End of Times

Startled, I heard something weeping in the distance. I never expected to hear crying as a frightening sound, but this was downright creepy. My heart began pounding quickly, I began to sweat. Petrified, I was afraid to move as the crying continued. Blinking a couple of times, trying to clear my head, it seemed chilling to me that something was sobbing like that over and over.

I looked out of the corner of my eye and realized I was on the floor in muddy water. I can hear water dripping from the ceiling, the floor pitted and worn making the water pool in certain spots. The water isn’t deep, just barely enough to cover the ground, but it was so cold that ice trimmed the edges of the shallow puddles. Not knowing where I was, I tried to get up, but I was in so much pain it felt as if someone had beat me with a baseball bat. Slowly, I got to where I could prop myself up on one elbow.

As I looked at the room, fear choked me, like someone wrapped a plastic bag so tight around my face and I can’t breathe. The cement walls were smeared in sludge and graffiti. There was some kind of bench on the other wall, or maybe a cot. On the ceiling spots of black mold blending, forming a shadow that looked like a creature, unnatural, as if something demonic was willfully torturing me. I froze motionless, in the unsettling, terrifying darkness.

Did something move? I thought I saw a shadow moving or maybe I imagined it. I don’t know, I could only think about the agony I’m in. So much pain, it makes me dizzy, blinding white lights exploding in my eyes, and needles stabbing in my head.

I heard the cry again, this time I knew it wasn’t human, it just kept crying as if it were driving me crazy, on purpose, whining, and sniveling it wouldn’t shut up.

“Who’s there!”

I yelled, my voice quivering. The crying stopped for a minute; I couldn’t hear anything. Then I heard wheezing.

“Who’s there! I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing!”

Unable to think or move, the walls were closing in around me. I tried to turn my head more to see if I could see anything, but my head was throbbing so bad it felt like a heavyweight. No matter how much I tried, it seemed I just couldn’t move, it was nauseating.

I touched where my head ached the most, that’s when blood covered the palm of my hand. My battered body is smeared with blood and grime. My clothes are ripped and torn, drenched with the mud that lay on the ground. Just then, a mouse scurried across the floor beside me. I flinched so hard it made my pain worse. I could hardly make out the shadows as the tears flooded my eyes. It was so bitter cold my body began to shiver. The weeping started again, bawling even louder. I could hardly stand to hear it. I wanted to curl in a ball the cries were almost unbearable.

I started to cough the odor was putrid, it smelled of leaking sewage and rotting flesh. I cupped my fingers around my nose and mouth, but the smell seeped through my fingers. I thought I was going to barf just breathing. I wiped my eyes from all the tears and saw square bars lining the room's front entrance and then I realized I was locked in a cell.

Lying back on the floor I couldn’t help but feel sorry for myself, laying in my rotting mess. They brought me here to die. I couldn’t help but start to cry, so uncontrollably, I could hardly catch my breath. I should have listened to my mother. Oh, God! Why didn’t I listen? She told me things would be like this, but I just thought she was crazy. Feelings of regret weighed me down, as sorrow took over my body from the echoes of my mother.

“Repent now!” she would say, “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! When the end times come, the sirens will go off and the sound of the last trumpet from above will blow! At that point, if you did not repent you will have to worship the beast and relinquish your soul! To save it, you must refuse. But if you refuse, you will be arrested and thrown into the pit to be tortured day and night until you are beheaded!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small light of dawn creeping through a tiny gap in the wall. I could tell a breeze was blowing outside as branches were beating against the decrepit walls that surrounded me. In the hall, there were torchlight’s barely lighting the corridors, I could hear footsteps walking closer. Terrified, I tried to move closer into the corner of the room with my hands covering my face.

