story prompt story

The Beginning (and probably the end)

Eric was, if nothing else, curious. Curious about such a large array of things, I could not begin to list them all, but I'll try anyway. For starters, he wanted to know why he was 27, single and stuck in a dead end job when he was so brilliant in every possible way. Then he wanted to know if he was a narcissist. Next, he wanted to find out what was in the next room of this Victorian prison he'd been searching for 3 hours and 47 minutes. Why was he in an abandoned prison that probably had a population of a few skeletons and a lot of dried blood, you ask? Well, to put it succinctly, for the hell of it. That morning, he simply woke up and thought "I've never explored an abandoned prison before," so he found one in his area from a weird Buzzfeed page and got on with it. If I were Eric, I would probably be more interested in the fact that I'd never been in a relationship for more than 3 months and would be working on how to better myself, but he was far too self absorbed for that and I'm not Eric.

Looking down the degrading, overgrown, red brick hallway in front of him, he continued onwards. Despite nearly tripping on the bricks or ivy strewn across the floor, within 30 seconds he'd gotten to the door. The first thing he noticed was that, unlike the others, the door hadn't rusted. It was made of the exact same material as every other one-- a black metal that he didn't bother trying to identify-- but it was in perfect condition. The next was that the barred over gap on the door to let the prisoners see the hallway was covered by... something. Probably a plant. Eric, being curious, tugged at the doorknob. The door didn't budge, which only further fueled his craving to find out whatever was inside the room. Realising that the lock probably hadn't rotted away since the door was so pristine, he took a bobby pin from his hair and prepared to pick it.

Now is a good opportunity to describe Eric's appearance, before the real story begins. His personality is pretty easy to pick up on, so I'll worry about the other bits for now. He was 5"6, skin more pink than peach, had a generic fading haircut which fit perfectly with his generic brown hair, a tiny bit of stubble and either wore his Adidas jacket, which was far too tight but he still wore it because he didn't want people to think he gained weight, or his grey hoodie. The only thing even mildly interesting about his looks were his striking blue eyes. It was a miracle that he still somehow found so much about himself that he felt was superior to everybody else who looked exactly like him. Nonetheless, he always tried to be as masculine and fearless as possible (in public, as in the comfort of his own home he often tried makeup and nail polish) as you would expect from somebody who seeks admiration so desperately. Since he was alone here, he was entirely comfortable with wearing a couple 'Hello Kitty' hair clips that also came in handy for lock picking.

With a little twisting and jamming, the door swung open. Behind it was another regular prison cell, containing a bunk bed, a suspicious looking stain on the floor, a handcuffed man in Victorian prisoner attire sitting, legs crossed, and some bricks that had fallen apart so much that beams of light from outside shined through. Eric screamed, presumably due to the man, but tried to casually turn it into a laugh. It did not work. Noticing Eric, the man jumped up, but due to his hands still being in cuffs he ended up looking rather like a jack in the box.

"Ah, I see you're here to let me out?" He assumed, "You're about 47 years late but I'll allow it." Eric awkwardly laughed again, a dry 'heh heh... ha.' After all, there was a simple explanation to this occurrence, that being that the man was simply dressed up and handcuffed like this to scare unsuspecting visitors and to mess about. Yeah, Eric reasoned with himself, that's got to be it!

"I didn't realise that anybody... anybody else would be here," he stammered.

"Well, the others have all been dead for a while, so your calculations are only one off! I'd consider that impressive,"

Another, slightly less dry laugh.

Now, I could describe how the man actually looked, but for the sake of immersion I won't. You see, Eric looked at this man and saw something entirely different to what I see. Eric saw a ridiculously attractive, tired but charismatic, freckled, scrawny, curly haired, 30ish year old blond. l saw mostly the same thing, to be fair to him-- I may have been overexaggerating a tad.