THE HOLE

Screaming and fire blazed up into the night sky.

Gunshots rang beyond the hospital walls. A top the wall, a dozen opportunistic men came—wearing masks, and carrying pipes and knives and other dangerous weapons. They smashed their way through the sliding glass doors of the hospital entrance.

Several more footsteps clambered inside, cracking broken glass and clacking against the floor of the emergency room.

“We’ll take the stairs—hold up, who’s that?”

Inside the darkness of the hospital, they flashed their lights to find Li kneeling on the cold ground. He had his hands firmly planted on his lap with his wrist wrapped in gauze. Bare chested, his form took on that of an unmovable statue with his head hung low.

“What’s he doing?”

“Some crack head, probably, let’s mov-”

Li responded, gathering himself and standing tall, “I am praying for each of you. For your safe travels into the afterlife.”

The masked men glanced at each other and then back at him.

Li moved in on the men, blurring within their vision, and snuffing out their light.

———————

Haugh!

Red removed the mask before spilling out his guts in a muddy brown bile that splat onto the ground, ugh… how much further? The drug was still in his system—still showing him things he didn’t want to see, things in the corners of his eyes. But as he placed the mask back on, he was able to distinguish reality from hallucination. These eye holes are surprisingly helpful. I can focus on what's ahead of me.

Crows laughed overhead.

Red wiped at his mouth with his sleeve.

They squawked and flapped their wings, black feathers fell.

They pressed on deeper into the east, veering away from people and light and entered the far silent more side of Panam Street. It was darker, street lamps flickered—barely working. Parts of the roads were covered in water, alleyways led to flooded dead ends, and the crows grew in number. The east side of the lower pits were slowly sinking—in less than a decade, this part of the city will be a part of the sea.

The boy, Somyot, had come to a full stop under another dead lamp with a group of crows perched above them. Red flashed his phone light in his direction and saw that the boy pointed at a large abandoned building, among many abandoned building. A colorless, empty shell of broken promises, homes, and silent dreams. Uninhabitable due to the sinking and collapsing parts underneath them.

“We usually don’t come out here at night, but during the day we go to the far side and swim by the water!” Somyot, said chipper in a dance with his giant mask on.

Red cawed at Somyot.

These kids should not be playing anywhere near here. Not during the night or day. Any one of these buildings could collapse over us and no one would come out looking for us—there would be no rescue of any kind.

That’s when, behind the mask, Somyot’s eyes widened, as he squawked back, looking in the direction of Red. What, what is it? Red felt a chill in his spine, he had the urge to run, to fly away from here, and take the boy with him somewhere safe—but he turned.

A giant crow, cawed and cackled in his face, no, that’s not right. Red blinked a few times, under the guise of the mask. It’s Nala, the teenage girl from the arcade.

“What are you doing here?!” Nala shouted and shoved past Red, searching for Somyot’s wrist, “I’ve told you so many times, not to come here in the middle of the night. The witch is going to grab you!”

She turned, glaring at Red, as soon as she clutched Somyot’s hand.

This can’t be a good look for me… “Squawk?—er I mean this isn’t w-it’s not wha-it’s not what you think.”

“What the-?” Nala muttered, gripping Somyot’s hand tighter, “And what do you you think this is? Some handyman that works at an arcade where children go and play, and you’re there almost every day.”

Red knew he looked like a zombie, he felt the weight of his eyes, but he showed her the map and the exact location they were standing at, “I needed to know where this is...”

“So you have a map and a dot that shows you the exact location, and you brought a little boy out into the most abandoned parts of the slums.”

Well, when you put it that way…

“You’re high.”

Red removed the mask from his face, carefully handing it over to them, “Yeah, I’m sorry—I don’t know what I was thinking, truly, I needed help and Somyot saved me, earlier on the street.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Can we go now?” Somyot said, “I want to go see the others.”

“Yes, we can go now.” Nala said.

“One last thing, handyman. I don’t know what you’re doing out here, or why you have this building marked on your map, but during the day, kids like to play by the water further up the street. It’s dangerous, I keep telling the children. People go missing around here at night. It’s like something is out here, I can’t explain—but like eyes watching, waiting in the dark—waiting for for us to be alone.”

She went on about an old story about a woman that once lived in this part of town. It was a community of people that looked out for each other for a while. They fought to find help from the government, investors, or charities, anyone to try and keep their homes a float. It never panned out for them. It was too expensive and there were no foreseeable returns. Red knew the parts about the town looking for aid. It didn’t help that not long after a fire broke out diminishing any hope the people had left. A woman stayed behind and burned with her home—grieving the loss of her family and blaming the world.

Rumor has it she roams these streets in the night looking for her children and a place to put her hate.