I heard the guards walking down the hall. The footsteps all in sync like they were one body, one person, not stopping or wavering all the same. They were getting closer, I pressed myself tighter into the corner trying to blend in with the wall even though it felt like ice pressed against my back. Trying not to shiver, I squeezed my eyes hard behind my numb hands, I didn’t want to see anything. The footsteps stopped, keys were banging against the bars, it smelled like something foul and rancid, worse than the scent already there.

Something evil had arrived.

Frantic, I knew time was running out, anxiety slowly trickled into my mind and started to take control. Shaking with fear, I parted my fingers so l could get a glimpse of what was going on but all I could see were dirty blood-soaked boots behind the bars. A whimper spilled out of my lips when they opened the cell and came closer to me. Laying still I tried not to breathe, I heard them come in, now only seconds away, I heard boot steps shuffling about and something scraping against the wall. Suddenly, one of the soldiers grabbed my foot and drug me out of the cell. I screamed as loud as I could.

“Help me!”

The creepy thing started crying again, only ear-piercing now, wailing and gnashing of teeth, as the soldiers pulled me to a hole and tossed me in the air to the pits below. My stomach rose to my throat. I was dizzy with the weightlessness like I was flying, slowly falling as the gravity kept pulling me down.

My eyes snapped open, covered in a cold sweat, shaking, my heart pounding like it was coming out my chest. I sat up quickly, swung my feet over the side of the bed, and stood up. I realized I was in my bedroom. Suspicious and paranoid, I looked around the room in case the horror I saw may have followed me here.

Trembling, my eyes were trying to focus. I stumble to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, not seeing any blood I cautiously touched my head in case the wound was still there. I sighed heavily, grateful there was nothing.

Just then the sun shined bright through the window, washing away the residue of the nightmare. I was relieved to return to my mediocre existence. The warmth of the light touched my face igniting relief and comfort of being in my apartment.

I rubbed my blurry eyes trying to shake away the spine-chilling feelings and grabbed the heart-shaped locket my mother gave me out of the drawer. It always gave me comfort when I held it. I stood there just staring at myself with a powerful grip on the locket, chanting over and over;

“It was only a dream, it was only a dream, it wasn’t real,” Until I had finally calmed down a bit.

While looking in the mirror, I thought I saw something in the corner move behind me. Was I seeing things? I looked harder, staring to see if I could get a glimpse of something, but there was nothing there.

“Oh my gosh! Quit freaking out! It was only a dream!”

I said it loudly so I could get it through my head. Looking back at myself in the mirror and feeling a bit better, I couldn’t help but nervously chuckle a bit.

I grabbed my toothbrush and reaching for the toothpaste I briefly glanced back at the mirror as something drew my attention to the corner of the bathroom again. I looked in the mirror and couldn’t see anything. I started squinting, looking for something to move, but there was nothing. Just to be on the safe side I looked behind me but all was still. I reached for the toothpaste again, shaking my head, and decided to figure out what I was going to do for the day.

There was a faint noise, something scraping against the wall. Confused, I couldn’t figure out where the noise was coming from. Standing there, trying to listen, I started to put the toothpaste on the toothbrush when a foul smell filled the room. Slowly, I looked up in the mirror at the corner to see if something was there. The odor seemed eerily familiar, and then, very faintly, I heard crying.

My eyes are wide open with fear like a rabid animal, frozen with terror. Panic filled my body as shivers ran down my spine. The hair on my arms is standing on end. I can’t move except shake uncontrollably; a single tear ran down my face. I couldn’t blink, I just kept staring at the corner in the mirror.

Its eyes opened! Blackness filled the room as its bright red eyes stared at me. It had tiny little black holes that looked like endless pits for its pupils. I knew without a doubt it was wicked, bankrupt of anything good and holy.

Instantly it came up behind me.

I could feel the heat of its breath on my neck, raspy and deep panting like a dog. Then, very faintly, it started crying in my ear. I turned and screamed as it grabbed me and pulled me away.

Just then, the World’s Air Raid Sirens went off, and in the distance, a trumpet sounded from above.