Born to Die

Chapter ten

I stood there, staring at the door for a minute, before someone tapped me on my shoulder. I jumped, biting down on my tongue to stop myself from screaming, knowing it was only Kim. "Did you get lost? I told you that you cannot go in there." She didn't exactly sound mad, but I could tell she was. "Look, I'm sorry Kim, but there were voices. I think there is someone trapped in there. They were yelling for help. We have to help them." I left out the part about the promised answers, not knowing if I could trust Kim or not. "There is no one in there, Hope. It's just the room toying with your mind. If you had let whatever is in there out... it would not be pretty. The evil in that room has been prying on people that don't know any better for generations. You are lucky you got out when you did." She said, while proceeding to put a lock on the door. "But it didn't seem that way Kim! It seemed like the room was trying to stop me from helping whoever is inside. And how can a room toy with your mind anyway?" "The room works in mysterious ways. And I don't know it just can." I grabbed Kim's arm, convinced she did not know all the answers to the mystery of the room herself. "Please just stop. Why are you doing this? Do you even know that the stories are true? How can you just leave whoever is in there to waste away? Don't you want to get to the bottom of this too?" She roughly pulled her hand out of my grip. "No I don't. I don't give a damn about who is in the room. My only interest is protecting everyone around me. I will not suffer anymore than I already have because of this room." She continued the task at hand, drilling away. I yelled over the sound of the drill. "What do you mean? What has this room done to you?" She stopped drilling and abruptly turned to me. "A few years ago, it pulled the same shit it's pulling now, on me. I got lurred into the room by voices. I was so young I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know any better." She was sobbing now. "My parents realized I was missing after a while and heard noises coming from the room. The walls were caving in. They saw the door open and ran in to save me. I was smaller than they were and was able to squeeze myself out just in time... They were not so lucky. Since then I knew that the only way to protect everyone around me was to keep that door closed. And that's what is going to happen, got it?" I nodded, although I knew there was no way I'd stay true to my word. What was in that room was too crucial. "Yeah Kim, I understand. You have my word." She finished off the lock, turned the key and took it away for safe keeping.

The rest of the day was quiet and uneventful. There were no more voices from the room and Kim hardly spoke a word to me. I played with Mallow for a bit then decided to take him for a walk. While we walked around Kim's neighbourhood I got stares from every bypasser. Probably not used to strangers I thought. But judging by the whispers that followed I knew this was in fact not the case. After a while I got kind of fed up with all the looks I was getting and decided to head back to Kim's. Only I didn't leave a trail of breadcrumbs and ended up getting lost.

I found myself standing in front of an old church. Seeing that it was the only building around I went in to ask for directions. I had seen religious quotes in Kim's house and she wore a cross around her neck so surely the town priest would know her. Only there was no priest. There was no one in the church. It was abandoned and looked like it had been that way for years. Great. As I turned to leave I noticed the altar. That was no ordinary altar, I had seen it before. In my nightmares. Shit! I need to get out of here. I ran back outside, closely followed by Mallow, who seemed equally freaked out as me. He ran ahead of me and I followed. Soon enough we were back at Kim's doorstep. "Good boy. Why didn't you just tell me you knew the way back? Would've spared us from a lot more nightmares." Just then Kim opened the door. "Get in." She said sternly.