Page 10 of Infernium

FARRYN

Present

Astarless night looms over the copula, as I stare up at the dilapidated tower. Only a couple stories above, three stony-faced gargoyles peer down at me from their perches–ledges made to look like a pile of skulls beneath their clawed feet. Though they seem to be no more than masonry, there’s unsettling detail in their features. Carvings so lifelike, I swear I saw one of them move as I approached the building.

Above them, a thick fog drifts toward me, carrying on it bits of ash that sprinkle from the sky like a shaken snow globe. Pangs of heavy dread settle into my stomach, the pungent odor of something burning, thick and greasy, like meat, searing my nose.

I’ve been here before. But when?

A dense thickness clings to the air, slowing my muscles as an invisible force guides me up the stone stairs to the ornate iron door that awaits me. On its surface is a door knocker with the disturbing face of a devil, the eyes of which appear red. Glowing.

The sight of it sends a heavy weight of dread to my stomach, and it’s when I place my hand against my belly that I notice the rounded shape of it. So strange. It must’ve been only yesterday I was dreaming how I might look in a couple months when I started to show.

“Go inside.” The feminine voice I hear is foreign, but somehow, strangely familiar.

Yet, I don’t want to obey. Something tells me, if I go inside, I’m not coming out. But as if my body has cleaved itself from my mind, I enter through the door, and I’m greeted by a pale, ghostly-looking woman seated at a desk. Gray hair is neatly pinned back, and the white cap with a black stripe that she wears on her head tells me she’s a nurse, though the uniform is outdated by a few decades.

I’ve seen her before, though I can’t place where.

She glances up and smiles, teeth a sparkling white. Her expression flickers to soulless black orbs, teeth to yellowing fangs.

Stumbling back a step, I double-blink, and it’s the woman’s smiling face again.Did I imagine that just now?

She turns just enough to wave me on to the hallway behind her, every movement fluid, as if we were underwater.

A long, dark corridor, its end shadowed in darkness, beckons me beyond the desk’s threshold.

That curling sensation in my stomach rises up again, and I swallow back a lump in my throat.Turn back!my head urges.Leave now!

Except, I can’t because something is compelling me forward, in spite of that warning in my gut.

A force beyond my control.

A door on the left catches my attention as I make my way down the hall. Bars stretch across a small window, through which I peek inside to find a woman with weathered, wrinkled skin and gray hair, sitting completely naked on the floor. She rocks back and forth, staring up at the corner of the room.

I follow the path of her gaze to two amber, glowing eyes staring back from the shadows. On a gasp, I jump back, a shiver of terror coiling up my spine.

Movement flashes in my periphery, and I turn to see a young boy standing off in the middle of the corridor a few doors down from me. With black hair and blue eyes, he reminds me of Jericho. Ragged clothes, too small for his body, cling desperately to his skeletal frame. His presence is strange and unfitting here.The eerie hum in my bones tells me bad things happen in this place. Horrible things that a child should never suffer.

When I step in his direction, he spins on his heel and darts off toward the shadows.

“Hey!” I call out, but he doesn’t bother to turn. I chase after him, through winding corridors whose ends are always cloaked in darkness. The boy disappears into the shadows, and I come to a halt, turning to see a door. An ominous entrance, on which 777 has been etched into the steel.

Frowning, I stare at the crude carving, certain there’s meaning behind it, but I can’t remember why. Whimpers from the other side stir up a deep-seated dread–something buried so deep within, I can’t even say what it is that troubles me.

Save him.

In spite of the foreboding twist in my gut, I reach for the handle on the door.

“Farryn,” the foreign voice from before whispers, and when I turn, there’s a woman standing only a few steps away. Long, golden-spun, almost-white hair rests on her bony shoulders. Her eyes are a rich chestnut brown, drawing attention to the soft pale glow of her face. In spite of her small and fragile frame, which looks to be wracked by hunger, she carries an ethereal beauty.

“How do I know you?”

She glances down to my stomach and back, her lips stretching to a smile, and for a split second, her eyes turn black, teeth to fangs just as the nurse’s had at the desk.

Tendrils of fear slither over my neck, and I back up a step, but an intense pain claws my insides, like hooks dragging across my abdomen. Paralyzing pain that has me bent over, clutching my swollen belly.

Blood splashes to the floor below me. So much blood, and when it pools over the concrete, it has a glassy, black appearance. Deep, black pools that fan out from my feet.

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