Starless Child

5. The Rotten, The Mangled And The Insane

It was cold.

So cold.

Hera wrapped her arms around her shivering body. With every breath she took, awhite mist escaped her lips, floating up before disappearing in the dark.

She tried to sit up. The smell of rotten flesh and sick blood made her cover her nose with her palm.

The smell was too strong, a hundred times stronger than it used to be in the dark room.

And right now, the scariest part was that wherever she woke up tonight was not where she used to find herself every time she drifted off to sleep for the last ten years.

The cold room was unsettling, and strange, and had creepy written all over it, yes. But it was safe. Nothing unexpected ever happened within those walls. Every night she went to bed knowing the moment her brain decides to shut itself down, she would find herself lying on a cold metal table in a cold
Little room. She would wander in the shadows for a bored out of her mind, waiting to wake up.

It was predictable.

It was scary.

But it was safe.

And this? This was different.

This time she couldn't feel the cool metal table against her back. This time she wasn't inside a shadowy room with jet black walls. She was slowly moving through a cave. A dome shaped roof stood upon rows of pillars that extended from both sides, supporting the charcoal stones above. Chucks of rock stuck out from the ceiling, most of them barely hanging on to the roof. They made the entire cave look like a death trap.

It was silent. An unbreakable, mind numbing silence that makes you want to scream, shout or do anything to break it.

Where the hell was she?

Hera lifted herself up by shifting the weight of her body on her elbows. She felt the board supporting her body rock beneath her feet. It took her a while to realize that she was on a boat. The boat was longer, narrower than an ordinary boat. Unlike normal boats, the surface was made of something warm and mushy. It seemed like a layer of leather over lying a bunch of cotton balls.

Hera touched the edge trying to sit up. She could be mistaken but she swore that she felt something alive move underneath her palm. Hera flinched and retreated her hand away. But the black board at the edge of the boat seemed completely normal and still when she looked at it.

The slow slushing sound of the paddle hitting the water caused her to look her at the tall man standing at the edge of the boat, slowly rowing it through the tunnel. The black hooded cloak masking his features hid his face from her.

Or it could be a she. There was no way to tell.

"Excuse me", she said.

"Hello?" He didn't turn around.

"Hey!", she yelled, still not getting a reply. Or any sort of reaction from mr. eight foot. The only sound she could hear was that of her own hollow voice reflecting on the cave walls.

The putrid stench of rotten flesh overwhelmed her senses.

This is just another dream.

A creepy, abnormal and crazy dream. But it's still a dream.

There's no reason to scream or run or do anything stupid.

Although she couldn't understand why after seventeen years her brain decided that her nightmares needed a change of scenery. Like something a little more insane. To be honest she wouldn't be surprised if the eight feet tall deaf dude turned out to be Freddy Crueger and started coming after her with his claws.