Chereads / Pyromaniac (WSA Special) / Chapter 8 - Butcher's Lair

Chapter 8 - Butcher's Lair

'Can I be your worst nightmare?'

A high-pitched cackle resonated through the white walls. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to block out the noise. But it seemed that the voices in my head were louder.

Slowly, I dropped my hands to the floor. My eyes opened wide and looked around in fear. I kept worrying someone would pop out of nowhere and try to kill me.

My hands went to my throat as the feeling of phantom hands squeezing the life out of me burned within my vision. I was suffocating staring at these white walls.

My mind wanted colour desperately, my eyes searched for it as if it was my oxygen. My feet moved forward of their own accord.

My heart was something but my mind didn't know what. I felt a whirlwind of emotions all at once, as they all came crashing down on me.

I felt like giving up, I kept trying to think of a reason to keep going on. But none surfaced to the forefront of my mind.

My hands reached out blindly, in search of an escape route.

Despite the bright lighting, the whiteness of the corridors blinded me. I saw nothing except a blur of emptiness. The lack of colours made me feel trapped.

I think I started crying, feeling hopeless at this point. My hands banged against endless doors, in hopes that one of them would lead to an escape from this prison.

Then, miraculously, as if god had heard my cries for help. One of the doors pushed open, and I was enveloped in complete darkness.

My breathing was heavy, and I was sniffing. Except for my cries, there were no other sounds in the room. It made me nervous as I searched in the darkness for the next horror that awaited me.

I felt a presence as if someone was staring at me. I took a few steps back shakily. But it was no use, those sharp, cat eyes would find me anywhere.

I screamed when I saw the light reflect within those eyes. The same eyes that made my life a living hell.

Tears spilt down my face freely. I kept backing away, my hands searching aimlessly behind for the door handle.

A moment ago, I had been begging to get out of those white corridors. Yet here I was, rushing to return to the comfort and safety of those halls.

My mind was torn as I found nothing except something furry. My entire body froze up at the touch.

Right then, the room was flooded with lights. I squinted at the sudden change of lighting and looked behind me. I screamed and ran away.

'No no no. Oh my god..' I wiped the tears from my face but it was no use. It was a neverending river.

I felt disgusted as I wiped my hands on my clothes. My mind was so close to breaking down, that I had no motivation to keep going, except to get away from the spiders.

My legs were starting to feel like jelly so I slowed down. I felt as if I was going to collapse any second. My body was exhausted.

I glanced behind me to see nothing. It was all dark once again, but I felt like prey once again. I had to keep running as long as the predator was loose.

But I couldn't keep running anymore, my lungs were about to give out completely. So I walked leisurely.

All the while I felt something watching me from the shadows. As if waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack.

But I never looked back, only staring ahead into the nothingness. I wasn't even sure where I was going. I had no sense of direction in this dark place.

The only thing I knew was that I had to get out of here as soon as possible. I couldn't possibly survive in here. I was already getting a headache.

Any more horrors and I was sure to die of a heart attack. As if my stalker read my mind, a door appeared a few feet away from me. I hurried towards it and quickly walked out into the white hallway.

It was surprising to admit that I almost missed it. There were no voices, everything was silent. Until I reached the last door in the hall.

From somewhere in there, I could hear screams and the sounds of machines. It sounded like drill machines but I wasn't sure.

I swallowed nervously. I didn't want to go in there but it wasn't like I had any other options. I looked back at the empty corridor once more, eyeing the locked doors longingly.

If only one of them had opened, I could've escaped from here in no time. But there were no other escape routes, this was my only salvation.

I took in a deep breath and turned the handle. Immediately, the smell of blood wafted through my nose. I almost gagged but forced myself to remain strong.

The metallic smell only got stronger as I walked further down the laboratory. I had never been in this place, I didn't even know it existed until now.

Standing in front of a few curtains, I contemplated if I should go back to my dorm like a coward, or face my worst fears.

I pushed apart the curtains and stopped. I almost wished I had turned around, to never have to see this horrific site ever again.

I was scared for my life as I went past dozens of corpses hanging from the ceiling. Some of them didn't even look dead.

But they had all received a horrible, cruel death. Nobody deserved that, I thought to myself as I narrowed my eyes at the corpses.

My scientific skills were taking over and my nervous skills were going away. I analyzed each body I passed through, saving their body dimensions and possible matches in my mind.

One of these seemed extremely familiar, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. I came to a halt as my eyes stared at one of the smaller corpses. The world around me faded away as I zoned in on the rotting body.

At first glimpse, you couldn't even tell if the corpse was human. Almost all of the skin had faded away and you could see the bones clearly. The skeleton was covered in dried blood that was turning almost black.

There were no hair on the head of the corpse, but some skin still remained on the skull. This included the eyes and it was a pretty terrifying sight. You could see the bloody-blue eyes staring right into your soul.

I could feel my dead bestfriend's eyes glaring at me as if her corpse was still alive. For a second, I worried that she would try to strangle me with her bony hands. It was a scene straight out of some horror movie.

My feet were frozen- either from fear or shock, I wasn't sure. My mind was screaming at me to run away but I couldn't move. Even when my ears picked up the distant sound of footsteps, I was unable to move.

It was only when I heard the distant whoosh of the flaps being pushed aside that my feet started moving forward. I had no idea where I was headed, all I knew was that I had to get out of there.

I couldn't see any other door in this room aside from the curtained entrance. That was a problem, and I cursed silently. I could hear footsteps coming my way so I had to make a quick decision- either fight my way out of here, or hide and wait.

Any other day, I would've picked the first option. But I wasn't wearing any disguise, and I couldn't let this person know who I was. My narrowed eyes locked in on the table on the corner of the room.

I squatted and walked over to the table. My breathing was heavy so I took deep breaths to calm myself. Then, I listened in on the footsteps of the other person in the room. They were a bit further away, and I hoped it would stay that way.

Unfortunately, luck wasn't on my side today. The steps were getting closer, and I was tense. My palm was holding a fire ball, ready to shoot any second. But my mind was taking in the tables, corpses and everything else in this freezing room. I focused on the plastic curtain flaps as my eyes flared up.

A whoosh of air filled up the silence as the flaps were thrown in every direction with my power. It was enough of a distraction for the doctor to rush over to the entrance.

'Who's there?' The voice echoed in the empty room. I turned around and stood on my tip toes. It was the crazy doctor as I had guessed.

While he was too busy searching past the entrance, I sneaked past a few tables to get closer to the entrance. When I was about ten steps away from the entrance, I let one of the corpses fall to the floor.

It made a wet thud and the doctor's head snapped to the sound. I hid behind the table once again as the tiny doctor made his way to the fallen corpse.

I watched his back with my narrowed eyes. My power was at my fingertips and it was ready to attack the doctor at my command. But I held it back, I was in control.

As soon as the doctor kneeled beside the corpse, I sent a burst of power in the air. It echoed a large boom and smoke filled the entire room. Luckily, the smoke wouldn't work on me but only on humans. So I was able to see perfectly and hurried out of the room.

Behind me, I heard the doctor call out, 'Hey! Stop! Who's there..' The voice faded as I walked farther from the room.

My eyes returned to normal and my breathing slowed down. But every time Alicia's corpse flashed through my mind, my eyes flashed a bright yellow too.

A million questions went through my mind and my eyes narrowed at nothing in particular. I almost wanted to go back and investigate every single inch of Alicia's rotting skeleton until I had answers. But that doctor was now in there.

That was the biggest question of all, what was the doctor doing with all those bodies? The question kept repeating through my mind as I walked down the narrow corridor.