Darkness Chapter 1 "Abyss"

I stood there all alone; no one near me. At the exact second I thought I was safe someone approached me. I could hear his steady breath just under the anxiety of my pounding heart; I took a step backwards only to run into a cold wall, the frigid spill of stone down my neck. Out of instinct I pulled the gun from under my shirt and began to fire. The flashes of the muzzle were the only thing illuminating the surrounding area. My eyes darted back and forth trying to see beyond the fire ejecting from my gun. All I could see was the silhouette of the figure in front of me. I fired and fired until all I could hear was the "Click, click" of me pulling back the trigger of an empty magazine. I stood there exhausted; all the life seemed to be suck out of me at once. All I could see was the muzzle glowing a hot orange, making it look like a precious stone in the dark.

The heat from the muzzle had made its way up to my hand. I could feel the scolding burn slide across my fingers. I almost dropped the gun out of shear pain, but instead kept it steady in my hand. Instantly I could smell blood. Not just blood, but death, the stench made me gag. I began to shuffle my feet along the ground ahead of me feeling for anything. I stopped, as I kicked onto something heavy. The hairs on the back of my neck instantly stood up. I desperately dug through my pockets trying to find my lighter. Finally I found it; I try to strike the flint over and over. The faint sparks were starting to make me fume. Finally I strike it and a flame exuded from the top of the lighter. I lowered the lighter down in hope to identify the figure on the ground.

I brought the flame closer to the ground. All I could see was the green slime tint that covered the ground. I shifted my head to left a little to look around the exceedingly bright flame. I saw a hand curled up on the floor. Blood covered the knuckles, and dirt embedded into the fingernails. I took a closer look at the hand. I could tell that it was not one of a man, but one of a boy. I brought the flame a little closer to reveal a small blue shirt with a red and white stripe across the middle; something that a small child would wear. I sat there almost knowing what I was going to see when I lifted the flame up. After regaining my courage I took a deep breath and brought the flame up to reveal the haunting figure that had been endlessly chasing me.

Just as I had thought, the figure that I had fired at was a boy; a blonde hair boy no more than ten years old. His eyes were rolled to the back of his head and blood stained his mouth. What I had done finally struck me; I flung backwards, landing on my butt. I could start to feel tears falling down my cheek in unison with my aching heart. "How could I have been so careless?" I thought to myself as I sat there. "And better yet, why was this boy in here?” The questions haunted me, almost as much as the figure in the dark.

I got back on my knees and leaned forward again. I had to find out just who this little boy was. I began to examine his body in hopes that he had left something behind. I turned the boy over to check his back pockets. Underneath him was a pool of blood. I turned away gagging at the sight, not because of the blood, but because of the fact that it was a little lifeless boy lying beside me. All the dreams and aspirations he must have had. All it took was one little piece of lead to end it all. Leaning back in with my face turned upwards, I tried to keep the tears from escaping my eyes. I reached into his back pocket and felt something inside, it was a little wallet. It made me smile for a moment at the innocence of this child. I thought “Why would a little boy like this need a wallet?” It made me think of when I had grown up, I needed everything my dad had. I needed a wallet along with money and maybe even some shaving cream. I open the wallet and inside was a two dollar bill along with what looked like a fake business card. I took the fake card out and brought the flame to it so I could get a better look.

On the card was his name along with his telephone number. I studied the name for sometime; something was not quite clicking. I knew that the name sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t grasp it in my mind. I would have blamed it on the stress and anxiety of the situation at hand, but could I really be this slow? Then it hit me, the boy had the same last name as me. Now for a normal person this might not seem to strange, but the thing that struck me the most was how unusual my last name was. My last name is Helfer, which in German means “helper”. Within the entire span of my life, not once did I meet a person with the last name. This fascinated me intensely just to find out who this little boy was. I began to search his other pockets in hope that I might find some other clues to help me. With much effort I found nothing. Suddenly something caught my eye; something in this other hand glimmered from the flickering flame of my lighter. I quickly took a folded piece of paper out of his cold, semi-stiff hand. On the front of that piece of paper every word haunted me. “Letter to Daddy”

