A Night Spent at the Museum of Natural History (Completed✔️)

Night at the Museum

It had been about 2 hours now, though I wasn't sure because my phone had died. I tried to climb once more. I tossed my bag over and tried to do it quickly, jumping on the toilet and grabbing the top of the cubicle. Then I scrambled as my feet tried to stop sliding down the wall. By some miracle I managed to get far enough up to swing my legs over the side. I dropped down and landed with a thud. It hurt a bit but it wasn't serious and I was just so thankful to be out. I hated being trapped. I hastily opened the door and grabbed my stuff. Washing my bruised hands and staring in the mirror at my dishevelled state. I tidied myself up a bit and rushed out of the door.

As I stood in the dimly lit hallway, I could see that the last few rays of weak winter sunlight were fast disappearing. I ran down the labyrinth of exhibit halls praying to bump into someone who could let me out. After a short while I put my bag down on a bench, since I figured no one was here to steal it anyway and it was slowing me down. I made sure I remembered where I left it and carried on running.

I paused at a window and observed that the sun had finally set, I was contemplating how quiet and peaceful it was here and outside when I first heard it. To begin with I was too busy watching the fat flakes of snow drift down to settle on the windowsill and far beyond for it to fully register. The whole view was already draped in a thick blaket of crisp white snow. The streetlights gave it a ghostly yellowish pallor. The silence was eerie but not quite unsettling. It felt strangely like the calm before a storm. It was then that I heard louder sounds. Confused, I turned away from the window and continued walking. The sounds grew louder and more varied and before I knew it there were suddenly all kinds of noises echoing down the hallways. Startled, I tried to think of an explanation. It was probably sound testing for the effects, I thought (desperately trying to convince myself). It sounded as though each exhibit was speaking up for itself, so many complex sounds all at once. I tried to focus on them separately. I heard the sounds of... Elephants? The general humm and buzz of chatter, as if many people were also present in the hallways with me, and the clattering, rattling and bumping noises swamped me. It was bombarding my senses and I tried to contemplate what the meaning of it all was. I soon came to a balcony area and I looked back over the lobby and entrance. I was about to move on when I noticed the vast skeletal remains of the tyrannosaurus rex had mysteriously vanished... Just like that. The whole entire thing. I did a double take and shook my head. Something was very wrong here, I couldn't believe my eyes.

All of a sudden there was a chorus of grunting and shouting and I saw a group of what I could only assume were supposed to be neanderthals pointing at me and running towards me, brandishing their spears and chanting in a raucous discord of grunts and growls. My eyes widened with fear and confusion but I soon took off as fast as I could in the opposite direction. As I slid round the next corner I heard the clatter of a spear bounce off the wall and on to the floor not far behind me.
Tearing down hallway after hallway I encountered statues and mannequins walking around, animals which should have been stuffed were wandering the halls. I was terrified and confused, had I gone mad? In my panic stricken hurry I bumped in to a stuffed mannequin wearing civil war era uniform. I looked back to apologise but at the realisation that he had no face I scrambled back to my feet and sped on. I bumped in to a few more exhibits leaving a trail of muttering, groans of disapproval and surprise hanging in the air as I passed by.

I soon came to quieter hallways and was half relieved. I saw the sign pointing me in the direction of the 'Hall of African Mammals'. Continuing to wander now, towards the end of this one, I was all of a sudden blocked from leaving by a pride of lions. They advanced, sizing me up, and I immediately spun on my heels and ran as fast as I could down the hall, forgetting that you should never run from big cats. My feet slid out on the floor as, not thinking, I swerved into the nearest exhibit. Without time to waste I pulled the gates shut and they clicked, locking in the closed position. Then I fell back onto the floor in my haste to put further distance between me and the bars. Sure enough the lions leapt up at the gates, growling and trying to get me by sticking their enormous paws through the gaps. As the alpha male made a third attempt to fit his enormous nose through the bars, bearing his teeth in another snarl and flashing his yellowed canines, which were as big and my little finger. I shuffled backwards along the floor still further and screwed my eyes shut tight.
This wasn't real. I had probably knocked myself out climbing over that cubicle. This couldn't be real, none of it. Why wasn't everything here dead?