Twisted Dreams

Welcome

"Welcome."

You look up. The room sways around you - or is it just the floor?

"Hello?" you croak with a raw voice, squinting your eyes blearily to try to make out a shape in the darkness. Your mouth tastes sour.

No response.

The room, you find, as the swaying slows to a stop, is large, and much longer than it is wide. The only light comes through a barred window in the ceiling directly above you. You can see nothing but blinding whiteness through it, so you look back at the dark room, grimacing.

As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you begin to make out rows upon rows of shelving, piled high with boxes and cans. The shelves continue seemingly endlessly both in front and behind you, though you think you're sitting in the middle. The shadows dance and flicker in a dark corner on your left, and you turn just as a dark figure steps out.

The figure is tall and slim, and has shoes that pound against the cold metal floor loud enough to make your ears ring, but is otherwise silent. Then it laughs, quietly. It reminds you of concrete smashing, or boulders cracking against a cliff face as they tumble downwards to the depths below, fading into silence.

A shiver like a trickle of cold water runs it's way down your spine, and you can't help but swallow nervously.

"Welcome."

So that's who had said it. You had almost forgotten - the perfect silence that had followed afterwards had made you nearly convince yourself that you had only imagined it. But no, there it was again: that almost robotic voice, low and powerful.

"To--" Your voice cracks, unbidden, and you clear your throat. The sound echoes painfully down the room. "To where?"

The figure laughs again, and steps fully into view. Your heart climbs up into your throat and your chest tightens painfully, but you're petrified on the spot.

"To the end."