Mumble

②⓪①⑤ - C H A P T E R : [1 5]

15.

At first it was dark.

Nebulous and dark.

Static.

"Hello?" He called.

He was in a hallway, the corridor seeming to stretch on for miles. He brought his arms around himself--mouth suddenly dry--and looked around. The walls were the first thing he took note of, carved out of some sort of subtly shimmering black stone. It was sheered smooth, the circular veins on its face blinking back at him like repeating sets of eyes. The next thing he noticed were the doors. Each one of them was an over-vibrant red, made even brighter with the contrast they held with the walls they were placed against. Still, what was truly noteworthy wasn't their colour, but their shape. Instead of the typical rectangular frames he'd have expected, they were all giant circles inlaid with repeating striations of gold paint. Beside every one of them was a room number like in an apartment complex or a hotel, yet...

Not a single one of them had a handle.

Creepy.

He licked his lips. "Hello?" He tried again, his voice echoing strangely down the hall, warping up and down the farther it went, "is...uh...anyone here? Like...uhm...at...uh...all?"

Static.

"That's great...this is...great, okay," he rubbed his hands against his elbows, trying to ward off the chill, "hello?!" he called for a third time.

Static.

"Nothing?... Cool..." He eyed one of the doors, a frown lining his brow. He sighed, "fuck it," he mumbled.

Placing one bare foot in front of the other, he turned to his left and, with a deep breath, began padding towards the 'door' closest to him. The ground underfoot was lukewarm, surprisingly not as icy as he had thought it would have been. There was a gentle pulsing in the atmosphere, like the thrumming beat of a bass a couple blocks away from a club.

This close to the door he could finally make out that the gold paint on it was actually more than a few haphazardly placed lines. It wasn't random. He paused, taking in the image with a certain amount of morbid curiosity. Painted--no--carved in sharp negative relief with some sort of fluid living gold to fill in the outline was an image of a car, some old 90's model perhaps, running off the side of a bridge.

It was chilling. The amount of detail put into it lent itself to an almost photo-real quality. Especially to the figure in the vehicle itself, her expression locked in a horrified grimace, frown lines creasing her forehead, eyes wide while her mouth gaped open in shock. He felt like he was intruding just looking at it and  suppressed a shiver, lifting a hand to knock all the same--

Static.

My girlfriend's bitchin' cause I always sleep in

She's always screamin' when she's callin' her friends

She's kinda hot though

Yeah she's kinda hot though

He paused, fist raised in an aborted knock and--

Static.

Turned towards the sound and--

             Static

There was another door at the end of the hall--

                            Static