The crows cawed and cackled, flapping their wings violently, and dropping their dark feathers, as Nala said, “Beware the Witch in Black.”

“I’m only telling you this, because you helped Somyot with the bunny. But don’t come near us again.”

———————

They were gone, as were the crows. Red was alone in a silent street, facing the abandoned apartment complex. The building itself was half finished and rough textured, gray and mundane—dreary and dark, no light emanated from it. There was no clear way in with the solid entrance door chained up and windows blocked by thick wooden planks, so he went for the locked chain-linked fence in the side alley and opted to climb over it with parts of his fingers sliding in the holes. While over the top of the fence he attempted to send Thura a message that he had arrived, but the message failed to send. When he dropped down on the other side of the fence, dark water splashed up—it was up to his ankles. Red held his phone tight and used the flash light feature to scan his surroundings.

Strangely out of place, thick lines of cables slithered up and down the side of apartment complex like a python. He tracked them and saw that they led to a hole covered by wet plywood. Red pulled back, feeling how brittle it was, it snapped and fell apart with ease. As he made his way inside, the hall was dark. His eyes and mind betrayed him. The thick python-like cable slithered along the ground deeper inside.

He crept through the darkness touching the wall with one hand and illuminated the path with the light from the phone in his other hand. Thunk. Thunk. Is that… my heart? Thunk. He felt his chest. No. The thunking came from down the hall. He inched further in and heard little scratches emerging from behind a dilapidated door on the right. Red flashed the light at it.

The door was on its side, off the frame and hinges, partially drowning in the ankle high water.

This was someone’s home. Deformed like the hallway, the apartment had mundane things, couches and other furniture out of place, floating and broken. There’s something there, moving in the water. He took one step in with his light and tripped over the large cable that ran down the hall. Red fell onto his knees and caught himself with his hands splashing into dirty water, it spritzed at his face. Agh! A sharp pain cut into the ball of his right palm. Red swung his hand out of the water, looking at tiny shards of glass that had cut into the gauze—blood and dirt seeped into the white’s of the wrap. When he looked up, he saw a wet and furry creature scurry through the water—swimming deeper into the apartment. I’m bleeding for a rat. Wincing, he pulled out the shard of glass—sharp, but not too deep. Not life threatening, only hurts like hell.

“Over here.” A spine-chilling whisper came from the hall behind him. Red got up, flashing the phone light through the empty door frame.

Nothing, but the wall—but something was slushing, quickly, through water. Red peeked his head around the frame of the door and down the hall, only to see complete darkness where the phone’s light didn’t reach—but ripples signaled movement beyond. The thick cables felt out of place. The serpent leads the way, he thought about the long coiling neon creature at the Serpent’s Box Casino Hotel.

Red continued on, careful in his step, and made his way back outside to a square courtyard. An old and rusted playground lay at the center with a giant tree, slanted, half-way horizontal. The square of the courtyard had him surrounded on all four sides by the complex. It was dead quiet, but still—uneasiness crawled inside his coveralls, touching the hairs of his skin. Almost unbearable, Red sought cover behind the rusted slide nearby. His head spun. He felt eyes through the many windows that peered down at him, as if he were trespassing.

Then he heard it again, repeated splashing sounds—someone was nearby and giggling? Red turned, but was rushed hard into the dead tree. His back rocked against the sideways trunk and his vision swung up to the night sky. He almost fell backward and over, but reeled himself and lurched forward forcing all his weight on his legs—swinging at nothing as he came back up. Red spun around, looking for the source of his torment. It was quiet again. Beside him hung dead crows and rats on a branch, Mom used to tell me about those that lived up in the mountains, hiding away, waiting for the dark—waiting to kidnap children who were still awake. As Red got closer to the hanging animals—the dead crow cawed to life, wings flapping like it was trying to escape its hanging. Red flinched, slapping at it with his bleeding hand. It was dead, it swung back and forth, lifeless—but the stinging in his hand worsened.

Feed the flame—scared or not, people are counting on me. Red shut his eyes, breathing in, despite the despair of silence in the air and the heavy weight of the hundred black holes surrounding him at all four sides. The past day and a half had been the most intense Red had felt since the night of the accident. Other than work and the occasional visit to see his sister, Red spent most of his days in his bed—scrolling QuickGram, or watching the sunlight fade into the evening and then the night. He dreaded the fact that Yui may never wake up—but also the day that she might open her eyes. He’d have to stand before her and face her with all his guilt and shame. That no longer mattered now. What mattered was making sure that future was still a possibility. Red knew the world would continue to spin with or without him—he knew that each step he made may change very little, but it was better than taking no step at all.

Even if he didn’t have all the answers, he’d move forward.

It was hope that fed the flame.

