The Basement (2)

Date: 5/24/2019

We ran... We had to leave, to get out, quickly. I understood that, wherever I was, it was about to be locked down forever. As I ran down a dark hallway I recognized the group with me, I had seen them before, but especially one, a friend from High School. Our group sprinted through a doorway and I realized where I was - the basement of my childhood home. My uncles home, to be precise, honorarily titled the family hangout. I ran into the garage door, hoping to slam it open - But to no avail. The Official looking man in a vest was just then locking the door from the outside and turning to leave. We screamed, begged, pleaded and banged on the glass, but he didn't hear us. We watched as he got in his car and drove down the long dirt road that isolated the property. Our hope dwindled. I suddenly came into a panic-induced lucidity. 'this can't be that bad, right? I mean, I know this place, we can make it out'. I urged everyone to keep calm and explore, to find another way out. We made our way upstairs when suddenly what should have been the main living room revealed the open floor of a huge tower, with floor to ceiling glass windows, slick metal floors and frames. I didn't know this place. I was confused. I walked to the window and peered out over a city of other skyscrapers, none as tall as me, only on the upper middle floors of the unknown building. I kicked the windows... What was I to do? I panicked, I wanted out, even if it meant jumping... But they wouldn't break. I tried to stay calm. "everyone.. keep looking" I encouraged. I continued myself. A set of large double doors led to another staircase, this one in the style of the tower, wide and spiralled, rather than the house. I walked up, looking for a way out, until the staircase led to a dead end at a set of huge double doors, as wide as a room, painted deep red on worn wood. I pushed against it, but it wouldn't budge. I pushed harder, and despite the cracks and crevices, the wood was solid. I felt something... As if The Door was staring back at me. As if some unknown dark entity peered through the metal barred windows, eyeing me softly and knowingly. I immediately grew terrified, And I ran. Back down the stairs, I gathered everyone - "let's go, we have to go, now!" We ran, Downstairs, Down the hallway, I ran to the door - And just then - A mass of Darkness arose from the floor, swallowing the air like blood bubbling from a drain, the bulge of shadows quickly formed shape and sound - Immediately I heard screaming, but like that of a colony of cats having their tails pulled, high pitched mewing and growling, and agony. Then the shape. The shadows formed silhouettes of small children, each could have been no more than a single digit of age. They grew like the undead from the ground, reaching their hands out for me, screaming in hunger, in pain. Their eyes glowed blue, their hands and their necks were wrapped with thick braces connected to heavy chains that tethered them to some unknown surface beneath the Earth. They ripped at me, pulled at my clothes and my hair, I screamed, I pulled away, I escaped - And then I woke up.