I hear a groan.
Ascending the now corroded solid iron staircase, a sudden eerie sensation washes over me, leaving me frozen in disbelief. Before me stood a dark shadowy figure, its appearance slowly fading into existence and sending a chill down my spine. Its skin is pallid, deformed and melting like thick stale browny dotted with large grey white moving maggots stretched taut over protruding bones. Sunken dark lifeless eyes gleaming with an unnatural hunger, fixed upon me with a vacant stare. Jagged rotten teeth gnashed together in a grotesque parody of a joker smile, revealing rotten gums and decayed flesh covered with large swarm of maggots and worms.
Confusion grips me as I am struggling to comprehend what I am seeing. With each step it took, my heart pounds louder and louder screaming to me to run, drowning out all rational thought, grabbing every strength of my body. In a panicked frenzy, I turned and flee, my feet carrying me through the dark deserted streets with a mind of their own. My mind completely filled with the terror of seeing a walking dead body full of crawling worms, devoid of red blood yet somehow animated.
Fear consumes me as I races back to where I came from, past dark alleyways, which now felt populated by the shadows within hinting at unseen dangers lurking in the shadows. The realization dawn on me, this entire time I was never alone. Every shadow seemed to harbor unseen terrors, and the echo of the undead's moans chasing me relentlessly, their guttural cries growing louder with each passing moment. Adrenaline surges through my veins, mingling with the dread of the reality I am now facing. The sensation of being followed, of being watched, spur me onward, each step a desperate bid for survival. I feel that at any moment I would be grabbed to an endless black abyss that humans sometimes fell into in their dreams and jolted awake. The darkness enveloped me like a suffocating blanket, pressing down on me with an oppressive weight. Only for me this would be the end or may be the end of my nightmare.
Finally I reach the safety of the house I had awoken in. I enter the front yard and darts towards the front door, my heart pounding so loudly in my ears that I could scarcely hear anything else around me. The door I walked through loomed before me like a specter of safety in this desolate world, and following gazes of unknown shadows chasing me, their presence felt like icy fingers tracing the contours of my spine. Fumbling for the door handle, I try to force my way inside with brute strength. I didn't realize this would be a big mistake, the old broken door opens outside and now I have made it stuck completely as I rushed to open it the wrong way, it refuses to budge no matter how hard I pull. Panic surged within me as I retreat to the side of the house, my body moved on my own, my soul trembling as I survey all the locked windows. I don't know why I thought of this but I kept doing things mindlessly as it felt the right thing to do as if I some how have muscle memory of doing this 1000s of times. I tried opening all the windows but they were all locked, every one of them, and the broken ones were even boarded up tight. I kept panicking that at any moment I will be snatched by the dark shadows after me.
I look around and find a cut log. Summoning all my strength, I swing the log against the glass, the sound echoed like a gunshot in the stillness of the night. I am sure it attracted attention of those chasing after me. Shards of glass rained down on my face as I climbed through the broken window, adrenaline coursing through my veins giving me strength to survive this moment. I injured my face and hand but I paid no attention to the minor scratches and bleeding and got in the house. The undead broke through the windows as well.
Moving with cautious haste, I navigate the ground floor rooms to look for the staircase to second floor. I climb up the dangerously hanging rotten staircase, gliding up in a haste yet careful steps, my breath catching in my throat at every creak of the heavily damaged floorboards. As soon as I reach the top flight of stairs, the staircase gives way with a deafening crash, sending splinters of wood flying in all directions. The world spins around me in a dizzying blur, I fight to maintain my balance as I stumble forward, my legs threatening to give out beneath me, that's when I first saw the hunger of the undead that was after me.
I was loosing my balance as I jumped the last few steps but I managed to grab onto the top railing and climbed up and reached the second floor safely. Few undead fell down and got stuck in the exposed shards of staircase. The ones in the back mindlessly kept pushing the ones stuck in the front. After a long time running what felt like years, finally I find a glimpse of hope in the safety of the second floor of this house. The undead couldn't climb the broken staircase. The ones in the front just kept waving their hands in air in a desperate animated motion to snatch my soul from my body. What if they were intelligent, could they manage to climb up? Their vacant eyes bore into me with a hunger that chilled me to the bone, their twisted forms contorting in grotesque shapes as they are trying to reach out for me. In the safety of the second floor I quickly stand up and run to the master bedroom. I find access to ladder to attic, I lowered the extending ladder and climbed up and retracted the ladder back.
As I climb up the ladder to the attic, the darkness closes in around me, pressing down on me with a suffocating weight. The air is thick with dust, moisture and decay of rotten wood. I am struggling to draw breath as I pull myself into the cramped space. Yet the attic greets me with a dim glow filtering through the dusty air. In the corner, I find a cardboard box, promising refuge from the horrors below chasing after me. With trembling sweaty hands, I approach it, the sound of my own heartbeat deafening in the silence. Folding myself into the cramped space, I pull the flaps shut, enveloping myself in darkness hunching down and slowing my breath to not draw attention to refuge. I huddle in the cardboard box, I pray for salvation from this nightmare that has become my reality. Every sound coming from floor below me seemed magnified in the silence of the attic, each creak and groan echoing through the empty house like an unending death song. I strain to hear any sign of movement around me, my senses on high alert for any hint of danger, my soul at the very edge of the abyss. Slowing I am drifting towards peace and falling asleep…