I opened my eyes. A sudden thud woke me up abruptly; I lifted my head from the pillow, confused, and looked at the window of my small apartment to realize it was still the middle of the night. I rubbed my eyes to clear my blurry vision and noticed that I had left the window open. It must have been the wind that woke me up, I was sure of it. We were in the middle of winter, and I had even gone to sleep without any blankets (as I usually hated sleeping with them), so it made sense that the combination of these factors had caused me to wake up. I approached the window to close it, satisfied with the personal theory I had come up with, but the moment I crossed the dark room of my bedroom, something caught my ears.

From outside the door of my tiny apartment, from what I assumed was the stairwell of the building, a scream—a most anguished and painful scream—reached me.

I turned suddenly, and as I turned and my brain registered the scream, it was abruptly cut off.

At that point, the theory I had constructed fell apart; it was the scream that had woken me up, not the wind. But why the scream? Who was screaming at this hour? It was the middle of the night...

I moved to check the phone that I had left charging all night, mainly to figure out exactly what time it was. After pressing it a few times, I realized something. "Off? Impossible, I swore I..." I had kept it plugged in for hours; how could it not have charged at all?

After a quick check, I came to a realization as I tried to turn on the lights in my room. Everything was off—could it be that...?

"A blackout," I said to myself, trying to give some confirmation to my theory: the power was out.

I turned again toward the door, thinking about the horrifying scream I had heard coming from outside, the one that had essentially woken me up. First the scream, then the blackout—what the hell is going on?

After a few moments of indecision, I came to a conclusion—I had to investigate. This wasn't normal; maybe it was some group of kids messing with the building's electrical panel. Either way, I was becoming slightly nervous and needed to know what had happened.

Quickly (ignoring the fact that I was still in my pajamas), I threw on my jacket and slipped into my shoes without even putting on socks; it was going to be a quick check anyway.

I immediately opened the door to the building, and as soon as I stepped outside, I was surprised by two things. The first was how the entire complex seemed as dark as pitch; I couldn't see anything even in my immediate surroundings. It was as if my eyes were permanently shut. At least in my apartment, I had the window reflecting the night light, but here it seemed completely dark, which was... unusual. The building had windows, and I didn't think they were ever closed, but at that moment, I couldn't focus on that—I was more concerned about the loud thud echoing through the hallway, along with the overwhelming humidity in the air. I was confused and didn't move an inch from the door of my apartment; I needed a light source because I couldn't see anything, and I was sure I would slip on the stairs.

 I didn't know how to express my state of mind at that moment, but I was overwhelmed by a sense of anxiety, in addition to the disgust from the thud in the apartment. I didn't know what was happening, but it was giving me the chills. I quickly went back into my apartment; I didn't have a light source, my phone was off, and my trusty flashlight wasn't working because I had run out of batteries for it just yesterday and had promised myself I'd buy more. I made a desperate move, but it was the only one available. I grabbed a vintage candle that one of my uncles had given me as a souvenir from one of their trips. Although I had used it as a decoration, I knew it also worked practically. I took out one of the matches I always used to light my cigarettes and, with a quick strike, I was finally covered by the glow from the candle itself. Finally, I had light, and a wave of security washed over me, but I had to hurry. Candles eventually burn out, and besides that, my subconscious was urging me to figure out what the hell was happening and to do so quickly. So, I hurried out of my apartment to find out what was going on.

I quickly stepped out into the hallways of the building, maybe too quickly, because with excessive force (probably the result of a surge of tension), I slammed the door of my apartment shut. The impact caused my candle to go out immediately. I didn't even have time to observe my surroundings before I was plunged back into darkness. With newfound courage, I took a few steps while pulling out another match to light it. Under my shoes, I felt a strange... substance, as if I were stepping on slime; I could hear it in the sound of my steps and feel it in their texture. This motivated me even more to light the candle. Finally, I managed to strike the match and light the candle again. That's when, looking around in the now-illuminated surroundings that I hadn't been able to see before, I realized where I was, the source of the smell, and what had happened to my building.

I looked with disgust at the wall I was leaning against and exclaimed, pulling away in terror, "What the... What the hell..." Leaning against the opposite wall, I turned, and with a scream of terror, I backed away quickly, inevitably falling to the floor. As soon as my hands touched it, I instinctively jumped up, slipping multiple times.

