Shadowveil - The Forgotten

Chapter 4: In Darkness Eternal

Patrick turned around, his stomach churning like crazy. He teetered a bit before taking a few steps backwards, towards the door leading into the diner's main room. Greg noticed his premature departure and reacted immediately.

"Patrick... you bastard! I always knew you were in on it with the others! Every day, all of those things. You have no idea, don't you? What kind of a monster are you?! And now you think you can just up and leave before greeting the landlady? Do you have any idea how lonely she's been?!"

"Hey, let's just calm down, Greg," Patrick implored.

"Shut the hell up!" he yelled frantically and took up a nail-filled wooden bat from beside the refrigerator. Patrick panicked as he saw the countless nails hammered through the top of the bat. After a split second decision, he took flight and tipped over a cupboard beside the door to try and block the doorway behind him.

Dashing into the revoltingly twisted diner, which had by now undergone a complete conversion into some sort of dreadful copy of itself, Patrick noticed some obese creatures sitting around the long table. He slowed down for a moment, deeply upset by the whole situation. In the candlelight he could see that they were feasting on the rotten food. Their faces were disfigured and their hands consisted of some kind of hooks with which they impaled thick lumps of meat that were then devoured voraciously.

When they heard him they all turned in his direction and feverishly tried to get up from their chairs. Some of them were too heavy to move and instead fell to the floor with loud thuds. However shocked, Patrick still got his act together and ran to the door and unlocked it, storming out into the now dark, desolate streets of the seemingly abandoned city. He quickly checked his surroundings, but when he learned that some of the abominations came shambling from out of the diner towards him, screaming and frothing at the mouths, he ran head over heels in the opposite direction from where he'd come earlier.

*

The outside area had also been warped in the same disturbing way as in the diner and the cityscape was steeped in darkness. The sky was pitch-black but even so Patrick couldn't see neither sun nor moon. He'd already lost track of time and his wristwatch offered no help either, since the clock hands were spinning around aimlessly for some reason. The entire region seemed to have been ripped straight out of a horror movie, and Patrick still couldn't believe any of it was real. The asphalt was warped and cracked and parts of the road had turned into some kind of metal floor, underneath which some barely visible creatures roamed about, cackling and chittering.

In his flight from the creatures, some of which were still chasing him, Patrick somehow managed to get a glimpse of the road signs on the post where the street split four ways. The signs read Blossom Street and Cinder Bend respectively. A sudden flash of insight washed over him as he realized that he somehow remembered those street names from his time living in Cordale when he was young. "But if that's the case, why can't I remember Greg?"

*

He took a turn onto Cinder Bend and carried on down the street, where rows of empty houses loomed in the darkness with their monstrous shapes. Their broken-down doors and cracked windows added to the tension, and Patrick nervously checked his surroundings as it felt like the shadows were dancing around him. After running through the oppressively threatening environs for a few minutes, he finally ended up in the alleyway behind 24/7 Café and the now hauntingly deserted Halehearty Burger restaurant. The city or what was left of it in its current state was not only totally dark, but had by now also fallen eerily quiet as the creatures had probably given up their pursuit. The layout of Cordale slowly came back to Patrick, and he now knew his location as in-between Cinder Bend and Rustic Turtle Lane. This was the place where he and his childhood friends used to play basketball when he still lived in Cordale.

*

"Had Greg also pursued me and if so, had I lost him during my escape?" Patrick became more and more paranoid and his senses were dulled from the sprint. Even though the world around him seemed to be a twisted and distorted version of his own, he found some solace in being able to rest his feet in a hiding spot behind some alleyway trash cans. He huffed heavily and tried to calm his nerves after the tiring and traumatic flight from the diner.

With cautious steps, he carefully made his way onto Mathius Street, one of Cinder Bend's adjacent streets. He turned around the corner and found himself standing on the pavement in front of the closed-down Halehearty Burger restaurant. From out of nowhere the bell from earlier started chiming again, and this time it seemed much closer than before. The ringing was even more unnerving now and Patrick started sweating uncontrollably. Before he could formulate another thought, some kind of strong force pushed him to his knees outside the restaurant. "What the hell is going on?" he thought as his hands were shaking and his heart started beating unevenly. From out of nowhere, a sharp pillar of light from up ahead suddenly blinded him. It started moving closer and closer and with each second Patrick lost more control over his body. He felt his mind unravel in that state of pure panic.

"H-help," he whimpered pitifully and grabbed his aching head. Before long he couldn't longer feel his legs any more. From out of the light in front of him came the beautiful woman in the blue dress whom he'd seen earlier on the train. Her tear-filled eyes gazed at him, but the difference from then was that her face now conveyed more human-like features such as a nose, ears and lips, but the eyes were still hollow. Accompanying her was the same young girl with a pink ribbon in her hair whom he'd seen upon arriving in Cordale. She held the woman's hand tightly.

The two of them turned their heads towards Patrick and a deep terror coursed through him as he gazed into the woman's empty eye sockets. An immensely heavy feeling overcame him and he could feel his senses drifting off. Tears once more clouded his vision and he was paralyzed, yet he tried to get up, but to no avail. He yelled from the bottom of his heart as the chest pain returned, tearing at him from the inside. Closing his eyes in an attempt to shut out the deeply crushing sensation welling up from within proved fruitless as well. By then he was lying face down on the ground and his body now refused to obey any commands.

*

When he dared to open his eyes again, the girl and the woman had disappeared. In their place stood a strange robed creature with a long slanting head covered by bandages and a hood. It was holding a large bell in one hand and a sharp metal rod in the other. The ghastly creature was what had rung the bell earlier, but its intentions were completely shrouded in mystery. It just stood there on the sidewalk, silent and unmoving.

"Please help me," Patrick pleaded meekly and turned his head towards the creature. "Wh-what are you?" Its face was hidden underneath the hood but for a brief moment he caught a glimpse of what looked like a cross between a dog and some kind of monstrous being. It remained quiet, staring at him from within the darkness. The longer he looked, the more he felt his mind drifting away. "Hey! What the fuck are you?! Say something damn it!!" he yelled and reached out for the creature out of pure desperation, just barely grasping the hem of its robe before losing consciousness.