The wrinkles on my forehead deepened as my eyes flung open. My hands started to shake ferociously as I read the last word. I could barely read the “Love Charlie” at the end because of the amount of water building up in my eyes. I begun to breathe in and out very deeply, trying to keep my emotions back, but this was too hard. I let a loud moan of pain out, letting my inner demon free. This was my son, the son that I had always dreamed of having. I always had dreams of the child I would have one day. I mixed him between myself and my wife, giving him my blonde hair and nose, while giving him his mothers beautiful sapphire blue eyes. I saw him every night in my dreams, and here he was, cold and lifeless in front of me. The thoughts pounded me as to why and how this was possible? I had never had a son; I had never even made any attempts to having children. The action of it was to come later, not now. I was only 27 years old, and not ready to make a commitment like that. None of it changed the fact that there he was, lying in front of me. The innocent and beautiful child I had made out of dreams. What could I do? Nothing seemed normal in this place; every corner seemed to be a dead end. Everything looked, felt, and smelt the same; Dark, musty, and very cold. The ground was dirt, a brown clay substance that stuck to every crevasse of my clothes. The walls were stone; water flowed down them from some source in the ceiling. Covering the slick grey almost concrete material was a green slime that seemed to flow down the wall along with the water. I couldn’t see anything without a light source, so what ever I caught a glimpse of was because of the flickering of my lighter. Everything looked the same also, every time I would walk around a corner it would seem like the corner before. Also the corners never stopped, so I had to be going in circles. There seemed no way out, and to add to my dilemma, I killed my very future. I had no idea still in my mind how this was possible, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that he was here, dead in front of me.

Under the pounding thoughts breaking through my head, I could barely hear the slight but noticeable shuffle to the right side of me. I broke through my trance and slung my lighter around to identify the noise. I did not see anything, no figure or anything that could have made movement. Again, I hear a shuffle, but this time to the left of me. This time with better reaction, I shifted the lighter to the left; Nothing again. The next shuffle was much louder; I could actually feel the presence of something in front of me. I slowly this time moved the lighter in front of me. My hand was shaking so hard I was afraid that the flame might actually shake itself out. I looked and saw something make a motion in front of me, I lean in a little to get a better look, but something else caught my attention. I suddenly saw the body of my son sliding backwards. The stalker was dragging him away! I screamed “No!” I hoped that maybe the figure might listen to my plea. The shadow did not though, so I decided to take my own actions. I lunged forward and grabbed the boy by his leg. The figure in the dark was so strong that I was sliding along the ground also. I decided that I would push my body weight against the ground in hope that this last little effort might out due the villain. For a split second I could feel the extra tug the figure gave as it struggled to keep pulling, but he moved forward yet. My grip finally minimized to his shoe. Moaning and screaming trying to keep the boy with me as long as possible, took its toll on me. I let go grabbing his shoe and taking it off with me. I could hear the boy being dragged down the hall way, the chilling echoes of his body scraping against the floor.

I got on to my knees, and then finally on my feet. I felt week, almost too weak to stand. I found my way to a wall, and slid down it. I was completely oblivious to the green stained stone, but right now it wouldn’t even have mattered. I brought my knees up to my face, and buried my eyes in them. I felt hopeless, sitting in a sea of confusion. I didn’t understand anything, and that seemed to be my worst enemy here. I started thinking about myself, indulging in self-pity. I suddenly thought about what I was doing and became upset. I took the boy’s shoe, still in my hand, and slung it across the way. I could hear the first pound as the shoe hit the opposing wall, and the second pound as the shoe crashed to the ground. I felt guilty, because I was taking my anger out on the little boy. What has he done though? I can imagine the boy had done nothing worse than stealing a cookie or some other minuet crime. He did nothing to deserve this; nothing he ever did caused him to face death. Something confused me even more that God’s divine plan over life. Which I thought to myself “Why was he here to begin with?” I had almost just accepted the fact that he was my son. Which I knew wasn’t possible, but as of right now, it was the only thing that seemed comforting. Now I was alone, and I was extremely vulnerable. I had used the rest of the bullets that I had on the boy. The only supply I had now was my lighter, and I didn’t even know how long that would last. I had to just sit there, waiting for that thing to come back for me.

I had been sitting there, which in my mind seemed like hours. My eyes slowly became adjusted to the dark, but the most I could see was the slight luminescence the green slime gave off. I felt my back feeling the sweat falling from it. This seemed strange because of the fact that I was freezing. I began to wonder that maybe it was just the water making my skin wet, but as I felt again I could tell that I was warm. Not just warm, but fever hot. I felt all over my body, which had the same hot temperature. Maybe the green slime was getting into my lungs and made me sick. I hoped that it was just a slight fever, but I was so hot that it made it uncomfortable to even move. This was all making me feel very angry; every step of the way was making me more and more insane.

