That Corner Room-3

PART-3

David tried to move, tried to make sense of the situation. He took a few deep breaths and tried to calm himself down. He knew that if he did not act in the next two hours, he would indeed be dead, or worse. He got up and dusted himself off. He went to the wash basin and splashed some water across his face, in an attempt to clear his head. He went and stood in front of the two doors. They looked just as menacing as they had when he'd first seen them. A pulsating orange glow behind both of them, heat emanating from the gaps in the frame. He debated on which door to open first. He decided on the right.

Not pausing for the growing apprehension to immobilize him, he quickly snatched the doorknob and turned it. A part of him still hoped this door would be locked as well, and he would come out of this psychedelic dream. But his other part simultaneously observed how easily the door had opened. Surprisingly, the room within was dark and cold, but David knew that for the next few hours, his definition of 'strange' would undergo a drastic modification.

The room was silent as a tomb, and too dark to see through. David took a couple of tentative steps inside, looking back to make sure that the door was open. But his visitor had earlier said that only he would decide which door to close, and he was being true to his word. He tried to find the light switch, but it seemed like there was none. He made his way deeper into the room, while taking out his lighter out of his pocket. He slowly brought it up, and tried to get a light. All of a sudden he was aware of other forms within the room. Things were going bump in the dark, there was a low moan from somewhere in the room. His skin could feel the presence of other beings in the room.
Finally he got his light, and he looked up to find himself staring into a pair of cold, lifeless yellow eyes. The eyes had only anger in them, nothing else. He jumped back in fright and fell against the wall. That's when he noticed that the room had a window, but there was no moonlight filtering through. Because there were storm clouds gathering outside and there was thunder and lightning. The lightning flashed once, and in its brilliant brightness, the whole room was illuminated in all its terrifying glory, in front of David.

There were all manners of creatures in the room. The cold, yellow eyes belonged to a wolf-like creature, six feet tall and extremely muscular. It was baring its razor-sharp teeth at him and growling. There was a severed hog's head nailed to the opposite wall, bleeding all over it. But it was moving in a frenzied way, clomping its jaws down, desperate to get free, its eyes and its wrath focussed on David. There were piles of dead, decaying bodies in a corner that weren't look all that dead anymore as they started to get up and move towards him. Their entire countenance bore a hollowed look as they crawled towards him. Then the flash ended and the room was plunged once again in darkness.

David lay frozen for a second, then ran our of the room screaming as its inhabitants chased him. He just managed to beat them to the door and close it, hoping and praying that they wouldn't follow him out. They didn't. He stood there for a while; panting, sweating and trying hard not to lose his wits. So that was one room. He looked at his watch, it had been half an hour since his ordeal had begun. He stood up and started pacing the room, wondering what he would find in the other room. He had said that the very nature of fear were hidden in these rooms. David's mind was too clouded to think of what that meant, but he knew he did not want to go in there. However after fifteen minutes it was imminent he had to make a move on, if he wanted to come to a decision. So he reluctantly made his way to the other door and planted his palm on the doorknob.

Once again, the room was dark and cold and quiet. Was it just his imagination or was it darker here? It was as if the room was swallowing up light. He entered, ready this time for whatever there was in here. He looked into the inky depths of the room and received a jolt when he saw a pair of glowing red eyes staring back at him from those depths. There was a growling sound coming from it. Gulping, he stole a look a look at the open door, that all of a sudden looked too far away. He tried to get a light again, to see what he was pitted against this time. The lighter flickered, but then went out. He tried a few more times, but then realized, it wasn't the lighter, it was this room. An unnaturally cold and damp breeze blew across his hand, extinguishing the light every time. The fifth time he tried, an icy, clammy hand actually dug into his arm and pressed into it, drawing blood. David yelped into the dark and saw that those red eyes were now right in front of him, right next to him. He ran blindly into the vast room, losing his direction.

That was when he heard the low, deep moan from a corner. It sounded like the song of the dead, the lamentations of a soul long-resigned to an eternity of solitary misery. It was emotionless, it was lifeless, it sounded lost. A deep, scratchy sound. It made David's hair stand on end. It continued so for a minute and then it grew in volume. It turned into a scream, a tortured wail of agony. Shriller and shriller, it sounded like someone was being burnt alive. Just then, David's skin was invaded by an army of sensations, as if there were things crawling all over him. They pricked, they tickled, they made him feel impure all over. Something was pulling at his hair, he could no longer breathe comfortably. It was like the room was swallowing him. He stood up, and looked at the distant pinprick of light which was probably the door. He stumbled across to it, determined to ignore the grasp that was trying to pull him back. He reached it, and closed the door behind him.

He stood in one place for a while, getting himself mentally out of that room. Although he did not know what was in the room, he did know that it was no less scarier than the other one. He sat there wondering which room would give him a less terrifying and painful death. That was when he saw there was a note lying at the foot of his bed. It hadn't been there before, and it was signed Mr.D.

David snatched up the note and began reading...