Out of the Cell

I had no clue how much time had passed. I wiggled and jerked wildly as I finally forced a mild bit of control over my body. Sluggish and disoriented, I pushed myself upright, my muscles trembling as if weighed down by lead. A sharp ache radiated through my limbs, and I nearly toppled over, the ground beneath me feeling unsteady and distant. I tumbled forward, placing my hand upon the wall to steady myself. My eyes went from the floor to the wall I held, putting me face to face with a picture of my abductor. My eyes focused in and out and then finally stayed.

In the reflection of the glass of the framed picture, I noticed that the needle that was used to inject me with liquid lead was still in my neck. I slowly grasped the end, careful not to push it in deeper. I pulled slowly, tugging the skin as it slid painfully outward, revealing much more needle than you would think possible. I held it before me, its surface cold and faintly ridged under my fingers, a sensation that sent a shiver down my spine. Thick and heavy for something of its kind, it seemed almost unnaturally weighted, as though it carried more than just its physical mass.

I looked to the door, iron bars too small to squeeze through, with a single slot that opened in the middle for food to be passed through. I knocked the picture from the wall with a swipe at the man inside and stumbled toward the door. I bounced against it with my meager strength once to assess just how sturdy it was and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t coming down.

Holding onto the bars, I peered outside. To the left was the hallway from which we came, and to the right was what looked like a foyer that became darker as it went on. I reached my hand out through the bars and felt for the keyhole. I remembered a book I had read on lock picking, nothing fancy, just the basics, but it gave me enough confidence to try.

I retrieved my arm from the bars and looked toward the needle in my other hand. I held either side of it, and with a slight show of force, it flexed and then broke into two pieces. With a piece in each hand, I stuck my arms through the bars again. I placed the needle into the keyhole and began to twist and prod for just the right movements. In an instant I felt the mechanism give way, and along with a loud clang, so too arrived the sensation of something grabbing my arm.

I was pulled toward the now-unlocked door. My eyes darted around in search of whatever had a hold over me, yet I saw nothing. I pulled away as hard as I could, falling back on my butt as the force released its grip. The door slowly swung open on its own, coming into the room. I sat patiently for a moment, watching to see if anything was there. With no signs of movement outside of the doll-filled room, I stood once again and walked out.

I looked to the left and took a step down the hallway that had a door to the outside. The lights lining the walls, casting a faint glow along the seemingly endless hallway, began to flicker. A low hum accompanied the flickering, growing louder with each pulse of light, until suddenly, with an ominous crackle, they went out, plunging the corridor into oppressive darkness. I stopped after that first step, unsure of how to proceed; I felt that I could go through the darkness just as easily. Why not? It was a straight path, and the man, Carson, had gone toward the foyer.

I took another step, and a lone light switched on, and there before me was a wall replacing the endless corridor. At the base, under the near spotlight level of luminescence, was another doll, sitting and staring at me. The light streaked against the wall, leaving a strange amount of darkness to the sides, as if to say, “Look only here, for nothing else is important.”

Suddenly the doll jumped up and flew into an otherwise unseen hole in the ceiling. A square plank covered the hole, and a loud scratch echoed through my ears. I looked at the wall from which the sound came, and on that wall were words etched into the wood and wallpaper.

“Where would you go?” the wall asked rhetorically or perhaps even ironically.

I spun quickly and began a run to the foyer. My limbs still felt heavy, but I was mobile enough for the time being and knew that I had to move. The room opened up into a lavish setting filled with baroque works of carved stone and disquieting paintings hung on the walls. The grisly contents of the frames showed naught of the ordinary, as the paints looked spilled in blood reds, haunting purples, ghastly greens, and unnaturally dark blacks. The paintings seemed to pulse with an unsettling life of their own. Jagged, crimson streaks clashed with dark, chaotic swirls, creating scenes that felt like they were screaming in silence. The longer I stared, the more the shapes seemed to shift, hinting at grotesque figures just out of focus. Art by any other name would look as ghoulish.

