A Room With No Doors: The Dark Thing

This is my most recent work, which I can't say is my best, but was meant to be an experiment in disjointed first person. Constructive critiques are certainly welcome. The illustration at the end was done specifically for this story by the talented James G.

I don't know how long I've been here in the dark. It feels like I've always been here. I can feel cold walls of a corner against my back, hard and uncomfortable, and the floor is like cement. How long have I been here? My hand lifts to touch my body, to make sure I'm all there, that I have not, in fact, become a part of the darkness. I feel my face; there's a nose, a pair of lips, a chin and jaw, small curves of ears on either side. I feel my neck, grimey and cold like the walls, and further down to my chest I realize I must be wearing a shirt. Down again, and I can feel ripped fabric of jeans on my legs. My feet are caked with what feels like old, dried mud. I'm all here.

I look upward and see no ceiling, only blackness. I look in front of me, to each side, and it's only blackness all around me. I can't even see my hand move inches in front of my eyes. It's so cold. I dare to stand up in the darkness, keeping my back in the corner to brace myself. There might be a hole in the middle of the room. My mind spins with what might be in the room, or not in it, as I splay out my arms and rest them against the wall. I make quiet, shuffling steps in the dark, slow and steady, but I'm breathing hard. I must not have moved for a long time, my muscles feel atrophied, my legs shiver under my weight. How long have I been here, I keep asking, continuing to shuffle until I find another corner. I keep going. Another corner, then another, and I'm finally back where I started. Walls all around me, and not a single door.

I sit down again to breathe. How did I get here? What did I do to make someone put me in such a horrible place? And how did they get me in? Perhaps a door in the cieling that I can't see or reach. Is there anyone else here? I hold my breath and listen, and I can hear the faint buzzing of silence in my ears, then a sudden, wet, choking cough, and the dull and steady sound of a wheezing breath.

"Hello?"

My voice dies the second I close my mouth, crushed and snuffed out in the darkness. The thing in the room chokes again, breathes, but everything else is quiet.

"Can you hear me?"

I hear a moist thud like an arm or leg suddenly dropping on the floor, and the thing chokes again, but as it exhales, the wetness in its throat gurgles, and I hear the light trickle of something hitting the ground.

"Please..."

I hear another thud, and what sounds like the slick pop of joints, and the thing breathes louder, chokes again, and suddenly I hear it flopping violently against the floor. My heart races in my chest and I open my eyes wider to try and see through the thick blanket of dark, and then it starts to scream.

I push my palms against my ears and huddle tight into the corner. The screams are wet and shrieking, and I can hear its muffled, flopping seizuring against the ground. It stops abruptly, and when I'm sure the screams have died, I lower my hands and stare across the darkness.

It's breathing again, chokes, and spits up something thick and liquid that dribbles noisily onto the floor. I swallow hard and pull my legs in against my chest, holding onto my ankles to drag my feet as close as possible. A stench begins to fill the room, makes me gag, and I clasp my hands over my nose and mouth, trying to keep the stink out of my nostrils. The thing starts to flop again; I can hear it getting closer, shuffling itself violently across the floor, bringing its acrid stench with it.

"No! Stay back! Don't touch me!"

I yell at the thing behind the cup of my hands and I struggle further back in the corner, and it stops and goes silent again. Whatever it is, I can't let it touch me. My mind swirls with what it could be, but whatever it is I'm certain it isn't human, at least not anymore. My hands shake even though I can't see them, trembling against my face as I peer wide-eyed in the dark. How long has it been down here with me?

After a while even its breathing stops, and the silence closes in again. I'm afraid to make a sound, keeping my hands over my mouth to muffle my breath. If it wakes up again, it might not stop, and if I don't find a way out of here it will touch me, it will infect me, I'll become what it is.

The stink dies away after a while, leaving no evidence that the thing is still in this room with me. I don't know how close it is as the hours go by, I start to forget. How long have I been here? I slowly dare to stand up again and I start to shuffle the length of the walls. One, two, three, four corners and no doors. I reach upward this time, and the tips of my fingers brush the cold, hard ceiling. But if there's a door, I must venture toward the center of the room, and that is where the thing dwells. If it touches me, I will become what it is. Quietly, a sink back down in the corner furthest away from the one where I used to sit.

My feet scrape the ground and I freeze. A loud, sickening pop and thud, a gurgling breath, a choke, a sputter, and the thing is suddenly flopping again. I can hear it coming closer as it starts to scream. If I don't move, it will touch me, but all I can see is darkness. I get to my feet and shuffle quickly to the side. With a horrible, crackling twist, I hear it turn to follow me, its inhuman screams turning to wet hisses as something slick slaps against the ground, and its seizuring body drags closer to me. I move to the other side, and again it twists, shivers, cracks, and a series of loud, wet thuds come chasing faster after me.

I run. There's nowhere to run to, but I run. I don't know how far away the next wall is, there is only blackness, but the thing is after me now, and if I stop it will catch me, it will touch me, and I will be what it is.

Grimey, oily fingers wrap around my foot and I crash to the floor. I scream as the flopping mass of wet flesh descends on me, bringing with it the stench from before. I can feel the oily wetness seeping into my clothes, dissolving them as something slick brushes the side of my face. I feel a toothless mouth suddenly close over my face and I shriek, I thrash under the mass, while popping bones and exposed flesh slaps all around me. I struggle against the stretching mouth and the wet limbs that close over my body, overwhelmed by the pungent scent of decay. The lips are pursed around my neck now as the throat undulates to drag me further in, closer to its rotted core, and slowly it begins to twist my legs and arms. It buckles me into a smaller mass as I shriek with an agony I've never known, making me easier to swallow and consume as the molten tar of its stomach dissolves my naked flesh.

Silence again. How long have I been here? I hear quiet, steady breathing in a corner of the room. It speaks to me.

"Hello?"

I open my mouth to answer, but I choke and one of my arms falls with a thud to the ground.

"Can you hear me?"

It is my old body, it must be. I must touch it to become myself again. I will my body into motion under the slick heaviness that coats me, and I scream in pain. The only way to get closer is if I thrash my body. I have to reach it, I have to touch it, and I will be myself again. But everything goes silent, I forget where the thing is, so I must wait until it speaks again.

How long have I been here?