The entire environment was a disgusting sight: walls, ceiling, and floors were completely covered by a fetid layer of rotting flesh, an intricate tangle of organs, veins, and pulsating arteries. The tissue writhed disturbingly, as if it were breathing, while the slimy substance on the ground was actually a collection of organs scattered around, creating the horrendous sensation of walking inside the guts of a monstrous being. Every surface in the building was coated with crushed organs that throbbed and squirmed, giving the oppressive feeling of being inside the stomach of an indescribable horror. This sensation was intensified by a nauseating odor that penetrated my nostrils. Overcome by sudden nausea, I quickly got up, my head spinning. I grabbed the candle, which was almost slipping from my hands, and in a moment of pure panic, I turned towards the door of my apartment, which had now become non-existent, camouflaged by that slimy, rotting flesh.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I didn’t know how to describe what I was feeling, except as an intense sense of horror. Not even under the light of my candle did I feel safe; in fact, lighting it had been a mistake in the first place. Before I could even take a second to catch my breath from my discovery, I felt something wet on my pants, disgusting veins with a serpentine motion were trying to grab me. At their touch, I quickly tried to shake them off, “Let go of me, damn it! Let go of me!” In freeing myself, I fell to the ground, and in a moment of pure weakness, I could only feel the panic of my situation. There was only one option: to escape, as quickly as possible. I got up quickly, and clutching my candle tightly, I began to flee toward the only destination that came to mind—the entrance of this now infernal building.

The escape, although I wasn’t really fleeing from anything other than the building that surrounded me, was difficult, and with great effort, I descended the stairs, which were now covered in that rotting tissue and served as a slippery surface, making it hard not to slip. All the while, I held onto the candle, my only fixed source of light, knowing that if it were to go out, I would have no chance of defending myself. Defending myself from what, though? I didn’t know; this entire scenario seemed to have come straight out of a nightmare, something infernal, like a paranormal purgatory into which I had been thrown without any fault. My heart raced as I sped through corridors, bloodied and stuffed like a can with guts, and if one of my main concerns was not to slip or let the candle slip, as it would go out with a strong impact, the primary one was not to get caught by the various veins and arteries, which like hungry creatures did everything they could to capture me. Lying on the ground, they tried to make me slip in an attempt to immobilize me. I was agile enough to dodge them and panicked enough to stomp on those that dared to touch me, breaking them with the force.

Inevitably, I reached the entrance, but as I approached with quick steps, I came to a dark realization. I should have thought of it earlier, come to it logically. That slime... that rotting flesh had covered the entire entrance!

That specific area... I focused in terror on the ceiling, my fellow residents... I understood what had happened to them, and I also understood the origin of that scream. Their mutilated and rotting bodies, corpses being sucked into that infernal layer of flesh, were being consumed slowly, their blood draining. With total disgust, I dropped to my knees, overwhelmed by the revulsion, covering the area in front of me with my vomit, which instinctively shot out from my stomach and out of my body. The act was so instinctive that I didn’t even think about the candle I had been protecting so much; it suddenly fell to the ground along with me and, turning over in its fall, went out abruptly.

I took a few seconds to regain myself, and after those seconds, the realization of the situation I was in hit me—I was no longer protected by the light of my candle, the only light in that darkness.

It wasn’t just the candle that fell in that moment, but the last shred of security I had, but that... that wasn’t all. The moment I felt that cold, wet, slimy sensation on my body again, I realized that I had made more than one mistake at that moment. The first was completely depriving myself of the only light source I had, and the second was that I had just violated the only rule I had imposed on myself while fleeing through those corridors: not to stop, or the veins would grab me.

In the dark, in the cold, in the dampness, I began to struggle aggressively, but it didn’t help; even more, I felt strings writhing on my body like worms. I felt them moving on my skin, tightening in an attempt (which was succeeding) to immobilize me, and my movements became less and less agile. “Let me go! Help me! Someone help me!” I screamed from the depths of my throat, in a desperate release of my panic, “Let me out of here! Please!” My cries grew even louder when what I felt was no longer physical discomfort but real pain. I could feel them... but not see them, I couldn’t see anything. The veins and arteries tightened on my skin, to a point where I could no longer physically bear them. Besides that, I felt them creeping into my clothes and choking me, but before I could scream anything else, they entered my pores, leaving me breathless. My screams were silent as I helplessly felt them digging in and skewering me like a kebab, through my throat, eyes, nostrils, even ears. It was as if I were trapped in a state between life and death, as I felt the arteries moving inside my organs, as if nothing were happening, and I could only endure such torture, voiceless, paralyzed, and blind, my hearing overwhelmed by supernatural screams, as if the veins themselves were speaking to me.

After what seemed like centuries of torture and agony, something broke inside me, and I stopped moaning, staring directly into the void with open eyes. The pain grew so intense that I drowned in my red martyrdom.

----------------------------------------

Author Note:

Yup, another Oneshot! I know, really good with short stories, huh? I wanted to translate some of my old tales. :>

This story was originally written around one year ago for a Wattpad contest when I was still active in my Wattpad profile, it had to be a short story with the element "candle". The story is only available in Italian in my old and inactive Wattpad profile.

I decided to reupload it again here translated in English. I hope the translation is at least grammatically accurate, it would be pretty embarrassing otherwise!

Please, tell me if the story was enjoyable, I know horror is not very popular here, so I at least hope I did good for such a niche genre.

Be sure to comment or review, and give me your opinions, I would love to hear them! Also, if this was very enjoyable, check out some of my other stories!