I slid to a stop on the polished marble floor as I noticed the large double doors that led outside. On either side of the doors were stained glass windows, depicting a woman of indeterminate age standing on a mountain with her hand extended on the left side, while on the right was a man kneeling on the plains with the same scar on his face that Carson had.

I ran toward the exit, stopping as they flew open. A strong gust of wind accompanied Carson’s entrance as he stepped through the doors as if he had kicked them open. He threw his hands out to his sides as he saw me.

“Emily,” he shouted ecstatically. “Carson is glad you decided to look around your new home.”

I steeled myself as much as I could, given the situation. “So why am I here?” I asked strongly.

“Oho, Emily…” He seemed to take a strange delight in saying my name. “You’re here so that Carson can love you. But Carson should apologize early in case Carson messes up.” Carson’s expression darkens and twists into a sadistic grin. “After all, Mother always says, ‘We hurt the ones we love.’”

I backed up a step, and Carson followed. I wanted to run. I needed to run. But Carson blocked the only exit I knew of. I swallowed the lump in my throat with all I had, keeping my eye on him for any sudden movements, any slight change in composure that I could use to get past him.

“How rude of Carson,” he said, lightening his expression again. “Would you care for anything, food or perhaps something to drink?” He leaned forward slightly, cupping his ear. “What was that you said?”

“I didn’t say anything.” I answered back.

“Companionship?” Carson put a hand on his chest and looked away in mock timidity. “Well, Carson is flattered by your offer, but until we are married, you must abstain, Emily. Oh, Carson knows!”

Carson snapped his fingers up into the air theatrically. Two animals, looking like what used to be dogs, walked in and stood at his sides. The animals were bloodied and stitched in multiple places, their paws replaced by sharp, elongated metal triangles fashioned into claws, bolted into their legs, and attached to their musculature with hardy metal wires. Their noses had been shortened some, but still left enough to bite with. The poor creature’s faces were covered with plaster masks painted crudely, but still noticeably to look like my face.

“Mother told Carson to upgrade them. Carson liked them the way they were before.” Carson actually looked sorrowful for a brief moment as he looked at the dogs before looking back to me as the face of evil. “But mother knows best! Now keep Emily company!”

Carson motioned forward, prompting the dogs to charge. I struggled to gain traction as my feet moved faster than the slick floor would allow, giving the dogs more time to get closer. I finally began to move, my only option to go up the stairs, like some horror movie cliché.

One of the dogs jumped onto the handrail to my right, grabbing on easily with its flexible, finger-like metal claws. It dove at me, claws first, and then, shortened but sharp jaws next. I ducked, letting the animal fly over me and, luckily, into my other pursuer. Both of the dogs rolled down the stairs a ways, getting back up and running over each other and slashing into their skin in the process, proving that the claws were razor sharp.

I made my way up the stairs and to a door. I threw it open as quickly as I possibly could, slowing only as I had to change my momentum to shut it. I slammed the door hard into the neck of one of the dogs. It should have broken its neck, but of what unseen upgrades these dogs had, I knew not.

The dog swiped and clawed at me, gnashing its cut maw about violently behind the plaster recreation of my face. The claws sunk into the wooden door, peeling large chunks out of it with the ease of butter. Each swipe got closer and closer to my person as I pressed myself against the door to keep it closed.

A lamp stood beside me, on a claw-shaped stand. I grabbed it, swinging it around and stabbing the claw into the dog's face. With a yelp, the animal retreated, taking the lamp, which was buried in its flesh, with it. I pushed the door closed and, with a snap of the lock, bolted the door shut.

Scratching could be heard outside, along with a maniacal laugh from Carson. The laughter stopped suddenly, but the scratching stayed. “Carson is sorry, Emily,” Carson yelled loudly. “He didn’t know you were a cat person!”

