The Hallway

She woke with a headache that threatened to split her skull. The pain was nearly blinding, her vision blurred.

Rosemarie grunted and sat as upright as she could handle, propped up on her elbows. Tentatively, she reached up and prodded at her scalp, feeling for blood, but found none. As her vision slowly returned and the room stopped spinning, she glanced around at her surroundings.  It was dark and hard to see much, but she could make out that the walls were made of concrete, and dirt covered the floor. There were no furniture or windows, but two doors perpendicular to her. They looked ordinary, made of dark wood with time-worn brass knobs - the type of door you would find in any old basement.

With caution as her headache slowly began to recede, Rosemarie clambered to her feet with one hand holding steady against the cold wall. Finally, as she could stand on her own, she swept her hands over her body, checking for wounds. She found none. 

Her eyebrows furrowed as she stared ahead at the two doors. There was nothing at all that seemed different about them, yet they gave off an air of mystery. 

How did she get here? She had no memory of the night before - assuming it was, in fact, the next day, she had no idea. And why? Who brought her here? 

Rosemarie hadn’t an answer for any of these questions. 

She shuffled forward, eyes trained on the door on the left. There was something about it that called out to her, begging her to come inside. Her hand reached for the knob as she grew closer and grasped it firmly. She turned the knob. 

Locked. 

Rosemarie sighed. Of course it was. It would be just her luck to be trapped in some psycho’s basement, playing the sitting duck just waiting to be murdered. 

She staggered over to the second door. “Please, please be open,” she whispered to herself. 

Locked. 

Frustrated, she slapped her hand against the solid wood and cursed. She leaned heavily against the door, weighing her next options. There were no next options. She was stuck. 

Creak. 

Rosemarie looked to her left and there was the door, unlocked and open and waiting for her. 

Sweat pooled in her palms and her heart pounded in her chest after skipping a beat. She stared, wide-eyed and disbelieving at the door. “Hello?” she called out. After a long moment of silence, she crept forward on her toes in an attempt to stay quiet. She reached the door and peered around the edge to look through the entrance. 

A long hallway stretched farther than she could make out. It was brightly lit, so much so that she had to squint her eyes until they could adjust, and painted entirely white. “Hello?” she called out again, though her hopes weren’t high for a response. How did the door open? There was no way someone could have opened it and ran away without her seeing or hearing them, but it was definitely locked before, she was sure of it. 

With one hesitant step, she entered the hallway. 

Another step. The floor was cold under her bare feet, like marble. 

Another step. Everything smelled strongly of disinfectant and bleach, like a hospital.

Another step. The door slammed shut, a jarring sound in the deafening silence.

Rosemarie whirled around, startled. She took the three steps back to the door and turned the knob. 

Locked. 

She gulped nervously and turned back to the infinite white. “I guess we’re going straight,” she said to herself, and began to walk. 

--

It was driving her insane, the redundancy. There were no discrepancies in her scenery, only white surrounded her. No cracks in the wall, no divots in the floor, just white, white, white.

She didn’t know for how long she walked. Minutes? Hours? Days? Time blurred as Rosemarie walked the white hall. She wished desperately that she had water - her tongue felt like cotton and her throat was rubbed raw from the lack of saliva. Her stomach growled dangerously, twisting and turning until it threatened to dispel the sour bile that sat heavily in her gut. 

She wanted to rest, but she knew she couldn’t. She had to keep going, to find a way out. 

How long could this hallway possibly be? She was sure she’d walked for miles now, with no end in sight. Tears began to fall, dripping droplets onto the cold, hard floor. 

Eventually, minutes, hours, days, miles later, her feet began to bleed. Drip drops and smears of blood trailed behind her. The pain throughout her body was already so great, she didn’t even notice when the skin broke on her heel; in fact, she didn’t notice until she slipped on the blood.

She landed hard on her rear, though the pain was hardly felt.

With great effort, she heaved herself back onto her feet. 

--

Rosemarie was dying, she was sure of it. 

Thrice now she’d vomited nothing but acidic bile that burned her throat and coated her teeth. Her chest ached from the strain. Her thighs shook and her feet felt like she was walking on stubs.

She had to stop. 

With great effort, she sat herself on the ground, taking a moment to catch her breath. Her feet protested, seemingly more painful now than ever before. Now that she was up close, she couldn’t help but grimace at the sight of them. Her nails were dirty and torn, and hardly any skin remained on the soles. She tried to massage them, but couldn’t stand the pain of the salty touch of her sweaty palms. 

Suddenly, the bright fluorescent white lights turned red, making everything look like it’d been bathed in blood. 

Rosemarie rose from her spot on the floor, wincing as her feet protested at once again holding her weight. “Is someone there?” she called. “Help me!” 

From behind her, the soft echo of footsteps. 

Slowly, she turned to face back the way she came, the way someone else was coming. She could see the silhouette in the distance - large and bulky and moving in a way that she couldn’t describe as human. The silhouette stopped, as though it had seen her, too. They were both frozen, staring at each other for an immeasurable amount of time.

Then, it moved. 

It began running toward her, feet slapping against the ground in sick thuds that made her stomach turn violently. It moved on all fours, with limbs long and gangly like a spider. As it approached, she could hear its breathing, grunting with every exhale. 

She willed her feet to move, to turn around and run. She could hear it catching up, could almost feel it’s breath against the skin of her neck, heavy and hot. The wounds on her feet reopened as she ran, screaming at her to stop. The blood flowed from her feet and she slipped. 

And everything went dark.