Obscura: The Dark Chamber Series Book 1

Prologue

        I find myself sitting in an office cubicle. The cubicle looks like every typical work station in every typical office building. A personal computer, pile of paper works, framed pictures of the family and never-the-less, cluttered. But I had never been here before.

        Trying to finish some sort of work that I have no knowledge of. Typing stuff in the computer, flipping page after page from a printout with graphs and numbers, taking notes, and simultaneously talking to a person on a phone. I do not really know what I am telling the person on the other end of the line. Something about percentages, incomes and irregularity in an account but I am calling him ‘Sir”, so, he must be my boss or something. All I know is that I am devoted in the work I’m in.

        I say goodbye to the person on the phone and lean back on my swivel chair to take a deep breath of relief when a knock on the cubicle division startled me. I turn and a guy with short-trimmed-texture-hair mold to a slight spike walks in. He sits on the left side of my office desk and starts to talk. He seems to be some sort of a close friend.

        I went back to work, read while I listen to the guy with the short-trimmed hair talk. He’s about some chick he met last week. Names and places were mentioned. Names I don’t know who. Places I know where but have never been able to visit. I can remember all what he said perfectly even though I continue to work. I even ask a few question from time to time.

        Maybe he finally realizes that I am too busy to listen to him because a few minutes later he waves goodbye. I wave back and he walks out of my cubicle. "Finally, silence." I hear someone whispers. Then I’m back in my own private space, aloof from all distractions.

        I continue to do the work that I have no knowledge of until I feel a slight stiffness at the back of my neck which signifies I’ve been working for several hours non-stop. I start to wonder what time it is. I lift my left arm to look at my wrist. A watch that I know I don’t own is wrapped around it. It is already past six pm. I decide to peek outside my cubicle. A thought comes into my mind, expecting that I am all alone in the whole floor of the building. And I was.

        Maybe I’m on an overtime shift or something, because I don’t feel a rush of going home. I dive back to my own hole filled with paper works and seclude myself from the reality.

        My seclusion never lasted, I am being pulled back to the real world when my performance in my so called work starts to drop and I find myself scouring for caffeine.

        I walk myself to a kitchen and make a cup of black coffee. I take a sip or two while finding my way back to my supposedly work station. Along the way, I take a small glimpse of the wall clock pinned at the center of the left wall. It is almost seven. I don’t know if it was the coffee or the time but I feel a small smile crosses my face and my energy renews.

        When the watch on my wrist beeped, I gleefully start packing some stuff, properly allocating them into a backpack. A backpack that I know I have never seen before and I don’t own. My packing got disturbed a few seconds later, the lights in the whole floor began to flicker. I begin to wonder what was wrong but a second or two, complete darkness devours my vision.

        I wait for the emergency lights or the back-up generator to come alive to brighten up the whole floor but after waiting for almost a minute or two, I decide that I should find my way to the nearest exit.

        I swing the backpack over my shoulders. I hold out a cellular phone at my right hand to lighten the dark hall of the office floor. Finding my way out of complete darkness, I swing the phone from left to right. It is my only light source. My sight starts to make out a shadow in front of me. I slowly pace forward, trying to get a good look at it. “Hello!” I shout but there is no response. After five or more steps I can see that the shadow forms a silhouette of a man, a man standing a few meters in front of me.

        I am searching in my mind who he might be, a cleaner, an officemate or someone from another floor. “Hello?” I shout again. Still no response. I take a few steps forward.

        “Marco Evangelista?” the man says in a crack and creepy voice, almost sounds like a phone voice mail back in the 90’s. Robotic, cold and emotionally drained.

        “Yes?” I say.

        That response takes me aback. I’m not Marco Evangelista. Why on earth did I say that! I try to correct what I just said earlier, suddenly, I don’t have the voice to say it. I repeatedly try to open my mouth to mount the words, “No, I’m not Marco”. Then I realize it’s not only my voice that is not responding but also my lips and my whole body. I feel like I am in someone else’s.

        The attention on my non-responsive body switches to the man in front of me when he started to walk towards me. I’m raging over the cage I’m currently in, struggling to get out! My mind is telling me to move back, get away from the man! But a sense of calmness wraps the body I’m in, refusing to let go of my soul, a soul that is trembling with fear. I’m catatonic inside but my body is stiff like a hard, cold concrete slab.

        My struggle ends when the man is about three meters away. His eyes turn bright red, beaming out through the complete darkness. His eyes emanate a light, a light that signifies dread, danger, and death! Then suddenly, my body starts to move. I find myself running away from the man, running away to a point that my lungs were about to burst. Panic and horror creep through my body, ripping through the flesh that envelopes me. Empowering the fear to a point that it would break my sanity.

        I frantically hide at the bottom of an office desk, not knowing where I am and what I will do. My thinking skills are being suppressed by panic. “DON’T PANIC! DON’T PANIC!” I repeatedly try to tell my body. I take the cellular phone in my hand and search for a number in my phone book. Looking for a number that could help me but all the names were alien to me, likewise the phone I am holding in my hand. I stumble with the name James and press the call button. The line starts ringing. Once. Twice. Thrice. Each ring is like a timer, signifying the few seconds of my life. Then a man with a happy tone of voice answers the call with an uplifting “Hey Marky, Wazz-up?!” I only manage to say, “Help me!” because a second later I feel something pointed at my head. When I raise my head, my vision were staring at a nozzle of a gun pointed between my eyes. Then it fires!