The Hallway
In the dark hallway a young girl could hear the echoes of long gone footsteps. Glancing around she saw no one, nothing but the grotesque shadows caused by the fading light could be seen. But still the footsteps came and went. The girl shuddered. She could feel the eyes of hundreds of invisible people watching her. All at once the sensation was gone, leaving only the continually growing sound of footsteps coming closer. She tried to move, but found she couldn't, as though tied up in a surcingle. She tried to scream out, but sound became impossible for her. She swooned with the effort, and fell writhing in agony on the cold stone floor. Dead hands wound around her body. Upon waking she found herself in a much different setting, yet still similar enough to remind her of the dark hallway in which her unfortunate circumstances had taken place. She was laying on top of what appeared to her a large stone slab with several markings, but to seeking eyes was no more than a large tombstone. Again she tried to move, but to no avail. She was condemned to lie there until someone came to move her. She lay there for hours, unable to move, only left to wait for the return of footsteps. They came none too soon, for the girl was barely capable of conscience thought. She could scarcely create any resistance to the dead hands around her as they carried her away through the dark passageways, so dense was her haze of despair. Looking down she caught a glimpse of one of the dead men's faces. There was no possible way one could associate it with something that had once been alive. The head had shrunk down to the size of a softball, but leaving the features the same. It would convulse every few seconds, twitching as though in disbelief that it could still move. Mixed with the firmness in its expression made the remains of the face look completely destroyed, as though someone had brought an axe upon it. The girl screamed, for the face had been enough to bring her back out of her trance and into the unreal world around her. The dead hands dropped her the moment she started to scream, which only added to it. The man whose face she had seen quickly unbound her tied hands and left, leaving her alone in another dark hallway. It began with a slight tremble that slowly grew until she was weeping bitterly into her hands, not caring who or what heard. After a few minutes she stopped, and told herself to pull it together. She stood up, and slowly began walking in the direction she thought the dead men had gone. The girl soon began to notice a tingling feeling on her legs. It would move quickly to different positions at times and slowly to others. At first she though it was only her imagination playing tricks on her, but she was swearing she could feel a weight move along with the tingle. When it didn't go away for over an hour she gave in and pulled her dress up high enough to see her lower legs. There, sitting on top of her left knee, was the largest arachnid she had ever seen. Being deathly afraid of spiders she screamed again, not daring to stop even after she had run out of air. She was convulsing at the same time, not caring what might happen as long as the spider was gone. All the while the footsteps had been coming again, and now invisible hands swept down upon her, swiftly picking her up and throwing a bag over her head. Once the bag was removed the girl noticed that they were now in a large banquet hall, filled with grotesque dead people. The morbid scene in front of her was completed by the large old hag standing directly in front of her, holding a large knife and chanting incoherent words. The hag raised the knife high above her head in both hands, and it was at that instant the girl realized what was going to happen. She screamed louder than she ever had before, and fought against her metal binds with as much strength as she could muster. She kept screaming long after the hag plunged the knife into her heart and she fell, plummeting into the dark abyss of death. Young Adelaide's parents woke to the sound of their daughter screaming in her room down the hall. Rushing in they found her sitting up in bed clutching her chest just above her heart. She appeared to be crying, and was still screaming. "It's just a dream," her parents say over and over again. They stay until Adelaide doesn't seem quite so shaken, and assume she'll tell them her dream in the morning. The door clicks shut, and her parents are back in their room. Adelaide hesitates before turning off the light, but says she's just being silly and flips it off. As she turns to climb back into bed she sees something moving out of the corner of her eye. Spinning, she sees the old hag with the knife standing in the corner.
