Where I Was Before You

17.5. Test tubes

Harry gestured to the entrance way, wanting me to obviously go first.

"Uhh," I say, taking half a step back. "isn't there a light or anything?" Harry looks at me and then hits his palm to his face out of stupidity.

"Oh gosh, silly me." And the old man leans into the stairwell, and yanks down an old light. Which only just turns on, but won't stop flickering. I groan in a deep part of my stomach. It's silent, and the more I keep my mouth closed, the more anticipation there was leading up to my answer.

"I-i would feel a lot better if you went down there first," I say. Taking another full step back. I was not taking my chances with this guy. Once I was down there, I would have to scream 3 times as loud for Karen to hear me. But reluctantly, once Harry shrugged, and started to decent the staircase, leading down to a dark and creepy basement, I followed closely behind him.

"Brian has told me so much about you, and the band of course." Wow, that wasn't creepy at all. I touched the dusty handrail and it weirdly felt a bit sticky. That could of course just be a product of a lack of him cleaning up after himself though. Hopefully.

"Really, wow that's really something," I mumble, of course indifferently. Despite my heart beating way faster than usual. I've never been that scared, I swear I haven't. And I sing inform of tens of thousands of people for a living. But this was the scariest thing I had really ever gone through. I was convinced that this man was going to try to kill me.

"You studied art in College, right?" Oh, Jesus Christ Brian.

"Yeah, I did," I answer reluctantly. We are slowly getting closer to the bottom of the stairs. Harry is walking intolerably slow. Only taking one step every two seconds or so.

"Marvellous! Art has always been a passion of mine. And I'm absolutely certain that a creative, artistic mind such as yours will really appreciate my work!" We're at the bottom of the stairs now. But Harry doesn't move his hand to open the door, he just waits for a couple of seconds, staring at the wall. You could hear a pin drop in that silence. I gulped and I swear my heart stopped when he slowly turned his head around to face me. Only showing half of his twisted and ugly face.

"You, will appreciate my work, won't you Freddie?" I legitimately felt my blood run cold. I don't usually get scared with, well, anything if I'm being entirely honest. My friends can vouch for me, I'm not easily shaken. But at that moment, I wanted to run back up the stairs and cry for my mother.

"Ye-yes." I manage to choke up. And like bloody magic, the maniac turns around with a huge welcoming smile on his face.

"Splendid! Well come on in then, I have soo much to talk to you about!" I made the largest sigh of relief you could possibly imagine, but my heart was still racing just from this guy's creepy atmosphere. He unlocked the strikingly new looking metal door that had obviously been put in decades after the house was built, and slowly pushed it open.

Alright. I now kinda see what Brian was talking about. The whole place was still filled with wires and random electrical pieces, the smell was still the unsettling aroma of mould and smoke, and the whole place still gave me the creeps. But I couldn't stop looking. Everywhere around me, the ground, the walls, the ceiling, we're all covered in an iridescent metal like wallpaper. It wasn't metal, no you could tell. It was smooth and flawless, it shone and glittered like something out of a sci-fi dream. I couldn't help walking more and more into the room, so I couldn't look at it from every possible angle. I heard Harry chuckle, but I didn't care. This was beautiful, it was beyond beautiful. I didn't understand why it was so hard to look away.

"Having fun?" He chuckled. I wasn't in the slightest bit concerned about my safety anymore. I was just completely fixated on the walls. I almost didn't realise the glow. That was until I turned around to look at Harry, but instead saw a huge cylindrical machine, almost a chamber. Standing upright, centre of the room. And above, on the ceiling, but it didn't seem to be coming from the ceiling, was a mesmerising and eternal blue glow.