It is a dank, dark place. I drift along a narrow corridor made of ancient blocks, large and moldy. Putrid liquid runs along the ground in narrow channels on either side. It feels like I am swimming or floating in the air, only without kicks or strokes, like a force is pulling me forward.
As I travel farther along, I pass other dark corridors branching off in either direction, some slope up, others slope down. My body accelerates to a breathtaking speed, causing my heart to flutter. I reach a junction where I slow down and without a thought I turn left, before speeding toward a place I know that I do not want to go.
I travel at that breathtaking speed again and I try to will the force to turn me around. Nothing happens. Then in front of me appears a wooden door, scarred as if someone had tried to hack through it with an axe. I get so close so swiftly that I think I will collide with it, but then abruptly stop a foot away and just hover there.
It takes me a sec to calm my heart and catch my breath. At the bottom of the door, there is a gap of an inch. A draft of air is sucking through it, sounding like a person gasping. I slowly reach out my left hand and brush my fingertips over the door’s wooden grain, then over the rusty iron of the keyhole plate. The keyhole is large enough for my finger to fit into. Then I hear a groan on the other side.
I lean forward and carefully put my eye to the keyhole. There is only darkness at first, then suddenly a bloodshot eye appears. I jerk back, my heart stampeding in my chest. A violent strike hits the door, reverberating down the corridor like thunder across the open plain. It happens again, again, and again, as if whoever is on the other side is trying to break through––will break through. Then the force seizes hold of me and drags me backward.
I am unable to see behind me, and I feel sick, like motion sickness, disoriented. In an attempt to slow myself, I stretch out my arms until my fingertips rake along the stone blocks.
They tear on the stone as I scream out in pain.