Redrum: Origins

Part 3: Nightmares

Disclaimer: I do not own Redrum. Redrum is a game that was developed by Anarchy Enterprises. I only own the OC characters.

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She stumbled around in the dark, blind. It seemed to take hours for her sight to identify the hard, stone walls surrounding her. This place was unfamiliar. It was hard to tell which way she had come from. This maze of endless tunnels only served to confuse her and lead her astray. Always guiding her, but never to the exit. Never allowing her to escape.

Her boots continuously slapped in shallow pools of water. She could hear dripping all around her. There was no other sound, aside from her own heavy breathing. The tunnels lead nowhere, every corner nothing but fleeting hope until it was dashed when it opened up to more endless passageways. It was obvious that she was underground, but the layout of these tunnels was implausible. They couldn't go on forever, could they?

As soon as she was about to succumb to the fate of wandering endlessly in the suffocating darkness, her groping hands hit a door, the sound echoing off of the solid walls. She felt around the surface of the metal door until she found the handle. Gripping it tightly, she only hesitated for a moment before turning it and pushing open the door on rusty hinges. She steeled herself for whatever was on the other side.

The room was clearly man-made, every surface covered in white tile. Despite it's material construction, it was still cavernous, the light dangling from a thin cord failing to illuminate the entirety of it. She looked up and found that even the ceiling was shrouded in darkness.

Looking back down in front of her, something was there that wasn't a second ago. A little girl in a black and white dress stood motionlessly under the swinging light as it screeched with every small sway it made. Her head was bent forward, her face hidden behind a curtain of jet-black hair. Her hands were loose at her sides.

Relief surged through her. She knew who this was. She stepped forward, hand outstretched towards the still figure. "Rose? Is that you? Rose, it's me." The figure did not answer as she continued to make her way forward.

All of a sudden, she stopped, freezing in her tracks. The figure in front of her didn't so much as twitch a finger. She was perfectly still, like a statue. The air had shifted. It felt ominous, and the familiar feeling of dread rose up inside her once again.

"Rose?" she called out, fear in her voice. "What's wrong?"

Seconds passed by, long and agonizing. The room was silent, as if waiting with bated breath. She dimly noticed that she was doing the same.

Then, without a sound, the figure raised her head so that only the mouth was visible. As she did so, she opened wide as a swarm of yellow, angry hornets poured out. The cloud of buzzing insects grew as they sped towards her. Before she knew it, they had swallowed her up in a seething mass. She lost sight of the girl as the hornets descended upon her, stinging her mercilessly. She cried out and held her hands over ears, trying to block out the deafening sounds of the swarm swirling around her. She bent over and squeezed her eyes shut, making herself as small as possible. However, as quickly as the onslaught started, it stopped. She could still hear the buzzing, which meant they were still around, but they had stopped attacking her. Why?

Trembling, she lowered her hands and straightened up, slowly opening her eyes. The swarm had parted, leaving her undisturbed in the center. She looked around, bewildered. What made them stop? The hornets hovered around her, as if eagerly waiting for something to happen.

Suddenly, the curtain of insects in front of her parted to reveal the supposed ringleader. This hornet was large, the largest out of all of them. It was the size of a fully-grown man, its stinger as long as a sword. Its buzzing was the loudest out of all of them, its massive head twitching from side to side as it looked her over. She could see herself reflected in its bulbous eyes. Its frantically waving legs were as thick as her arm.