“Enough” I thought in my head. I had been waiting to long for this thing to come take my soul. I screamed out in anger because the figure was taking its time in hunting me. “Where are you?!” All I could hope was that the thing would respond, but after sitting there for another five minutes nothing happened. I decided that the best thing I could do is start walking again, but this time with out my light. I thought “Hopefully if I can’t see the stalker than the stalker can’t see me.” I made my way up to my feet; my knees cracked for posing in one place for to long. I walked forward keeping my hand along the wall. I shuffled my feet very slowly in fear that I might run into something that might hurt me. I could feel my hair keep falling into my eyes; I took my damp hand and ran it backwards through the thick black hair. “This won’t last long.” I thought to myself, knowing that the sweat from my scalp would soon make my hair heavy again. I kept walking along the wall trying to notice something different every few steps, but everything looked the same. Same clay floors, same damp walls, and the same dang feeling all around me. I stopped, frustrated that I wasn’t getting anywhere. I looked around to see if I could notice something, and something caught my eye. Something was shining faintly in between the walls. I pulled out my lighter to find out what it was. As I approached it, I noticed that it was blood. The same blood of the boy, I could even see the trail in which the figure dragged him away. I was back where I started.

I was in awe; nothing like this even seemed possible. If I got in here there had to be a way out. It almost seemed like I was trapped in an abyss of some sort. Like some alternate reality; there was a way in but no physical way out. I know of course there is no such thing as an alternate reality, so it had to be something less complicated. I decided that I would scale the opposing wall of which I just walked along. Sliding my fingers across the slimy wall for a second time, I started walking again. Hopefully there was something on this wall that I had not seen before. Like a side hall-way or door; something to give me accesses to another, maybe more promising section of this abyss. All the walking had made me weak; time, stress, and pure emotion had taken its toll on me. My scaling of the wall became exceedingly difficult. I could feel my legs burning under my black slim fit jeans. I had to get around to my starting point soon or I was going to pass out. What seemed like another ten minutes I finally came back where I had started. I could see the same pool of blood on the ground; not so much a pool but a stain in the earth. This was the one place where life and death met each other in the same location.

I started to become very cold, as if the abyss had become a giant ice box. It felt as if the sweat acuminating on back was turning into dry ice making my back feel like it was burning. This was much colder than my previous time spent here. I began to look around feeling like someone was watching me. Like I was a fish in a fish tank, except I couldn’t see pass the glass that held me prisoner. I huddled against the wall, placing my arms on the wall and resting my forehead on them. I stared at the luminescent slim, deep in thought. I closed my eyes from shear exhaustion, and soaked in the rest of the moment. I took a deep breathe and opened my eyes. When I opened my eyes I could see that the slime was glowing a more bright color than usual. It confused me as to why the once barely noticeable slime was now shining brighter than ever. Then I saw what appeared to be a shadow move across the wall in front of me. Terrified I turned around to see, what I expected to be the figure in the dark. My eyes focused on the person ahead of me. Far as I could tell it was a man about 6’3 and weighing roughly around 200 pounds; this person was massive. It explained why I couldn’t get my grip on the boy when he was dragging him away. I couldn’t tell any of his other features because behind him was a door shining almost a blinding white light from it. The light completely silhouetted the man, making it impossible to notice any other feature of him besides his height and built. The thing that terrified me the most was not the massive size of this man, but rather the blade that he weld in his right hand. He stood there almost taunting me with the knife. He spun it around and around making the glare from the light reflect off the blade hitting me directly in the eyes. He made no sudden moves to approach me, almost like he was waiting for me to make the first attempt. This all had to be a game for him, just a huge game of cat and mouse. Except he had been in charge the whole time, making it seem like I was making some progress. I knew though, that when ever he felt like it he could pounce any second he wished. I took a step backwards almost too scared to move any more. At the exact same time though he took a step forward, and stopped dead in his tracks. I took another step backwards, and so he stepped forward. I got was he was doing, he was making me feel stalked. Almost liked I had no where to go; he was completely mimicking my movements. This process happened a few more times, but I had enough of this terrifying figure, so I decided to run. Before I could even twist my heel to turn I noticed something had changed; he was no longer my reflection, but rather he was moving clearly on his own. He took several steps forward in a normal walking pace, but then suddenly his momentum sped up. He was basically sprinting at me, so I turned around and started to sprint myself. Before I turned around I saw the door close behind him, making everything instantly dark. I didn’t know how much faster, or even faster at all I was than him, but my body was moving full speed regardless of my prior exhaustion. All I could hear was the pounding of my heart; the sound seemed to flush out every other noise that was pulsing its way through the hallway. Suddenly I crash into something hard; I had not brought out my lighter because of the quick movements I had to make, but I could tell that the object I had run into was not a wall. The object was not stone, but rather a wall of flesh. The man that had been stalking me all along was right if front me.

