No End House

Room 8

I still have trouble believing what I saw in room eight. Again, the room was a carbon copy of rooms three and six, but sitting in the usually empty chair was a man. After a few seconds of disbelief, my mind finally accepted the fact that the man sitting in the chair was me. Not someone who looked like me; it was David Williams. I walked closer. I had to get a better look even though I was sure of it. He looked up at me and I noticed tears in his eyes.

"Please... please, don't do it. Please, don't hurt me."

"What?" I asked. "Who are you? I'm not going to hurt you."

"Yes you are..." He was sobbing now. "You're going to hurt me and I don't want you to." He sat in the chair with his legs up and began rocking back and forth. It was actually pretty pathetic looking, especially since he was me, identical in every way.

"Listen, who are you?" I was now only a few feet from my doppelgänger. It was the weirdest experience yet, standing there talking to myself. I wasn't scared, but I would be soon. "Why are you-"

"You're going to hurt me you're going to hurt me if you want to leave you're going to hurt me."

"Why are you saying this? Just calm down, alright? Let's try and figure this-" And then I saw it. The David sitting down was wearing the same clothes as me, except for a small red patch on his shirt embroidered with the number nine.

"You're going to hurt me you're going to hurt me don't please you're going to hurt me..."

My eyes didn't leave that small number on his chest. I knew exactly what it was. The first few doors were plain and simple, but after a while they got a little more ambiguous. Seven was scratched into the wall, but by my own hands. Eight was marked in blood above the bodies of my parents. But nine - this number was on a person, a living person. Worse still, it was on a person that looked exactly like me.

"David?" I had to ask.

"Yes... you're going to hurt me you're going to hurt me..." He continued to sob and rock.

He answered to David. He was me, right down to the voice. But that nine. I paced around for a few minutes while he sobbed in his chair. The room had no door and, similarly to room six, the door I came through was gone. For some reason, I assumed that scratching would get me nowhere this time. I studied the walls and floor around the chair, sticking my head underneath and seeing if anything was below. Unfortunately, there was. Below the chair was a knife. Attached was a tag that read, "To David - From Management."

The feeling in my stomach as I read that tag was something sinister. I wanted to throw up and the last thing I wanted to do was remove that knife from under that chair. The other David was still sobbing uncontrollably. My mind was spinning into an attic of unanswerable questions. Who put this here and how did they get my name? Not to mention the fact that as I knelt on the cold wood floor I also sat in that chair, sobbing in protest of being hurt by myself. It was all too much to process. The house and the management had been playing with me this whole time. My thoughts for some reason turned to Peter and whether or not he got this far. If he did, if he met a Peter Terry sobbing in this very chair, rocking back and forth... I shook those thoughts out of my head; they didn't matter. I took the knife from under the chair and immidately the other David went quiet.

"David," He said in my voice, "What do you think you're going to do?"

I lifted myself from the ground and clenched the knife in my hand.

"I'm going to get out of here."

David was still sitting in the chair, though he was very calm now. He looked up at me with a slight grin. I couldn't tell if he was going to laugh or strangle me. Slowly, he got up from the chair and stood, facing me. It was uncanny. His height and even the way he stood matched mine. I felt the rubber hilt of the knife in my hand and gripped it tighter. I don't know what I was planning on doing with it, but I had a feeling I was going to need it.

"Now," his voice was slightly deeper than my own. "I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to hurt you and I'm going to keep you here." I didn't respond. I just lunged and tackled him to the ground. I had mounted him and looked down, knife poised and ready. He looked up at me, terrified. It was like I was looking in a mirror. Then the hum returned, low and distant, though I still felt it deep in my body. David looked up at me as I looked down at myself. The hum was getting louder and I felt something inside me snap. With one motion, I slammed the knife into the patch on his chest and ripped down. Blackness fell on the room and I was falling.