Chapter 8:

Chapter 5

The Gate


He was back in the living room. The light flickered irregularly, periodically shining on the monster that approached him. The black lifeless eyes were completely fixated on Ben, the long black hair dragging across the bristle carpet. Behind the monster, John lay lifeless on the floor. The monster was now less than a meter away from him, reaching for him with its long, almost claw-like nails. The skull's eyes stopped glowing.The monster staggered back, and fell to the ground with a thud. A black hole opened under the monster, and it began to sink into it. Just before it disappeared again completely, it opened its mouth whispered a word, too softly for anyone except Ben to understand."Madam." 


Ben drowsily opened his eyes. His room was shrouded in purple light. The skull on his arm was grinning. Maybe Ben was imagining things, but it seemed like the skull's grin was a little less malicious lately, just as the nightmares had become less frequent.

Maybe it had something to do with the house.
It's getting late.
At some point, Ben had noticed that the light simulated the sun to some degree, and didn't always shine with the same brightness. It was always very subtle differences but sometimes it was a little brighter and sometimes a little darker. Now it was rather brighter. Yawning, Ben pulled on the shirt and matching pants that lay folded beside the bed. Every time he woke up, there was a clean pair lying there. They were the same clothes that Ron and Amare wore. The only one wearing something different was Claudia.
When Ben entered the kitchen, Ron was sitting in his usual spot reading the paper. Ben ate his breakfast in silence. Ron sat in the kitchen every morning until Ben arrived, but he was reluctant to speak. Not that it particularly bothered Ben, Ron was an asshole.
Ben couldn't describe it any nicer.
He didn't know exactly how long he had been here now, he had stopped counting days after a week. But in all the time he'd been here, he'd encountered no one in the seemingly endless hallway except Ron, Amare, and Claudia. However, Claudia was untraceable, he hadn't seen her for several days and Amare was seemingly avoiding him. That left only Ron. And he was not a nice person to talk to.
And so Ben spent the days mostly in silence, lost in thought with himself. After he had eaten, Ben set about his favorite activity, exploring the house. It's not like he could do much else.He had noticed after a while that every door was a little bit different. Sometimes the knob was a bit crooked, sometimes the wood had scratches in slightly different places. Relatively quickly he had been able to find his way around the house himself. However, he had not had nearly enough time to explore the whole house. The longer Ben looked around, the more convinced he was of the fact that the hallway really was endless.

Only rarely did Ben encounter a door that he could open. He had rattled hundreds of doors, but the only rooms he could enter were his room, the kitchen, a huge bathroom only 60 doors away from his room, and the seemingly empty room filled with Skargna. Ben still didn't know what exactly these things were. He had asked Ron, but Ron had only said."Living beings. What else?"

Nor was Ron willing to explain to him how to leave the house. After all, he had a new daily newspaper every morning. When Ben had asked Ron how he got out of the house every day, Ron had only said, "Through the door." Then he had gotten up and left the kitchen with a grumpy look on his face.
I want to go out.
The desire had grown in him over time. At first it was very small and easy to ignore, but over time it had swelled and now was hard to suppress. The once pleasantly stale air was less and less pleasant, he longed for the feel of a breeze on his face. He wanted to get out. But he didn't know how to go about it. The house refused to help him and asking Ron was as pointless as trying to fill a bucket full of holes, to the brim. But there was something else holding him back. Small and unimpressive compared to his desire to get back back to fresh air. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but he sensed that the answers to all his questions were not far away.

Sighing, Ben continued walking up the white hallway.