Questioned

I climb down the stone staircase. The chamber is cold and damp. Water drops from the ceiling. I look over towards a puddle in the corner of the room. My light illuminates a mischief of rats. They all look up at me with their beady red eyes then scurry off into a dark hole, too small for me to investigate. I turn the corner into another long hallway that separates into a few rooms. Most of the rooms are void of any interior, hollow.

"Out of all the places a secret underground labyrinth would be underneath an alley trashcan is not one of them!" I say to myself as I peer into another empty room.

I talk to myself a lot, it helps calm me down, I need that right now due to the situation. I finally reach a room towards the end of a few hallways and crawlspaces that has a book in the corner.

"Why would there be an empty room with a single book in the corner, that just doesn't seem right?!"

I was so busy talking to myself that I wasn't paying attention to where I'm going. My foot slips into a hole in the floor, scraping my leg on its jagged edges. I can feel blood running down my leg, a deep cut travels up my ankle to my thigh. I try to stand back up and try to recover, but I stop in place despite the pain. A dot glows in the floor between the edge of the hole and my leg. I move to shine my light at it to get a better view. The dot disappears from my view as a writhing scream compresses my eardrums. I jump back cutting my leg even worse than before.

"I need to get out of here!"

I get up and try to run, but I can only manage to limp, anything more would ruin my leg. I exit the room and limp down the corridor, not turning back for the book, desperately trying to retrace my steps.

"What is this place anyway?!" I say to myself through clenched teeth.

"Why don't you tell me!"

I turn towards the right side wall, the voice came from there. Startled I try and speed up. The pain takes hold of me as I fall over onto the floor. It's warm, clearly warmer than my body temperature.

"Be careful, you wouldn't want to hurt yourself more, would you?"

I don't respond.

"You know it's rude to not answer someone when they ask a question!"

"I'm not easily stopped, especially in this situation!" I think to myself

"Yeah, that's what they all think, but you'll find in time that you're wrong."

I start to pick up my pace.

"What's the meaning of life?", "What is your definition of love?", "Would you ever kill someone?", "Do people really love each other?", "Is reality a simulation?", "Are you're friends, really you're friends?"

The questions make the hairs stand on the back of my neck, not because they are scary, but because they are so existential and offputting.

"Why couldn't he just ask me 'what's your favorite food?' or something along those lines. I didn't come here for a philosophy class, and I certainly didn't come here to be followed by an obnoxious voice in the walls."

"Nobody does, but life can throw unexpected things at you from time to time!"

The voice sounds impatient now, frustrated even. I still don't understand how it can hear my thoughts!

I hear the noises of people and cars above my head. At first, I thought the noises were caused by hallucinations but, a circle of light disproves my suspicions. I decide to turn back one last time as I hear the voice ask me another question.

"Before you leave let me ask you one thing. Have you heard the phrase 'curiosity killed the cat'?"

I waste no time responding to the voice. I turn back around and climb up the later as fast as I can, almost slipping on the way up. I push a manhole cover out of the way as I make it to the surface.

"OH GOD!"

A random pedestrian shouts on the sidewalk and dials 911. I can't even feel my leg anymore, my whole body feels week. I have no sense of perception.

 "Hey..."

I gasp and sit up, it takes me a second to regain my perception. I'm in a hospital bed. With my leg propped up in a sling.

"I wonder what that book was? , maybe a lost journal, a textbook of sorts, I don't even know."

"Pssst, hey!"

I hear the voice from somewhere in the room. Nobody has entered or left the room.

“My head must still be out of wack”

"You wish it was!"

I am fully aware of my surroundings now. My eyes are wide open as I look towards the corner of the room, a silhouette appears, dark, like a shadow. It walks up to the side of the bed and looms over me.

"I heard you were curious about this book!"

The shadowy figure pulls the book out of what seems to be thin air.

"It doesn't actually have anything in it, kind of funny how the most intriguing things can hold no value, don't you think?!"

"I guess..." I finally respond.

"So, why do you think I am here?" he says with an intense hostility in his voice

"I honestly have no ide-” 

‘That’s what I thought, well I’ll tell you! I am here because this is what I do! I teach people lessons, someone has to teach the cat when they get too curious! I believe curios people have been both blessed and cursed! They can discover some amazing things, but they can also find, that some things are best left unknown!”

He reaches over to my hospital equipment and starts unplugging the wires. He takes a glance at the IV in my arm with his beady yellow eyes and rips it out of my arm. The pain is excruciating.

“I cannot just leave leafs unturned, so I apologize for what I’m about to do!”

He sounds patient and calm. Almost regretful even. The calmest and most patient he has ever sounded before. He looms over the bed and I can feel my conscience fading away as the world recedes from view.