Random Stories

Dark Curiosity

Author Note (A/N): This is a story I wrote for a short story writing competition last year, it required at least 1500 and 2500 words at most. I managed to get it to 2236 words in the final version, with the original being 2841 words.
This is a horror story that I had multiple of my teachers read over and grade me on to try and up my chances of winning the competition.
I gave two of them nightmares from the story and a different one a new fear, so be careful with this and read the warnings so you can stay comfortable.

TW: Dolls, bugs, clocks, drowning, voids, choking, falling, heights(?), buried alive, abandonment(?), darkness, hallucinations(?), nightmares, blood(a little)

Zosia stood still staring down the dark hallway that mysteriously appeared in her house overnight. She had a curious mind and wanted answers as to why and how it was here, but she was too anxious to walk in. She stood there trying to summon the courage to move forward into the hallway. As she took a breath and lifted her leg to take a step, she heard a massive creak coming from within. She froze once again not knowing what to do about the noise that the hallway had emitted. Zosia stood still and waited to try and not cause any disturbance to create another noise and to muster her courage back up again. When her curiosity finally overrode her fear and her courage returned, she began to tread tentatively into the hallway once again.

As Zosia took careful steps forward feeling her way to not crash into anything, another creak was heard from further down the hallway. She froze and held her breath unsure if any movement may disturb whatever was further down. She heard another creak but this time it was louder and sounded closer than the last. She panicked and shut her eyes tight to avoid angering the thing approaching her. The footsteps stopped in front of her, and she sneaked a peek through now squinted eyes. Zosia allowed herself to release the breath she had been holding and open her eyes fully. She allowed a wide smile to spread across her face and latched onto the person who stood in front of her. She wrapped her arms around its neck and nestled her face into its chest. She felt it wrap its arms around her waist and lay its head upon hers. She let out a content sigh and let herself feel at peace within her boyfriend's arms. Just as Zosia went to unfurl her arms from her boyfriend's neck, she felt a sticky liquid plop down on top of her head. She looked up and saw him slowly dissolving into a black bubbly liquid. She screamed and pushed him away trying to finger-comb the black goop that fell on her head out of her hair.

Once Zosia got all the goop out of her hair she looked to where the person once stood and all that was there was a gloopy black puddle that seemed to stretch out towards her. She let out another scream and ran forwards, leaping over the black puddle so it wouldn't touch her. She ran for what felt like hours until finally, she came to the end of the hallway. She bent down panting trying to catch her breath from the immense amount of sprinting she just put herself through. She gulped down air trying to not let her aching legs collapse from beneath her.
Once Zosia had gotten her breath back she looked at her surroundings. It was all just old antique clocks on the wall but at the very end of the hallway was what appeared to be a walk-in closet. Her curiosity once again peaked because of the closet, she also wanted to know what would have happened if she had touched the black goop properly, but she didn't want to risk it. Although the closet was less intriguing, it still had her curiosity spiked. She cautiously moved towards the closet being careful not to alert anything else that might be in the hallway or the closet. She grabbed the handles with shaking hands and opened the doors with an exceedingly loud creak.

The doors of the closet opened completely and Zosia looked inside. It was pitch black within with no bottom, roof, or walls. It was just a bottomless pit of pitch black as far as the eye could see. She took a step back but hit something cold, wet, and sticky. Before she had the chance to turn around, she was pushed into the closet, falling into the endless abyss.