When Red opened his eyes, it was like the darkness had retreated, and the eyes went away, no longer bearing down on his shoulders. He found the thick cables slung around a see-saw, and continued onward. The coiling snake, lead down some steps and into a pool of murky water that covered the bottom. Red had no way of knowing how deep it went, but the cables sunk into it. Stagnant water inside an abandoned building usually spelt danger—chemicals, rust, and flesh eating bacteria. There was a chance this was mixed in with ocean water, not necessarily making things much better.

Red sat at the top of the wet steps, zipping up to the very top of his collar, and digging the hem of his coverall’s into his boots. He stared at his bleeding hand for a moment, the gauze had soaked in most of the red. He ripped part of the gauze from the opposite wrist and tied it over his palm. None of this guaranteed protection from anything lurking in the water, but it’s better than nothing, he thought.

Red took his time, each step down brought the water up, until he was submerged up to his chest. He kept his hands and head above the disgusting pool, lighting the path with his phone, and felt around for the thick cable with his boot.

Nala’s warning about the witch in black, turned up in his mind, a similar story that his mom had told him when he was younger. Ostracized outcasts that lived in the deep mountains where the trees covered light, they were rumored to perform some sort of black magic and were cannibalistic, eating the livers of the living villagers—children could sense them coming, they’d cry and cry, until they were silent with fear. These witches were possessed by a ravenous spirit, hungry.

To Red, it all sounded sad in the past.

His lower body was squeezed by his wet surroundings—he tried not to think about the floating particles, or any witches lingering in his mind. Red trudged forward avoiding plastics and other debris. I hate this, a lot. Red held the phone tight in his hand, careful not to drop it under—but his foot lost the cable and found a dip instead.

His leg was stuck.

Red rotated his hip, attempting to lift his boot, trying to free himself from whatever it was underneath that held him. A hole? Flipping holes! He felt his foot rotating, counter-clockwise, sinking a little deeper in, each time he tried to pull out. Come on, come on! I’m so close! Panic crawled up his leg, as he made ripples and splashes, and dug his available hand into the water gripping at his thigh for leverage. He held his scream in at first, but it came anyway. First in short grunts, then in full on disarray of ahhs and aghs!!!

At the end of the murky hall, a dark and slim figure stood in the same dirty pool of water. The tall figure had a long gray beak. The eyes were perfectly round with no pupils, just a glass of black, staring back at Red. He was still screaming, still shouting. And it responded with a finger, in front of its beak, hushing him. Red’s voice was cut out as hundreds black feathers floated toward him.

It’s all in my head…

A hall of wet feathers.

Then his ears caught the water bubbling beneath him and he froze in place, peering down toward his own chest. The glassy black eyes, and frowning face of a pale woman, stared back at him.

Red jerked backwards, splashing his whole body into the water, including the phone. It’s all in my head, it’s all in my head, he repeated in his skull and thrusted back out. He broke the surface of the murky pool. It was a dead fish, rotted, with white eyes staring at him. In a way, his mind had become clearer, the water was cool—he rushed through the hall not caring about where he was headed, or that his body and head had been covered in whatever was in the water. Wading through the mess until he reached a set of steps, Red fell over them, breathing heavily, and grasping at the corner edges —coughing up.

Is that… music?

———————

Red climbed out of the water, dripping wet. He walked into strobes of lights attacking his eyes. The bass boomed and bounced between the walls of the flashing room—it reminded him of NerVANA. Not a single footstep or his own breathing was audible, masked under the scratchy bass.

It was a large space, maybe an old cafeteria or recreational center for the apartment complex. Long communal tables and chairs were scattered about. Pillars paralleled each other to the other end of the room, where Red saw a cluster of monitors with different locations of the apartment featured in each square screen.

Monkey was seated on her swivel chair, locked into her bulky metal headset that covered her eyes, with her head drawn back on the chair.

Red encroached, slow with each step—focused on her. There were no thoughts. The bumping of sound between walls made his brain hurt. He balled his fist halfway through the concrete room—it reminded him of the unfinished portion of the arcade. The concrete, unfinished floors and walls, the tarp, and industrial lights. The muted flashing world around him made him want to punch and break.

Red saw Monkey mouth words shrouded in the bass of the music, the seeker, I know you are there.

What the fl-?!

Lanky arms wrapped around his side, a hunched man threw himself at Red and tackled him to the ground. No time to react, Red was in an offbeat wrestling match. His attacker salivated with orange dust powered at the corners of his mouth. Their hands fought for control over each other, until the stranger reached for Red’s throat—his breath seized, as he reached for the man’s arm, grabbing hold and looking him in his twisted eyes—he’s on Space Out.

He’s choking me with freaggin’ cheeto fingers?!

“I got you.” The stranger said, frowning underneath the deafening tones of the flashing concrete lair.