Serialized Story: Reality Check

Part 1: Level 1

Chapter 1: Awoken

My body felt numb like it had been frozen like I had been sitting outside in a rainstorm for hours. I couldn’t open my eyes, and my arms felt heavy like the packed down snow in my driveway. My arms were tied to a cold-metallic object, and the room smelled like chemicals used in the science lab at school. I started to regain consciousness as my thoughts began to reform. The smaller details I could remember, but I didn’t know where I was or how I had gotten there. I felt an ever-colder presence than the feeling of ice running down my spine as if someone was watching me. As my mind finally started releasing the tension of sleep it had been holding, my eyes slid open one centimeter at a time.

I saw the sterile white walls in front of the bed I was lying in. A metal door was to my left and it was open only a crack; the small vision into what laid outside of this room only let in a dim-shallow light from the corridor. When my eyes had adjusted fully to my new surroundings, I noticed that the room had no windows, which was why the room was so dark. At this point, I had started to wonder ‘Why was I here? Where am I? How did I get here? Did I get into some sort of accident?’ Whatever the reason for being in this place, I did not want to be there anymore!

I panicked at the thought of being trapped in an unfamiliar room by myself. But I wasn’t by myself, was I? A cold breeze had begun as to swirl around me as my heart raced from my panic. The sudden wind was like an untamed tornado that had been unleashed by supernatural forces. At this point, my panic had almost risen into mania as I struggled to figure out how to get out of my bondage. I was terrified to the point of screaming bloody murder, but my first cry of anguish was only the mere squeak of a mouse. I tried again, but this time only managed a small groan that ended up in a coughing fit of grasping breaths. The invisible winds raged at hurricane speed. My hair flew around my shoulders in a mix of brown and red. I couldn’t see what was happening around the room, and the screams I had been trying to evacuate from my throat ‘thank God’ turned into actual words.

“Somebody please help me!” I screamed. “Someone let me out! Where am I?”

From the crack in the doorway, I saw nor heard anyone coming to my rescue or aid. Not a single soul seemed to be in this place, whatever or wherever I was being held against my will. The coldness crept over my body again, and I did my best to regain strength, but my screams of alarm took every ounce of energy I had. Then, I realized there was a dark figure lurking in the corner of the room whose outline looked familiar to me.

“Hello. Is someone there?” I asked with a shaking breath.

I was able to shake my hair away from my face long enough to see the faint outline of the apparition. The figure did not move or make a sound. Instead, he walked towards me with a slow gate. No, wait, he wasn’t walking, he hovered as he approached, and where his feet should have been, was just empty air. I tensed at the sight of the thing; he was a spirit of the night in the same low-lit room as I was. As he glided still closer to my bed, my heart started to race again at an uncontrollable speed, like a car that’s lost its breaks. I started to sweat, and I pulled with all my might to remove the leather cuffs that constrained me to the bed. I twisted and turned to free myself, but I couldn’t do it. I was weak in the face of all the new dangers that surrounded me. The spirit hovered inches away from where I laid in the bed. The goosebumps on my skin began grow bigger and itchier. I couldn’t stop this thing from attacking me. Would it attack?

I was trapped in this place like a piece of cheese in a mouse trap, and soon to follow, the mouse would come for me. I was going to die here in this dark room that was filled only by a relentless wind of an invisible storm and a phantom. I gave up. I had no choice but to save my energy for whatever confrontation this spirit and I were about to engage in.

The spirit lifted his wrinkly hand and pointed it at my face, then at the door leading back into the corridor.

“Go?” He asked in a low-rasping voice.

I was shocked that this old soul could speak. Like me, it sounded like it hadn’t tried to speak in a long time. Again, it pointed at the door, safety? Again, he pointed at me.

“Home?” It inquired of me.

At the sound of the word ‘home,’ the word registered something I had forgotten since I woke up here. I was an orphan. Is that why I was in this place, alone and isolated? Did I turn myself in to be some sort of experiment to get cash? At the thought of having no family to rescue me from this dungeon was heart breaking. The hurricane winds around me had begun to subside. What is happening!? The spirit had finally crept close enough to my bed that I could see his face. I could tell it was a man because there was a shadow of a beard playing on his face.

His hair was gray, stringy, and oily like it hadn’t been washed. His close also looked like they hadn’t been washed or mended in decades; he wore a faded plaid vest and pants to match. His undershirt was white, but the grime made it appear greenish brown. His face looked as depressed as I felt. The spirit was also wearing a thin pair of circular glasses; they were brown. Something about those glasses or maybe it was his light amber eyes seemed familiar to me. I couldn’t figure out who he reminded me of, but I felt a connection, and why would he be here, in this room, with me, if we somehow weren’t connected. Maybe we had both been trapped down here and we needed to help each other to escape.

“Who are you?” I asked. “Why are you down here? Do you know where we are?”