When I ran into him I bounced off like he was elastic. I flew backwards landing hard on my back causing my head to slam against the ground. I felt the clay connect to the back of my skull making my brain shutter. I opened my mouth and let out a loud moan of pain as it felt like my head was splitting open slowly. Everything seemed to feel like it was floating, like gravity ceased to exist. I opened my eyes expecting my nightmare to be standing above me, but I had forgotten that it was pitch dark. I could feel his presence though, so I knew that he was hovering over me. Something the suddenly caught my eye; the knife some how became visible. I could see the metal tipped blade shining as if something were reflecting off of it. As far as I could see there was no apparent light source in the distance to make the blade reflect its luminescence. The blade was creating a light source of its own making the fear in my body jolt oven more. It was still spinning in his hand causing the non-sourced light from the blade to cast its reflection into my eyes, causing it to blind me. Instantly the blade stopped in its swirling motion. It was just standing there as if it was controlling itself and nothing was holding it. I just laid there hopeless knowing this was the end. I tried to move, but was staled by the blow to the back of my skull. The blow had hit me so hard my body seemed to immobile.

The knife stood still in motion mocking me knowing that I couldn’t move telling me that the final decision of life would be in his hands. I knew that behind that terrifying glow of the knife stood the man responsible for this hell. I tried to speak words, but nothing came out. He spoke instead making it seem like he already knew what I was trying to say.

“Save your energy.” He said in a muffled sounding breath. I could tell that he was exhausted because of the heavy breathing he masked underneath his voice.

“Do you know why you are here?” He asked.

I finally tired to speak again, and words actually flung out this time, so fast that I wasn’t even expecting what I said.

“What do you want?” I asked in low meek voice. I could tell that the exhaustion was still relevant in my body.

“What do I want?” he slightly laughed.

“I want the same thing you want.” He said.

“What?” I asked back. The voice behind the darkness made his answer even more chilling.

“Answers.”

Suddenly the motionless blade raised high into the air. The blade dropped fast and hard landing straight into my chest. I could feel the blade piercing its way to my lungs. I jumped a little forward fighting for air as blood filled the place that air once occupied. I felt like ice, and the only warmth was the blood soaking my chest now. I coughed spewing blood trying to relieve myself from the pain. None of that worked though, the pain was insane. I could feel him digging the blade deeper into my body. I thought to myself that if he pushed any further that the blade would come out the other side of me. The light from the blade did not appear anymore; the only thing not in my body was the grip of the knife. This stalker in the dark showed no mercy as he twisted and dug deeper into my soul.

People told me that some how when ever you are moments from death your entire past flashes by. The most pleasant and the most regretful memories pass through you within seconds. This process was to remind you who you were in life. Did you do everything you wanted? Did you leave this world knowing that you left behind a legacy of good deeds? I always had the idea that when I would die that this would actually happen to me, but nothing was flashing in front of me. Matter of fact the deeper I tried to think of my life the more nothing was happening. Darkness filled my brain, and I suddenly realized that I couldn’t remember anything from my life. I knew somehow that I had a wife, and a family, but I couldn’t make out faces or voices or anything. It was almost like they never even existed and were all an illusion. Nothingness filled my brain, my previous life never existed. My subconscious told me they existed, but every thought pointed to my denial of their life with me.

I could feel any more pain; every part of my body had seemed to die. I felt every organ in my body slow down and eventually stop. My heart was just a mere model of a once stronger part of me. The once dark place I had been trapped in seemed comforting to endless abyss that I was know falling into. At least the place I had been trapped in has some closure to it. I knew that I could reach out and at least touch something to tell myself this is all real, but now I seemed to be falling into a more cold and darker place. I closed my eyes, and took one last breath in before departing. I knew something would be waiting for me on the other side. Maybe, just maybe, God was waiting for me, but for now I was falling into the abyss of my death.

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I will have my short story posted in about two days.  Thanks for waiting!