Consequences

Viktor has done it.

Standing over the body of his nephew, brandishing a kitchen knife, fresh blood coating parts of the blade with the occasional drop of red falling to the floor. Viktor's nephew lay sprawled out across the child's bedroom rug with multiple open wounds across his torso. Patches of scarlet viscera coating his shirt.

Viktor remembered this night vividly. A few hours ago, his family came to his estate for a dinner long overdue. Many smiles and laughs were shared and many stories told. Nobody knew that Viktor was ripe to burst with a malicious will, intent on destroying everyone who said they loved him. Viktor spent the whole evening pretending to have it together, trying so hard to hide the growing paranoia that threatened to crack the floodgates encasing his mind. Now that the gates have burst, screams of laughter turned into screams of anguish echoing through the hollow halls. And Viktor enjoyed every moment of it.

Viktor stared down at the lifeless corpse of his nephew with a subtle grin edging its way over his face, trying to contain the euphoria he felt, raising the knife up in the air to look upon the surface of the knife before wiping the blood over the corners of his mouth. Gently licking the small blood smears from his mouth and again looking into the edge to see a figure standing behind him, in a panic he spins around, swinging the knife behind him in one motion just to realise nothing was there. He holds the weapon up once again and slowly rotates around in the room trying to spot this figure again but to no avail. Viktor pushes down the uneasiness he felt, insisting upon himself it was benign. Turning back around to view his nephew's body, the blood on the body was gone, but wasn't the blood still fresh just a moment ago? Viktor decided to move past his confusion about what was happening, grabbed his former nephew by the ankle and began to pull him out the room into the empty corridors.

Dragging the dead body through the hollow halls was initially something pleasant. He admired his handiwork and soaked up the melancholy pulsing out of the open wounds. Excitement building up for the night to be over, for Viktor to wash away his sins and be at peace.

He felt a foul presence behind him, he stops in his tracks and quickly twists his neck to look behind. Nothing. Nothing seemed to have changed. The corridor was utterly empty besides him and the dead body clutched in his hands. Then it finally hit him. The corridor he was in seemed familiar yet so alien. The ceiling creaked and warped and was seemingly getting further and further away, the chandeliers poring light vanishing from view. The corridor stretching out, the corners leaving his view and leading into an empty darkness. Viktor gasped in fright, trying to contain his fear as he looked back towards his nephew.

He didn't see his nephew.

The striped leg of his nephew was swapped for a thinner ankle wrapped in a white gown. Looking up slowly, he realised he was holding the body of a girl, expression unchanged from his earlier sighting, Viktor swore under his breath that this was the figure he glimpsed earlier when he looked into the knife's gleaming edge. Viktor let go of the leg and fell backwards, crawling backwards to get away from the scene, screams echoing from the mouth of the body get louder and louder. Anguish, pain, sadness, the distorted horrifying squall of someone subjected to endless torture and didn't seem to be stopping. Viktor shielded his face with his hands, screaming and waiting for this torture to end. A few seconds passed and silence fell. Viktor opened his eyes and hesitantly looked around. All was normal, as if nothing had changed and nothing had happened. The ends of the corridors were visible again and so was the ceiling. The body was again, that of his nephew. Still with open wounds visible.

Viktor stood back up with the composure of someone who has just witnessed an animal die. He was shaken up, nervous about what's coming up. How did this night go so horribly when it was going so well? Viktor felt like he was slipping down into an unknown place, spiralling down and down into a place he'd rather not go. He felt reluctant about going back towards the body he relished carrying. He looked over towards the stairs just a little further down the corridor and decided to make a run for it. Leaving the body of his nephew where it lay, bolting down the stairs to get away, breath leaving his lungs with ragged breathing, created from a combination of panic and exertion. Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Viktor turned sharply and headed towards the living room. The bodies of his family hung from meat hooks suspended from the rafters, a look of abject horror plastered across all of their faces. Viktor realising it was unnerving to him as he realised all of their faces were identical. Sharing a face with the ghost he saw just moments ago back upstairs.

Viktor looked on at the bodies, gazing up at what he accomplished, trying with great difficulty to ignore the faces what he brushed off as a trick of the imagination. A few seconds pass and he soon realised the bodies were appearing to hang slightly lower down, getting lower and lower with a sickening sound of flesh tearing. The three bodies hanging on the hooks all fell to the floor with a loud thud, breaking the central coffee table, splintered wood penetrating the torso of the mother in a few places. Viktor stared at the bodies after getting a slight scare from the bodies falling off the hooks and crashing down to the floor below.

Viktor turned to walk away, to go anywhere but here, when he heard a faint voice from the living room. "Why?" it said. Viktor turned back around in confusion and heard the voice again, but more clearly than last time. "Why?" it said again. Suddenly the bodies sprung to life. Leaping to their feet with unnatural speed, their faces still sharing the visage with the ghost. "Why?" they all said in unison. "Why?" they repeated again. "Why?" The same question repeated. Over, and over, and over. Viktor's face sunk as the tortured faces of his family distorted and twisted with a sickening sound of bones crunching and breaking. Viktor was feeling so small, like he was out of control of the situation as the faces grew bigger and bigger, engulfing the world around him and obscuring his view beyond the horrified looks of anguish plastered all over their faces. Smaller and smaller, Viktor appeared to be shrinking in place, lights growing dim and the last thing he heard before the world went black was the same question. "Why?"

Some time passes and Viktor regains consciousness. He awoke still in the living room, the bodies of his family still slumped on the floor but all life had vanished. As if the facial distortions, screaming and speech was just a fantasy borne of his imagination Face still sunken, he glances around the room and tries to hold down the inevitable panic as he processes all that happened tonight. Beyond the murder of his nephew. His breathing starts being erratic and he feels like he's being choked, clenching his throat, he tries to stand up or atleast sit up on the floor just to see the ghostly figure standing in the doorway, the shape distorting and changing into that of his nephew who began to walk forward. "Why?" he uttered. Viktor really began to panic and struggled to stand up, clambering to his feet, struggling to gain purchase as this figure walked ominously towards him. Viktor kept slipping back down to his feet, seemingly lacking the strength in his fright to even stand up. His nephew approaches and stares coldly down at Viktor, blood pouring out of the wounds on his torso yet the blood seemed to be vanishing before even hitting the floor. Viktor looked up at his nephew and tried to find the strength to say sorry for what he'd done when he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He looked down and saw the same knife he used sticking out of his chest, blood spurting out the wound in little bursts and he grabs the knife and attempts to pull it out. To no avail, he failed to get the knife out of his chest and the ghost of his nephew had vanished. No blood traces on the floor save for the fresh blood dripping down Viktor's body as he lay down on the floor, gasping for air, breathing becoming weaker before collapsing backwards and succumbing to his injury and hysteria.