Hallway of Nightmares

Hallway of Nightmares

I've had the same nightmare for two years. I'm always at that tall abandoned building that smells old and stinks like neglect. The darkness is shocking. My phone's flashlight is not much help to me; the blackness here absorbs all.

I try to make my way across the corpses lying on the floor, although the stench is unbearable and covering my nose with the sleeves of my sweater is not enough.

Walking the fastest I can, I try to ignore it and continue forward to the end of the hall where I must choose which path I want to go, left or right. I've chose left since the nightmare started.

On the left, there is the same atmosphere as in the main hall, the same blackness consuming it all, it is almost impossible to breathe until I reach a door at the end of the hall which I open to find a light that, like the darkness before, makes me blind, just to wake up to the sound of my an alarm telling it’s time to get up and face another day of invisibility.

Here on my dreams, I feel the same loneliness, but at least I’m doing something important trying to investigate the point of all of this. Even if in the end it wasn't worthy, I must find out what happens at the end of the dream.

This time I choose right, although I think I’ll find the same door and blinding light behind it as in the path on the left. It looks similar, even though with small imperceptible differences.

There are a few changes... First, one wouldn’t perceive it right away, but the air here feels denser.

Something sends a chill through my body making me feel goosebumps. Something I never felt the past two years when I had chosen to go left. "Keep walking, it’s probably nothing"- I say to myself trying to ignore the feeling of uneasiness to calm myself down. But then a horrible sound takes me by surprise. I’ve never heard it before. It sounds like somebody is being tortured; terrible moans of pain breaking the loud silence that once reigned in the building. And here I am, paralyzed by fear of going forward. Afraid to find out what is happening in this abandoned place.

Somebody might need my help, but I can’t continue walking, I just can’t. Suddenly I remember the dead corpses of the main hall. Why are they here? Who are they? How many were they?

“This is not real, this is just a bad dream, you’re not in real danger”- but I'm feeling dizzy, my limbs are heavy, and I collapse on the floor. My eyelids are closing and I feel a gust of pain on my chest. Am I dying?

When I recover my conscience, I am in a very strange room full of portraits from the Victorian era. Post-mortem pictures, a headless man in black suit grabbing his cut head with his left hand, a skull with a black cape rowing a boat through a river. Each one stranger than the last, increasing my distrust about this place.

I notice one of the portraits have changed, a woman dressed in a white dress with her black hair combed in a bun. She had her eyes wide opened, now she has NO EYES at all, Am I hallucinating now? I start to panic. My nerves are at the edge... I have to get out of here now. I forget about discovering the end of the dream, it seems pointless now after all this is a nightmare, nothing good can come out of it. It is just a bad dream; it is not real...

The room has no other furniture than an old chair covered with dust and spider web, nothing beyond the pictures as decoration, I counted thirty. At the same time, I'm thinking why would somebody place so many old creepy pictures in this room? That is not important. I need to get out but... I can’t find the door. How did I end up here then? Whoever brought me here while I fainted didn't want me to get out. Was this all? The end of it? It ends in a creepy room without exit?

To be honest, I expected more than this. The hype of finding the meaning of these two years exploring the same building on my dreams has left me in an instant. There is nothing else, after all.

But why am I still here? Why don't I wake up? Unless... This is not the end.

 The horrible moan again, this time nearer, somewhere behind these walls. Another wave of uncertainty. Another chill through my spine. I wonder if I’m going to faint again.

Something else... I feel the weight of a pair of eyes watching me. Now I'm panicking trying to find the way out of here, but the desperate I become, the louder the screams of the man being tortured sound, loud, unbearable.

“HELP!"

What should I do now? Facing whoever is hurting this man is not an option, I can barely stand on my feet.

"HELP", one more time. I feel like I’m going to lose my mind.

Wait. How does he know my name? He was yelling my name since the first cry for help, but I just noticed now. Is it someone I meet before? Somebody from work maybe?

I don't want to know. I want to wake up, I want It to end. I want it to end. I want it to end. I want it to... The room starts to spin. The pictures are moving, changing places, the chair has turned back. I can see the top of somebody's head sitting there. HOW?

This is a nightmare. Just a bad dream. A dream. “Unexplainable things like this are going to happen”- I think.

When everything quiets, I try to get near the person sitting on the chair. He is tall, with a hat covering black abundant hair.

“Excuse me”- I manage to say. No turning back, no answer. As I get closer, I notice this is not a person, and the black hair I saw was nothing but an illusion. It is just an empty hat suspended in the air that falls as soon as I get there. What was I expecting from this place? I must admit I feel relieved. If this wasn't all scary already, finding another person with god knows what intentions would make it worse.

There is a small door hiding behind the chair now like somebody had placed it there while the room was spinning. I decide to let myself go with the dream and take any outcome it takes; I Just want to wake up already.

I have to crouch to get through the little door, not before taking a last look at the room. Everything is back into place again, even the woman from the portrait has her eyes back. Good.

Once outside that room, I enter to another, this time, less creepy than the last. There is a desk, a chair, a single portrait of a king sitting on his throne holding a walking stick. Red is painting the walls and there is a visible conventional door. I quite like it here. On the desk, there is a typewriter with a paper sheet. Somebody was writing something. "I'm sorry", that's all it reads. They didn't finish that note, or that’s all they wanted to say. It could mean nothing, it could mean everything  

The feeling of being watched suddenly returns. The air feels heavy again, this time I hear whispers of words I cannot understand, and I leave the room right away.

I’m back to the darkness once again, only this time I can distinguish a few things. The walls aren't empty. Pictures. With the help of my phone, I can see the hundreds of portraits filling the walls, the ones from the room I left. Whispers break the silence. "Run- they say- "you are not alone”. My legs start to tremble and I'm feeling numb, but I keep walking. I’m sweating. WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

Somebody yells my name. A silhouette appears at the end of the corridor. It disappears as soon as I get closer, leaving a door where it was standing. I know I must open it. Maybe this is the ending, maybe this is the exit. WAKE UP! I want to get back to the real world, even if I feel invisible and unwanted. Everything is better than this never-ending horror. I take a deep breath, my limbs still shaking, and I open the door.

It is not the blinding light. It is a small room filled with upside-down bodies with a small door at the end of it. I hurry to the door without looking at the corpses on the floor. I open it. There is someone laying on the floor. I cannot see very well but I realize this person it’s facing me. A male I Judge, by the clothes. Is he alive? The question is soon answered. The stench, the blood. He is dead. As I approach the body it hits me like a cold-water bucket. This is me. The dead person I have in front IS me. I feel nauseous, tears fall from my eyes like a waterfall. Am I dead? I need to wake up, PLEASE!

I fall on the floor feeling useless, feeling terrified. The bodies, the corpses. They all had the same clothes. Are they all me? Somebody, something here with me now, I can feel it. But nothing shows up. The only difference is a new door right behind my dead body. With a last effort, I decide to go in. A blinding light, a white wall, something written on it with red ink: "YOU SHOULD HAVE TOOK THE LEFT PATH". Then, I wake up.

END