30 Day Writing Challenge

Chapter 2

The hospital reception was bustling with activity.

The crowd was too hard to walk through without bumping into anyone. More than once, I bumped into someone by accident, and when they turned to tell me off, they saw no one – or they blamed it on someone else.

Finally, I got through the maze of people and I stood in a somewhat empty hallway.

Only now, did I realise that I didn't know what I was going to do once I had actually gotten into Laeh Hospital. I looked around. There was nothing but doors.

I looked back to the note. There was nothing that could indicate what I should di now.

Maybe I shouldn't have come here at all. Maybe this was stupid. Maybe it was an accident that the capital letters spelt Laeh. Maybe it was a false trail.

Sighing, I sank to the floor. As I sat there, I noticed something glinting next to me. A handle (or at least that's what it looked like) was stuck into the ground. It had something written on it.

I moved closer and read the handle. What I read shocked me.

Four letters: L.I.V.E

The exact same thing was written on the note.

Excited, I pulled on the handle, it wouldn't budge.

I pulled and pulled and pulled but still nothing happened. But then I saw it. It was tiny, almost to small to see, but if you looked close enough, you could just see the tiny button. I pressed it, and it revealed a keyboard.

There was a code, but what could it be?

LIVE? No, too obvious... how about... Laeh? No... still too obvious...

I couldn't think of anything else so I tried Live, then Laeh, and then both of them together, but nothing happened, other than the small beeps that sounded every time I got the code wrong.

I sighed. There was no way I could get this to open. Frustrated, I looked back to the letter.

I looked back to the keyboard. It had a key that said 'clue' on it. I pressed that, hoping that it would help me, even though I didn't think it would.

Turns out I was wrong.

Four numbers, altogether six digits.

That was the clue. Four numbers, and altogether they have six digits. Four numbers.

LIVE had four letters. What they'd used a number-letter code (a=1 b=2 c=3 d=4 etc.).

It would be: 12, 9, 22, and 5.

Four numbers. Six digits. It works!

Excited, I punched in the numbers.

12 9 22 5

UNLOCKED

That's what it said.

I pulled the handle. It creaked quietly as I opened it. There was a trapdoor underground.

"Too easy," I said to myself.

I walked down the straight, narrow staircase, which creaked as I walked. It looked as though no one had been here in a long time.

I tried to muffle the creaks, not wanting to attract unwanted attention (if there was anyone – or anything – in that room) but it was no use. They creaked when even a drop of my sweat landed on them.

Finally, I'd made it to the bottom of the staircase. I looked around. I couldn't see much. I could only see the stairs behind me because the light from outside the open trapdoor illuminated them.

Then the trapdoor closed and I was surrounded by darkness.

"So this is what it feels like to be blind," I muttered under my breath.

"Oh, it'ssssss very different to thisssss. Believe me," whispered a seductive voice.

"Who are y-y-you?" I stammered.

"Ssssssssss." That was all that the voice said. Then it disappeared.

I was scared. I ran back to where I thought the stairs were, but I tripped over who knows what and fell on my face.

Angrily, I sat up and rubbed my head. It was starting to swell up.

"Ow..." I mumbled.

"Zatssssss vat happenssssss ven you don't look vere you're going."

Another voice.

Feeling a sudden burst of courage, I talked.

"It's not like I have a choice. Not in this darknessssss." I exaggerated the 'sssssssss', mocking the voice.

"But I can sssssee." I felt something walk past, then a hand on my shoulder.

"Get away from me!"

"Ssssssss. Your choice."

I felt the presence leave.

I was shaking. Who – what – was that?

I felt the walls for the stairs, but couldn't find them.

But something else was lurking in the darkness. Something worse than those voices.

"Grrrrrr."

North jumped.

"Grrrrrr."

I was straining to hear what direction the sound was coming from.

"Grrrrr." Louder this time, angrier; as if to say that it wanted me to leave – or for lunch.

"Grrrrr."

I was practically in tears by now.

Something pounced; I fell.

Something was on top on me, digging its claws into my shoulders.

"ARGH!" I screamed so loudly that the cave seemed to shake... or maybe that was because the thing was shaking me.

"Let go of me!"

The thing dug its claws into my face and pulled its claws down. There was now a giant rip on my right cheek.

"ARGH!" I clutched the rip and screamed. The pain was nothing that I could ever hope to describe.

I lay on the floor, unable to stand the pain; little did I know that I was in for much, much worse.

I tried to get up and run, but couldn't. The thing caught me before I could even sit.

It pushed me back down and jumped on top of me. I screamed again. It roared. It bit into my arm just as I lost consciousness...