By: Jeremy R. Rutherford
I woke up one morning in a strange place, not knowing how I got there. I was still dressed from the night before at the bar. There was no one there in the room so I walked out of the door and a long hallway. There was a woman on a bench crying. "Are you okay?" I asked her. "Yes, I just don't know where I am". "That's rather strange, I don't either." She looked up at me for a moment and then burst into more tears. "I-I-I've been here for hours, there's no one else here."
Just then, doors at the end of the hallway opened and two men in dark suits walked toward us, talking to each other. "Hey!" I addressed them, "Where are we?" The men did not answer or look at us. They just kept walking, one was squat, bearded and fat. The other was rather short and thin. Neither one even slowed down or spoke. The short one was holding a few papers in his hand. Both looked rather grim. The woman kept crying, but she followed me when I went through the doors, which opened into another long hallway. I could see an old man wearing small glasses, standing at the end of it, staring at us. Beyond him was a grey, steel handled door with a glass pane, the light was glowing from inside the door.
The old man leaned against the wall, pushed up his glasses and put his hands in his pockets. The woman, still sniffing a bit, followed me down the hall. "Sir, do you know where we are at?" He looked up and then back down, seemingly startled. He spoke in a dry, grating voice. "No, but I wouldn't go in that back room if I were you, not a wise thing to do". "Why not?" He smiled slightly, "Just not advisable, trust me". He kept looking down and smirking ever so slightly.
The woman sat down in one of the chairs and began to cry again. "There's no way out of this building, this is just so frustrating!" I turned around to pace for a bit, just to think. There was nothing behind me but a grey mist. When I turned back to face the door, the old man still wasn't talking and the woman was still crying.
I noticed as I got closer, the door was partly open.
"Well, I don't know what's going on, but this is the only place to go". The old man chuckled as I pushed the door open, "You'll be sorry if you go in there". The door shut behind me, they did not follow. I was in a lighted room and there was a single gurney with something covered by a soiled sheet. The door wasn't there anymore and the lights dimmed suddenly. I walked up to the gurney and lifted the sheet. A chill ran through me. I was lying there, eyes wide open and not moving. A bone white, skeletal hand fell on my shoulder behind me and that same grating dry voice, barely above a whisper, said, "Time to go, I warned you".
- FIN -
