Inner Demons

CHAPTER V

"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?" - Edgar Allen Poe

Growling. 

That's all I can hear: growling. I can't tell where it's coming from, but it definitely is animalistic. Guttural. 

Is it that thing from before? 

Is it back? 

I thought I ran from it. I thought I escaped. Was there truly no place to hide?

I looked around me, hoping to find a way out of the moss covered walls that surrounded me. Is it a maze? If so, there should be an end to it. But if there's an end, there should also be a beginning, and I certainly don't remember it. 

Left? No, dead end. 

A right, another left, a right again. On and on it went, taunting me. The walls practically breathed with laughter, deciding my fate. I was just a pawn being used for their fun. 

The growling was getting closer.

Dead end.

I turned back, only to find that the walls had closed in around me. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to turn. Everything was closing in, threatening me, caging me in. 

In this realm, there was no reality. No hope. No freedom. 

I screamed and fell to the ground, my arms encircling my body in defense of what was coming. This was it; I was done for. The growling was right outside now, patronizing me. The sound of nails scraping brick sent chills down my spine. Those nails - I remember them now; long, yellow, overgrown, and shaped into unnatural points. Weapons. 

The sound of growling and nails scraping came no closer. In fact, it almost seemed to be pacing. Back and forth, over and over again. Growl. Scrape. Growl. Never once coming closer. 

Had I, in fact, been saved when the walls closed in? Instead of taunting, were the walls protecting me? 

No. Couldn't be. 

Could it?

My heart was beating far too quickly. My breath was coming out in pants. My eyes grew heavy, the adrenaline slipping. I looked around me for a way out, opposite of the sounds of the creature. There was nothing but the four stone walls. I ran my hands over them, feeling the softness of moss against the roughness of the stone. It was fascinating. I had never seen white moss before, but in grew in a patch along one of the walls. Only in that spot. 

Odd.

Growl. Scrape. Growl. Still, the creature was out there, assumedly furious for not being able to reach me. I almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. Almost. 

I moved towards the white moss, examining it. How peculiar that it would only grow in the one spot. I reached for it. The closer my hand got to it, the more it withered. As it blackened and shriveled, it made way to reveal a small hole. I peered into it, not knowing what would be on the other side. 

It was what looked like a tunnel. An incredibly small tunnel, but a tunnel nonetheless. At the end, a bit of a ways away, there was a soft light, calling out to me. Beckoning. 

I turned back, taking one last look for the creature.

Growl. Scrape. Growl. 

It was still there, pacing. Unable to reach me through the thick walls. Does it truly not know about the tunnel? Or was this a part of the maze's plan; to lure me into a false sense of security before shoving me into the brutality of the world.