House Of Echoed Screams (Completed)

Chapter 6: That Man

     After everyone else walked off down the hallway following Becker, Ryan, fuming with rage, had spent the next half hour pounding the walls with his fists, shouting, "Dammit" each time. Once his hands had turned red, Ryan decided to go back to looking for a way out. "Let's see," he thought out loud. "The main door isn't opening, so that's not gonna work, and everyone else is as good as dead now, having followed that idiot Becker. Why don't they get that Sean's probably dead, and just leave it at that! They all just had to agree with Becker's idea to investigate the basement, and probably get murdered or something."
     Filled with frustration, Ryan pounded his fist on the wall again, but since it was already sore, and the skin raw, the skin on his knuckles ripped open and bled, making Ryan shout, "God damn it!" He started wiping his hand on his pants, trying to get the blood off. Soon, however, he thought he heard a low groaning sound coming from upstairs, and walking slowly toward the staircase, decided to investigate. As he climbed the stairs one by one, the groaning grew louder, and Ryan could tell that it was a man groaning. At the top of the stairs, he pulled out his flashlight and turned it on, revealing a large, rounded balcony that stretched all the way to the front of the house.
    The groaning sound echoed across the balcony from a door on the far left-hand side. Ryan walked down the balcony toward the door, trying to figure out who could be making the groaning noise. It can't be Becker, or anyone else in the group, because they're all downstairs looking for Sean, and it can't be the voice we heard in the main hall; it's too deep a voice. Is there someone else inside this place, or is that something waiting to attack me the moment I open the door? Ryan finally reached the door, but was having second thoughts about opening it. He stood there for a few minutes, listening to the groaning, trying to figure out who's groaning. 
     Finally deciding that even if it was something that wanted to kill him, he could always just run away, Ryan slowly reached out a trembling hand and grasped the door handle. He turned the handle, and carefully opened the door, peeking inside. On the other side of the door was a long hallway. The groaning seemed to be coming from further down it, so Ryan jogged down the hall, flashlight bobbing with each step. He ran down the hall for eight minutes or so, the groaning growing louder, until he came to a "T". The hallway continued to his left and right, but the groaning sound was coming from his right. Ryan shone his flashlight down this Hall, and the light fell upon a black door. He took a step forward, but then the groaning was replaced by a loud pounding. Ryan immediately stopped walking, and was about to start backpedaling, when the door burst open, and something was sent flying past Ryan before he could even react, and hit the wall opposite with a loud thud.
     Ryan turned around quickly, and saw that there was a man slumped against the wall. He ran up to the man, and started shaking him by the shoulders, saying, " Hey, you alright?" The man mumbled something, but Ryan couldn't hear him. He stopped shaking the man, and said, "What?" Suddenly the man's head jerked up, and he was staring forward, toward the door behind Ryan, and said, "I said, run!" The man pointed toward the door, and as Ryan turned around, he saw something limping out of the doorway, moaning loudly. Ryan was to terrified to move, but the man stood up, reached into his backpack, and pulled out a flashlight. He shone it on the creature, and it retreated, wincing in pain. "Run, now," the guy repeated, and this time, Ryan obeyed. He sprinted down the hallway, toward the door at the end.
     Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan saw something rush at him, and was about to turn around and punch it, but then he realized it was just that guy. "Better hurry up, it's right behind us," He said while running past. Ryan looked behind him, and sure enough, he could see the outline of the thing only a few paces behind him. Looking back, Ryan could see that the man was slowly closing the door in front of him. "Hey, wait! Stop," Ryan called, but he didn't seem to hear him, because he just continued to close the door.
     Finally, Ryan reached the door and thrust it open, running through. The man slammed the door shut behind him, and propped the nearest table up against it. Ryan took a moment to catch his breath, then shouted, "Hey, why'd you try shutting the door on me like that!?" The man didn't answer at first, but just smiled. "Relax, I knew you'd make it," he said. "Besides, I still had to look out for number one." he pointed to himself with his thumb. "If I had just left the door wide open without something between me and that," he gestured toward the door, "then I'd be as good as dead." He started chuckling a little bit. "Okay," Ryan said sarcastically. "Hey though, what was that?"
     The guy suddenly stopped chuckling. "That was the rotting corpse of someone who's died in here. It is controlled by something capable of powerful dark arts. Because it's controlled by darkness, any form of light can harm it. Be sure to remember that." He tapped his forehead, and Ryan asked, "So, uh, who are you? I haven't seen you around before." The smile returned to the man's face, and he said, "Me? My name's Damion. I've travelled all over the world, investigating every dangerous place I come across, but this house is different. I can't seem to find a way out, and none of the halls and rooms make any sense. I'll go in one room, come back out, and I'll be in a completely different room! It's like this house is designed to keep everyone that enters inside! I just can't tell what to make of it."
     Damion ran his hand through his hair, clearly deep in thought. "Well, the front door's just down there, at the bottom- " Ryan began to speak, but was stopped when he turned around, and instead of finding a balcony, found that he was now staring  into a large kitchen, filled with the stench of rotting meat. "What the?" Ryan said, as Damion walked up beside him. "Told you, this place changes, and won't let you escape." "I've got to tell the others, they need to know that this place is a death trap." Now Damion had a confused look on his face. "Others," he repeated, sounding more confused. "Yeah, there were five others that showed up here with me, but we split up." "That's probably not gonna happen. Like I said, I've been here for a while, and this place changes so that you'll almost never end up in a room you've been in before. Your friends are as good as dead now."

{A/N}: Now you've met all of the characters. Since I've been on the topic with people, sort of, who do you ship?