Malik froze.
His entire body wouldn't move.
His legs wouldn't move to bolt.
His throat wouldn't move to scream.
His vision was beginning to darken, only the deep, gaping hole in the wall, left visible.
He couldn't breathe.
He couldn't think.
He couldn't call for help.
He couldn't move to run away.
Was there another hole behind the door that he hadn't seen?
Were the monsters still there, just hiding and biding their time for him to walk past?
What if they reached out and grabbed him with their decaying skin?
Their flesh looked as if it were rotting, their very bones desperate to escape the confines of their bodies. The hair that twisted and wound around their hades looked as if it were made of shadows, climbing and clinging to the walls around them, pulling in the very darkness which the creatures revelled in.
Malik could almost hear their screams. The screeches that came from their fraying, shredded throats that sounded as if rusty nails were being dragged down a chalk board, collapsing under their own forced, and then forced to continue their descent into their own personal hell, full of pain and suffering, with no hope for salvation.
Malik snapped his eyes shut against the world, before forcing them to open again.
He wouldn't be able to see anything if his eyes were closed, and he needed to be able to see them, if he had any hope of escape.
He desperately needed to see if he was safe. He desperately needed to know whether he could walk around these corridors safely enough.
His legs felt as if they had been weighed down by lead, and that he was walking through the rapids of a storm. His heartbeat thundered in his own ears, each step that he made felt as if it were lightning crashing down onto the ground, and not his own weak, shaking legs. Each slight brush of his clothing, each step forward towards the hollow pit that the monster had called its home and resting place, sounded like the furious crackle of lightning, and would ultimately spell his demise.
Every sound Malik made was too loud.
Every movement Malik made shifted the air too far.
Every decision Malik made felt as if it had been sent to rock the foundations of this abandoned house.
The hollow hole came closer, and closer, and closer. The blackness expanding wider, and wider, and wider, until Malik was only a couple of feet away from the hovel, where the being which could and wound spell his doom and end his second life, probably slept.
He needed to lean down and peer inside. He needed to see for himself, what was down in there. He needed to know. He needed to know.
He needed to know that he was safe. He needed to know that everything was okay.
Malik crouched down, his entire body fully out of view of the hollow space's entrance, and curled up into a ball, letting himself shiver for a bit, in fear.
He stretched his legs out and put his arms out, positioning himself for a crawl, steadying his body to bolt up and run at the first conceivable moment necessary.
If he was going to run, then he would be bolting for the stairs.
Even if it was a longer distance, there was a much smaller chance that he would be cornered by both the monsters. It would be easier for him to survive, and if needed, he could always hide in the scientist's room.
He could do this.
He could do this.
Malik, too aware of every shifting carpet fibre under his fingers, too aware of every speck of dust that fell over his eyes and caught on his eye lashes momentarily before falling once more on their preordained path downwards, began to move.
He felt the wall next to him, giving him the greatest distance possible in this one and half metre wide corridor. He forced himself to breathe as shallowly as he could, timing it with each limb moving forward.
He kept his eyes locked onto the blackness that passed him by.
Not even the merciful light of the sun, that was supposedly able to vanquish these creatures, could penetrate the wall of shadows that had formed. It was so dark, in that space, that one could almost see it as its very own lights source, projecting outwards to coat everything until where the wallpapered wall had deigned to stop its influence.
Malik wasn't willing to touch it, to stick his hands into the murky space, to truly test whether it was solid or not.
He continued his path, as silently as he could, crawling on the carpet, but a little more hurriedly, just in case there really was something within the hole, eager to get away.
If Malik truly did not see the eye, glowing green, its veins bleeding red into its iris and blotting out all the white, then he could not be blamed. If he truly did not see the skin, burned charcoal black, pieces of ash falling from the exposed bone, falling onto the carpet, then he could not be blamed. If he truly did not hear the faint whines that came to him, hazy and wheezing under strain, then he could not be blamed.
But he would certainly be blamed by the woman, the kind lady whose hair was as once a deep brown as the finest mahogany wood and had once sung as well as any song bird in the morning of cheerful days. She would certainly blame him for her torment, for her appearance, for the sun - that she had once rejoiced in - now hurting her, repelling her, glaring down at her, damning her into the dirty sty she was forced to sleep in.
And she would most certainly blame him for her all-consuming hunger. The hunger that screamed into her ears night and day. The hunger that robbed her of thought, of speech, and forced her to weakness.
The hunger was ever present and she was determined to sate it.