The Woman In Black

Stains

The deafening sound of fear.

It rang in my ears, like an alarm.

The following 'THUD' that echoed down the heavy staircase, set the alarm inside my head off, and slowly froze my brain.

The blood pumping through my veins, suddenly felt cold, and vulnerable, as if a blood-thirsty snake was about to pounce onto me, and suck the fluids out of my body.

I waited.

Nothing.

Not a sound. Not a whisper. Not a single drop... of anything.

I was done with kidding myself, and refused to believe it was my imagination. I had heard something, well SOMEONE, upstairs, and that was that.

The pure thought, of not being alone in this sinister, abandoned house, made me quiver in fright.

Who could possibly be here?

Many different answers ran into my head, but not one explanation fit.

After a minute or two of silently shaking, and pondering what to do, I made a final decision. A decision that I wished had an alternative too.

I would go upstairs.

And find out.

I approached the stairs, breathing deeply, but as quiet as could possibly manage. Who ever was upstairs may not know I had entered the house yet, and the last thing I wanted to do was get myself noticed by them, that is, if the case was that they didn't know I was there.

I attempted to climb the stairs as quietly and discreetly as possible, however the creaks and squeaks escaping through the cracks every time I placed a foot onto but one step, made my attempts physically impossible to succeed.

I ignored the fact that I was actually creating chaos walking up this massive staircase, and gradually, made my way to the top.

A horrific sight hit my eyes.

The walls that cornered the dusky hallway, were splattered deliberately in crimson blood. I say deliberately because words and slogans had been violently painted onto the walls, producing sinister words such as, 'Death' and 'Kill'.

The sight disturbed me, but I had seen worse.

Far, far worse.

Walking deliberately and slowly up this vandalised corridor, I observed the words and messages, noting the way they had been roughly scrawled onto the crumbling wall paper.

One slogan that had interested me more than the others was one that said: 'Death is only the beginning'. Well, I suppose in reality it said:

'Deth iss onl than beginnin.'

Perhaps whoever wrote this had never learned to write properly.

That's when I saw it.

Anything I had seen before that moment, felt to me like a tiny breeze on a sunny day, compared to what I was witnessing at that moment. If my blood had felt cold before, it was nothing compared to the feeling I had suddenly gained, of ice being pressed firmly onto my raw skin.

I felt my arms begin to droop and shake at the effects this sight was creating, and the alarm in my head became so deafening, it tuned out all other surrounding or distant noise.

Fresh blood dripped from the far corner of the hallway, roughly forming some distorted words.

'Mery Jonsun'