The scratching stopped and everything went silent. I backed away from the door slowly, waiting for any sign of my captor’s presence. The door bowed inward slightly as a loud bang echoed from it once.

“Emily…” Carson spoke softly, chuckling lightly. “Please come out, darling. Mother doesn’t like people in her room, especially when she’s napping.”

His laugh started once again, low and then rising to a loud cackle. I turned around slowly, the sound in the room fading away abnormally. Through the darkness a candle lit by itself to illuminate the room partly.

On the bed was a woman, lit by the lone candle on the table to the side. She was tall and stiff as she lay there in full dress, with puffed shoulders and long, tight sleeves that ended in lace cuffs. The high-necked collar was also slightly laced, and a brooch of starry purple, like a night sky, was tightly cinched around her throat. The long, straight skirt fell past her ankles, leading to pointed shoes with short heels.

Although the woman was dressed nicely, I noticed a few discrepancies with her actual being. One of which was that her breath had stopped, her breast motionless as she slept. Her face was patched with what looked like rot on her chin and at her cheek, separated by dry, cracked skin that sagged but stayed tight at the same time.

The smell pervading the air around the woman was a sickly sour, mixed with a synthetically sweet aroma of lavender and roses. I could feel the bile building up as the odor of rotting flesh forced its way up my nose and into my throat. I gagged and heaved, trying not to vomit.

I was successful in keeping down the contents of my stomach, but my head soon went fuzzy. The room started spinning around me, and my balance was leaving. The situation put me in mind of a dizzy spell one would get from standing too quickly, but of some incredible magnification. I stumbled back, falling into the desk beside the bed and knocking from it a crystal ball.

The ball rolled across the floor and toward the wall across from me, as if pulled by some unseen tether. It bounced against the wall with a quiet but distinct chime as the glass hit the wood. The ball kept going along the wall until it landed itself into a small hole in the baseboard, driving its way into the tight fit in a manner impossible without some outside assistance.

The room stopped spinning, and my head had cleared. I approached the wall slowly as my dizziness subsided, hoping for some hidden pathway like the square hole in the ceiling in which the doll in the hallway had flown. I fumbled diligently with the panels, looking for some loose boards or removable pane for which to facilitate my escape from this room.

I pressed into a small wooden square, which gave in and opened the wall up into a dark corridor. It looked like another unlit hall that would lead me deeper into the house, which, in all honesty, seemed better than being trapped by the dogs and Carson, even with the factor of the unknown gnawing at my spine. I took a step before stopping as Carson spoke through the door once again.

“Carson wouldn’t suggest that you go that way,” he said.

“Any way is better than staying here with a dead body,” I said calmly as I walked forward.

“Are you sure, Emily?” Carson seemed to have calmed down once again. “Perhaps sometimes the path you most need to take leads you to a place that no one wishes to be.”

I ignored his threats and continued walking. Through the darkness I trekked, hoping for some sense of security in the madhouse I had been brought into. Then, in one step, my hopes were dashed, as my foot kept falling instead of hitting the floor.

Through a hole in the floor I fell, grabbing wildly for anything to hold onto and luckily finding the ledge I had just stepped off of with my left hand. I swung my other hand up to grasp the ledge with both and began to pull myself up.

My head peeked over the edge, and there was Carson, holding one of his mother’s dolls in front of my face. The doll screamed shrilly, piercing my ears and making me lose my grip.

I fell downward in pitch black, watching a smiling Carson shrink away into the distance above me. I held in a scream with great struggle as the fall continued on for what seemed like an inordinate amount of time.

Downward, into the abyss from which no one could escape, I stared down eternity in the lapse of my seventeen years of life. Of time and timelessness, there existed only a few obscurities that knowledge has yet to unearth in this world. The mansion that I was in, and the resident that lived there, seemed a world away from me, and the unrelenting discord that expanded ever outward into mine would only grow as I fell deeper. In mind and body I felt my short time here had ended, and I began as I became part of a world not my own.