A young adult fresh out of high school is feeling anxious and lost. In the heat of desperation she goes on a small camping trip to her favorite spot alone. She hopes to relieve herself of her stress and anxiety but when she gets there what ensues ne...
All she saw was red, until she saw his goofy grin and the comically huge round spectacles atop his head. He opened the door slowly and she cautiously stepped out. The look on his face told her that he was toying with her, that he was very well pleased with himself when he could get reactions out of her. Why is he smiling like a doofus? He sounded so serious when he was talking to me behind the door. Is he lying to me? Or was he just happy to see his victim surrender? Maybe both? Either way, I'm not buying all the crap he just spouted. She had a feeling she would break her promise too. She did that alot, break promises, just to see how far it would take her, how low she could go in the limbo of life. She remembered her anger once more and suddenly punched him. He said some more stuff that just made her more angry and then they stood in silence.
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She studied his appearance once more, this time not out of fear but curiousity. What stood before her, smirking, was a slim caucasian man in his late twenties to early thirties. He was a lot taller than her, about a foot. He had dark tangled curly hair that was pulled back in a ponytail and dark green eyes, the color of a forest full of evergreens drowsed in the misty, morning rain. His face looked as if he hadn't rested in years, his eyes were alarmingly attentive and bordered with dark circles and tired creases. He had week old stubble and his mouth looked as if it was in a permanent humorous curl. "Maybe he'd be hotter if he'd just stop smiling like that, it's absolutely repulsive," she thought, then she struck with the sudden realization. "What if the "subhumans" he was talking about is himself? He matches his description perfectly, large eyes and a permanent smile." She was confused and she knew he noticed the sudden change in her mood. His eyes slightly narrowed and his brows slightly furrowed. She panicked and didn't know what to do so she let her body take over.
She lunged at him full force and knocked his skinny body down. She used her powerful legs to kick his chest with all her might. She noticed the look on his face wasn't a look of surprise though, he had been expecting this to happen. He let out a groan and swiped at her legs.
"Damn, you're stronger than you look," he coughed then spit out blood.
"Unfortunately for you, I take kickboxing," she retorted, then she turned and ran.
"Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit man," she repeated in her brain.
She quickly scanned her possible exits, she was in a hallway with 3 closed doors.
"ASTOR! ASTOR, PLEASE DON'T GO OUTSIDE!" a struggling voice screamed from behind her.
"ASTOR, I DON'T WANT YOU DIE, COME BACK HERE AND HEAR ME OUT, PLEASE," the voice was desperate and for a moment she hesitated. She turned her head and looked at him. He was getting up with his hand outstretched towards her and he was actually crying. For a moment she had a shadow of doubt. What if what he's saying is true? But what if the otherworld was a lucid dream, and I'm in the real world being kidnapped? Either way, I can't trust this man. Something isn't right about him. She picked the door right in front of her and dashed behind it.
"YOU PROMISED," a defeated voice shouted behind her.
For a brief moment she was in total darkness, she quickly groped the wall for a light switch and found one. She flicked the switch and what she saw, she almost couldn't comprehend.
Three bloody bodies hung in front of her and stared at her. The bodies were mangled with open wounds and dredged with pus and other disgusting fluids. They were bounded by the neck, hands and feet and attached to the ceiling with rope. The smell, she would never forget, bittersweet like a bouquet of roses rotting in the sun. The faces that were connected to the bodies, Astor would never forget. They looked exactly like what Dakota described the subhumans to be: huge round glaring eyes and smiles as long as the width of their faces. She was paralyzed for a small moment, she screamed but nothing came out except a tiny whimper. Oh my God he is a psycho. Is this what he was going to do to me? Torture me bloody and then kill me? OH MY GOD. She suddenly lurched forward and emptied the scorching contents of her stomach. She turned and he was standing there, in the doorway, drenched in sweat and heaving.
"Astor..."
Dakota's POV
The look on her face was that of pure terror. Her eyes were wide like a deer caught in headlights and she had vomit on the corners of her mouth. He felt an overwhelming wave of guilt and regret.
"I-I can explain," he stuttered, but he knew it wouldn't do any good. She wouldn't understand, she'd never been stuck in a hellish landscape for 3 years and lord knows, he knew, what it could do to a person. He figured she was that way anyways. Judging by her behavior she was stubborn and prone to jump to conclusions, the perfect recipe for misunderstanding. He couldn't help but feel frustrated though. He knew from the start, that day when he just happened to see her fall 20 feet to the ground on his daily patrol, that was she wasn't the brightest. She's such an idiot, she just doesn't think before she does things and it shows through her actions. She completely overlooked the easiest solution to getting down from the pyramid without getting hurt. What she could've done was gather the vine-like branches from her entrance, braid them together to create a strong rope and rappel down the giant marble pyramid. God, i should've kept her in that room.
"Astor, I'm not a monster," he said as calmly as he could. But the look on her face wasn't going away. She stood perfectly still and trembling and he knew that she too scared to pick a direction.
"Lets just calm down," he started slowly, "Those bodies-"
"YOU PSYCHOPATH," she screeched and then used all her might to push him out of her way. She ran back down to the hallway, back where they previously were and picked up her knapsack. She choose the door across from the room she was locked inside, which was the door that had stairs leading to the main floor.
He knew at this point it was too late and stopped and stood in place for a while. He probably had a chance at convincing her before she saw the bodies, but there was no way she would believe him now. But, he did have a perfectly good explanation for why those bodies were there. For the first two years he lived here, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. But he was over it the third year. The first time he captured a shadow town resident was a couple months ago. He didn't start torturing them right away, he started asking them questions every night for an hour. None of the ones he captured said a single word, they only growled and spit at him. At first he had a problem with killing them afterwards, but he realized they weren't human and if he did release them they would kill him. He only started torturing them a couple weeks ago, because he'd become desperate for any kind of information at all. Three years of living in the void and he didn't know much more than what he told Astor. His pent up frustration with his situation was also an added reason but he wasn't proud of that. He wasn't proud of anything he did anymore, because he only did the things he did to survive, not to achieve.
As he watched her run up the stairs to her freedom, he felt a strong urge to just give up. Number nine wasn't going to be any different than the previous 8 so why even try any more. His fate was to be alone in this world, while the spirits of the deceased haunted him. He always felt their deaths were his fault, like he didn't try hard enough to convince them. That or all of them were just stupid. Every day he waited for someone new to come, and he felt selfish for it. He felt selfish for wanting people to suffer with him. But he also knew that humans, real life humans were his only source of pleasure in shadow town. It reminded him of the old days when he was back on earth and it gave him comfort to know he was still somehow connected to the real world. That was his reason to live, so he waits everyday, on the lookout for someone new, someone to share his pains, thoughts, feelings and achievements with. Being with Astor, in a way he felt more human. He craved that human connection and maybe that's why he went after her despite her inevitable death.
