After noting the existence of the ‘darkness’ Jacob made a quick and rational decision.

He ran.

Like a little bitch.

While screaming profanity.

Jacob sprinted away from the approaching darkness down the candlelit hallway, his bare feet smacking against the floorboards, his heartbeat racing in tandem with his legs being the only sounds he could hear.

However, a third noise soon joined the fast-paced symphony that was his escape.

The horrifying and distorted echoes of a child’s laughter.

Accompanied by a simple tune being hummed with a surprisingly pleasant melody.

As he ran, Jacob noted that none of the doorways appeared to be ‘openable.’

The candles continued to light his way as if guiding him toward a safe haven, or at least away from the darkness.

Unfortunately, as he ran panting down the hallway he came to a jarring realisation.

The candles, his only source of light, were getting further and further apart.

After coming to this realisation, he turned and was surprised by the increased loudness of the laughter, and the initially typical melodious tune was being distorted into something perverse.

Jacob’s face drained of colour. His heart hammered in his ears as he desperately ignored the burning sensation in his legs as he ran for his life.

All his bluster of taking the situation as a game was gone, along with his sense of reason due to overwhelming fear.

At that moment, he was convinced this was real.

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The sticky sheen of sweat covering his body and drenching his lightweight shirt, his burning lungs begging for air, and the hard floor beneath his feet convinced him this HAD to be real.

Many such realisations had the bad luck to come to people too late to be of any use, and as usual, Jacob was no exception to bad luck.

The combination of him no longer paying attention, his desire to go faster and his generally average physical abilities led to the worst possible scenario.

He tripped.

His exhaustion had caught up with him and he had no energy to continue his efforts at fleeing. His legs were shaking, tears streamed from his eyes while snot adorned the lower half of his face.

‘So, this is how it ends…’ he thought as a sense of clarity washed over him as he accepted his fate.

Then… The candle currently illuminating him was extinguished and all he knew was his own terrified screams and darkness as he curled into a ball and waited for death.

He waited.

In the tomb constructed for him, made of darkness and screeching music accompanied by that ever-present maniacal laughter.

And then out of the blue, like a rope being thrown to a drowning man.

He heard something.

“Hurry…” A clear voice whispered.

Jacob was startled by this voice that was in such blatant contrast to the music of the dark. Jacob searched the seemingly infinite blackness that surrounded him, whipping his head left and right in desperation for anything other than the laughter, the broken tune, and the dark.

At last, he saw something, it was faint, but he could see a light in the distance.

In this moment an interesting transformation came over Jacob, a man who had accepted death.

Who had no hope to escape and no idea what was happening or why, was offered only two things, a friendly voice and a light in the dark.

But that was all it took.

Jacob put every bit of strength he could muster into his body as the staggered up from the floor and began to move towards the only hope he had.

His escape was by no means graceful, it was similar to a drowning man pushing his rescuer down into the water in a pathetic attempt to get one more mouthful of air.

Everything from him getting up to running to the light was done in desperation, he stumbled in the dark and more than once tripped smashing his body into random bits of the furniture placed at the sides of the hallway.

But as he dragged his tired and bruised body the only thing that would not strike an onlooker as pathetic were his eyes.

They weren’t the calm collected eyes of a man in control.

Or the eyes of someone with the determination to stick to his ideals in any circumstance.

His eyes held a certain madness, that of a wounded animal that hadn’t entirely given up on survival and would throw everything into grasping that tiny chance of living another day.

And finally.

He reached the light.