Demon's House

Adventure? Haunted House Tour??

I waited for the creature to announce itself, but I was met with an almost ear-ringing silence. All I could hear were the sounds of my racing heart and breath. There was no sound of breath from the other creature. Was anything even there? As quietly as I could, I called out. All I got in response was the soft echo of my own timid, shaky voice. Anxiety clenched onto my heart and lungs, and I curled in on myself again, trying to regain my composure. I was going to survive this. How, I wasn't sure, but I had to tell myself at least that much before I could even consider doing anything else. When the pace at which my thoughts raced around slowed to a comprehensible pace, I tried to get a plan together. It was difficult to concoct a plan without any knowledge of my surroundings... No matter what, I was going to have to get off that disgusting goo ball. I'd been trying not to think about it, but I was beginning to believe I'd been slowly sinking into it's sticky mass.

As I unpeeled myself, I was glad for having decided to put my undercut fringe into a bun on the humid not-fall-weather walk. It's waviness would've otherwise been it's own level of Hell. Struggling between safe efficiency and frantic flailing, I somehow managed to get to a spot where I could jump to the floor. I kicked off to what sounded like a wood floor that was a surprisingly far way drown. My ankle collapsed on itself, and I hissed. "Wait," I thought to myself, "My feet hit the floor almost silently... So what about those loud footfalls earlier? And that was a far drop down; they couldn't have really been level with me." I was chilled by the possibility of the sounds coming from a floor above me. The house appeared large enough from the street to have two floors, or maybe three considering I had likely sank into a basement level.

Silently hoping there was only one underground level, I began feeling around for a wall. I hadn't realized while squeezing my eyes shut how truly dark it was down here. Luckily, the lighter the eyes, the better the night vision. My eyes were a bright, almost neon blue, so I wouldn't be waiting long. Until then I'd found the right wall that I'd honestly been expecting to be covered in slime or some other horror like blood.

The impressively normal wall led me for a slightly long walk down a completely straight corridor. If there were any turns, they were to my left, and I wasn't sure I wanted to take them. I noticed my eyes starting to adjust, and I decided to stop and let them. They came into a dim focus of a door not one foot from my face.

"Good thing I stopped," I muttered. Agitation seemed to have taken over to keep the panic at bay. That came to an abrupt end when I turned the rusty-feeling doorknob, and bright lights flashed on all around me. My next heartbeat spread a feeling of weakness throughout my body, and I snapped my hand away from the door I hadn't even succeeded in fully opening. I could feel whole body begin to tremble and noticed I was hyperventilating again, much more frantically this time. The wall regained it's appeal, and I stumbled to it, sliding down to hug my knees with my back against it.

"I'm having a panic attack," my thought process began. "I'm sitting here in this death hole, having a panic, and I'm going to die like this. Unable to even open a damn door." The tears came then - loud, ugly, uncontrollable sobs. They choked me for what felt hours as I struggled to breathe between panicking and sobbing. I coughed and just overall died until I could feel myself starting to gag. My aversion towards vomiting numbed me quick as a blow to the head before my cries could cause any more damage. A few minutes were spent sitting there catching my breath, stretching out my legs and leaning my head back against the wall to give my airways unobstructed space to finally function correctly. Band practice was probably over by then. Was my friend even able to cover me not returning?

It occurred to me how little I really wanted to try going through that door again. My only hope was that I might actually be numb to fear now; either that, or vomiting was in my near future. I took in my surroundings, taking full advantage of the new light. The walls were white, and it looked almost like how mental hospitals might. I'd never seen the inside of one, but I had a feeling I'd be able to make comparisons after my experiences in this house. There really hadn't been any turn or even other doors, and the wonder returned to me of whether or not the blob mass had been against a wall.

Bile threatened to come back up as I caught sight of it. The whiteness made it impossible to tell if it was against the wall or not, but it's repulsive appearance was too distracting anyway. It was a purplish mass that looked like it could be a severely bloated, slimy heart. There was a sort of illusion that it was breathing; something inside swirled around slowly like tired puppies squirming around trying to get comfortable. Outside, the surface wasn't moving. It was a perfect sphere I would've mistaken as unmovable if I hadn't felt it dent under my weight. I couldn't help but wonder if the swirling stuff had brushed against me while I was up there. Panicky as I was, would I even have noticed, or would I have hypersensitive enough to not have to worry about it? So much for numb, though I felt more disgusted than afraid.

Deciding at least studying it couldn't be too much worse than looking at bloated heart over there, I shifted my attention back to the door. It was white-painted wood with a rusty doorknob, as I had guessed. The paint was cracked in some places, a few pieces ready to flake off, but other than that, it looked like it could be a regular front door. Or bedroom door, but I didn't want to think about that possibility. While the door didn't look that bad, I knew it could only get worse after I went through. It was the barrier that separated me from level one and the progressively harder levels. It was also my only way to an exit.

I guessed it was time to go find the boss.