“Home. Go.” He replied for the third time since I noticed his presence.

“I can’t go home,” I said. “I’m tied down to the bed.”

I watched as the spirit miraculously unbuckled the straps on the bed, and I was freed! My wrists had never felt so raw in my life. Was I still alive or was the appearance of this ghost a sign that I had died?

No! I was not dead! I felt my fingers shaking at my side and I heard my quick breathing, so I guessed that I was still alive and well. Well, as well as anyone could be in my situation. The figure was still next to my bed. After he released me, I jumped out of the bed and scrambled over to the wall closest to the door. I didn’t know how long it had been since I had walked. My knees were wobbly, and I had to use the wall to catch myself before I completely fell to the floor. I then managed to right myself against the wall, pushed up, and stared right back into the hollow face of the figure. He acted harmless, but I was still nervous of what he might do. Though, his dirty and haggard appearance gave him the look of a mad man.

This thought brought forth a lot of anxiety as to what the figure was capable of doing or what he had done to turn up here. The figure floated over to where I was leaning. He bent down toward my face like he was trying to determine something about me. I covered my face, because this ghostly man looked terrifying. He had almost no teeth left, there was a weird smell about him, and a faint green light emanated from his whole body. My eyes adjusted to being open after remaining closed for who knows how long. I lifted my eyes a little over the shoulder that I had thought to use as a shield to see if the man still stared at me; he was. I took a second to really look back up into his, but there was no recognition that this man and I had any connection, so why was he there?

Something must have shocked him in my face, because he stumbled backwards, which looked more like a sheet slowly moving in the wind and gave a load shriek. The moan was one of the loudest expressions of emotion I could remember hearing; it sounded so sad. I sank down to the floor and covered my ears. I felt the mysterious wind swirling around me again. I thought it might be the man figure, but when I looked up again, the ghost had disappeared. I guessed he went into the corridor, but he could have gone anywhere if he wanted to. From far off in the distance, I heard the man moaning and shrieking again. The sounds continued to grow fainter and fainter as time passed on. I sat on the floor with my arms covering my head as I tried to wrap my head around the events of the last few minutes. Frozen to the floor, with my arms covering my head, I tried again to release the sound of the figure’s noise and of the trauma I had experienced. I woke up in a concrete room with no windows, I was strapped to a medical bed, there was a ghostly figure in the corner, and a strange wind blew when my heart rate accelerated. What did all of this mean?

I was alone, and I didn’t know what I would find beyond the metal door that was the barrier between captivity and freedom. Curiosity hit me when I realized that this door had been open the whole time, I was awake. Why was the door open if I was meant to be a prisoner, and why keep the lights on if there seemed to be no one else around? How long has this place existed? There must be a generator somewhere the kept the lights and electricity going. My questions needed to be answered and the only way I was going to get answers was go through the door. I wanted to know where I was, why I was here, and how to get out. My frazzled mind felt less fuzzy than I did when I woke up. The effects of the scare from the figure and its terrified moaning had worn off, and I felt like I could finally move out of my fetal position on the floor.

I finally moved from my spot on the floor, moved towards the door with caution, and peered through the crack in the door. The corridor was long with brightly lit dome lights adhered to the ceiling. The walls were pure white, and another metal door stood at the end of the hall. This corridor led straight in front of me, but another sprouted to the left too. I would need to get past my fear of the unknown first in order to explore. I placed one of my hands around the frame of the door while the other shakily moved toward the middle of the metal door. As the palm of my hand reached the door, my fingers fell to the metal one at a time until my hand was fully on the door. With the little courage I had, I pushed open the door letting in all the light from the corridor. The light from the corridor enveloped me in a warmth, brightness, and awareness that I hadn’t felt for who knows how long.

Taken by surprise by the intensity of the light, again, I stumbled back into the room. I fell on the floor, this time it was in the corner where I first saw the figure. I didn’t hear his moans anymore, so I assumed he had moved on, but, with my heart racing, I felt the rush of wind again. Though the open door, the figure came in with a look of question. Why did he care if I was all right? Yet again, we stared at each other in curiosity and amazement. This figure was not going to leave me alone. I stood up from the floor, looked the figure in the eye, and asked my question from earlier.

“Do you know where we are?” I asked again.

The figure gazed into my eyes like he was trying to find my soul. He shook his head.

“Do you know why we’re here? Who runs this place?”

He shook his head again in response. Well, I was finally done sulking in this dark and empty room. I walked around the figure, stepped into the corridor, and prepared myself for what I would find next, no matter what it was.

** I hope you enjoyed Part 1 of this new series. I will be uploading a new chapter every week. If you liked this story, please check out this other series I started last year:

Awaited Magic Part 1, 2, and 3:

https://vocal.media/wander/awaited-magic-part-1-reimagined

https://vocal.media/wander/awaited-magic-part-2

https://vocal.media/geeks/awaited-magic-part-3