects.
There was an array of large wooden doors on all four walls, each wall having three doors symmetrically positioned.
I turned and took a few short steps to the door directly behind me. I grabbed the handle firmly and turned, at the same time pushing the door open. The instant I began to open it a lamp switched on as if it was directly connected to the door. I eased the door fully open and was shocked to find that the room was identical to the room I had just left downstairs. Such was the similarity; I could swear it was the same room. I walked further into the room, confirming to myself that the room was indeed identical in every way.
The door closed slowly behind me and I could hear clearly defined footsteps walking away heavily down the landing, accompanied by the very faintest whisper of giggling.
I walked back over to the door and opened it hastily.
The hallway was once again laid out before me, barely illuminated with the sweeping staircase once more forming the centre piece, as the stairwell rose up into the darkness of the landing.
My instincts were proven correct. It was the same room.
To my left, where I knew there to be the green velvet chaise long, I could hear rustling, as if someone were seated on it and moving across it. I stared in the direction of it intently but could see only darkness.
Then a short burst of laughter rang out from the direction of the seat that caused me to step back in shock.
I turned quickly and retreated back into the room, slamming the door behind before hurrying to the centre of the room, hoping to find some solace in surrounding myself with some space in order that, by doing so, nothing could creep up on me.
There was a great terror in this house which was yet to reveal itself, preferring to toy with me first. I was its’ plaything; to do with me what it will, until the time came…the time came for what, indeed?
It was tormenting me, for now. Yet, the torment of the mind is surely the ultimate of torments, for therein there are no boundaries for the terrors that may be inflicted.
My fearful state was broken by a noise. I could hear a muffled, dampened thudding coming from the direction of the window. I looked over and I could clearly see the face of a boy through the glass. He was banging with his fists on the panes of glass. The noise from the banging was muffled because of the thickness of the glass. I carefully edged towards the window and could now see that he was shouting at me frantically, his fists still smashing into the thick, squared panes.
The hairs at the back of my neck and all along my arms twitched and moved, warning me to beware. As I reached the window I could make out the boy’s features. He could be no more than ten years old. His face was contorted and he bared his teeth as he continued to pound frantically with his fists and scream out at me.
As I reached the window I began to understand what it was that he was screaming at me, as his fists became bloody from his constant pounding.
I took a step back from the window and my mouth dried up in an instant.
My heart was bursting out of my chest.
He was imploring me to wake up.
It was not this, however, that startled me most of all. It was the recognition of the young boy in the window.
The young boy was me when I was ten years old.
Suddenly there was a loud, persistent knocking at the door that startled me. I glanced around towards the door and then back to the window. The face was still frantically pleading with me. The knocking on the door became louder and then stopped abruptly. I turned back again, to face the door.
The rounded brass handle began to turn slowly and the door eased open. I turned back to the window and the face was still frantically screaming out to me to wake up; the fists now completely covered in blood as it continued to slam into the thick glass pane.
I awoke gasping for air, convinced that the rapidity of my heartbeat would cause it to burst. Beads of sweat ran down my forehead and cascaded down my back. I kicked off the quilt and sat upright at the side of the bed.
Within all the fears I experienced: all my traumas and trepidations; all my horrors: the one fear that rises above all of these, is the fear that there would be a time that I would not again awake, and would be trapped in the house to endure an nightmare of terrors, before it tired of me and revealed itself to me in all its’ horrific splendour.
Those that I would leave behind would not no any better than to place an inscription on my headstone, beneath my name, and the dates bracketing my mortality,
‘Passed away quietly in his sleep. May He Rest In Peace.’