I can't remember how many times I had been in that dimly lit hallway, whose white walls displayed a collection of paintings depicting fruit bowls, flower pots, beaches, and portraits of elegant ladies. They were displayed with pride, as if the owners of the place reveled in the raw and heartless technique that composed their collection. I found myself lost in that ever-changing, affluent hallway, wandering aimlessly. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find the end of that infernal structure. Until, in my tireless pilgrimage, my senses finally encountered something different: the sound of crumpling paper. That was all my spirit needed to be filled with joy, as it gave me signs of change and a concrete goal to aspire to.
Hurrying as fast as I could toward the source of that sound, I finally found what had intrigued me for so long: a door. I had reached the end of the hallway!
As I crossed the threshold of the door, the first thing my senses captured was the colorful floor, composed of ceramics arranged clumsily and childishly in a vain attempt to imitate a sunset. In the center of the room were a rustic table and a carved wooden cabinet that housed exotic and archaic figures. Combined with the crackling of the flames from the fireplace in front of me, it gave the impression of belonging to a forgotten era. In front of the fireplace, I noticed the hunched figure of a boy with anger on his face, watching as a rough paper was consumed by the flames. The legend on the paper proclaimed: 'We prevent their influence,' and was accompanied by the image of a man and a woman wielding firearms, fighting against what seemed to be a chimera with the head of a bear and the body of a bull. Unfortunately, I couldn't contemplate that image for long, as it was quickly consumed by the fire.
Having witnessed the result of his actions, the boy's figure headed to the house's backyard and settled into one of the deck chairs among the trees withered by the autumn cold. He turned on the record player beside him, and it began to play the melody of a piano from its mechanical innards. Its unchanging notes resonated with melancholy amidst the desolate image of the dead vegetation on an autumn morning. Surrendering to the atmospheric harmony, the boy was transported to a place where emotions and ideas danced in an eternal imaginary waltz. This sensation intensified when the violin made its entrance, drowning out any other sound with its strings full of despair. The boy even felt his own existence fade into the melody that now composed his world, allowing his spirit to cross the threshold of creation and merge with his will.
However, a loud noise woke him from his reverie. Jumping from the deck chair, he looked in all directions for the source of that horrendous racket, until he finally found something that caught his attention: the wooden hatch covering the attic hole had fallen, releasing its entire damp and dark miasma.
Reluctantly, the boy climbed the stairs and crossed the roof until he reached the fallen hatch, intending to place it back in its place so he could return to rest in the melodic paradise he so longed for. However, he made the mistake of looking into the unfathomable depths of the hole, which caused him to let out a scream of abject terror when he realized that behind the tenebrous veil, large yellow eyes were staring back at him impassively.
Blinded by panic, the boy stumbled as he tried to turn and escape. At that moment, fear was the only sensation shaping his world, composed solely of chaotic whirlwinds of disconnected impressions that paralyzed his body and mind. Even so, his senses perceived the sound of something heavy dragging against the stones, while the monstrous amber eyes seemed to grow larger. An orange light emanated from those eyes and spread throughout the attic hole to its cavernous entrance. The light was so intense that he had to strain to move his paralyzed arms so he could avoid being completely blinded.
At that moment, he felt something gripping his leg, dragging him across the floor toward the light. Desperately, he flailed his limbs in a vain attempt to escape. Amid his anguish, he bit the creature holding his leg captive and discovered it was a cyclopean reddish-gray tentacle. However, he didn't have much time to comprehend what was happening, as from the depths of the hole; an immense screech resonated, bringing with it three more tentacles.
Another scream of fright escaped his lips as he crawled clumsily, his face reflecting his fear. Struggling to stand up and run without tripping, he descended the stairs and returned to the garden. In his flight, he pushed his record player and knocked it to the ground.
Once he managed to escape that cursed house and reached the street, the boy stopped to catch his breath. Wanting to ensure that no one or nothing was following him, he turned toward his house and sighed in relief upon confirming that he hadn't been followed. However, as his mental state improved, he began to notice that something wasn't right.
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In the streets, there wasn't a single living being in sight, and no lights illuminated the windows of the houses. Not even the crickets or the birds filled the silence with their ancient melodies. A strange sense of desolation took hold of him, as if he had entered an empty and uninhabited world.
Madness began to overtake his reason again, fueled by what his eyes had witnessed. In the sky, a pure white expanse shone brilliantly, without the presence of the sun or clouds. Only five bright red stars cast their solitary light over the earth with indifferent splendor.
Seeing his reality crumble before his eyes without understanding why or how, his body could no longer withstand the nerves and collapsed on to the ground. He begged with tears in his eyes for it to be just a bad dream, a nightmare from which he would soon awaken. The feeling of helplessness and confusion enveloped him as he desperately longed to wake from this torment and find the peace he so craved.
But realizing he was still trapped in the same reality, he felt his hope wither and the idea of waiting for the monster to emerge from his house to devour him grew more present in his mind. It was in those moments of suffocating despair that he heard that melody again, the one that brought him so much nostalgia. The piano and violin echoed through the empty streets with great intensity and emotion, allowing him to escape his stupor. With his mind cleared, a single desire became present within him: to find the source of that music. He believed that by finding it, he could escape from the grotesque reality he found himself in or, at least, find a safe place to forget it. With no other options available, he set off in search of refuge for his afflicted spirit, using the music as his guide.
On his journey, he passed through streets filled with houses whose interiors were engulfed in unfathomable darkness, withered trees with trunks as dark as coal, and strange dark figures stalking him in the shadows, visible only from the corner of his eye.
His pilgrimage finally led him to the point where the music manifested with the greatest intensity. Before him stood a house that did not bring pleasant memories: the facade was completely overtaken by black fungi covering the peeling white walls. The fence guarding the facade was in complete decay, rusted and threatening to fall at any moment. Behind that decrepit fence, he could glimpse what seemed to be a dilapidated car, inside of which a viscous dark substance bubbled like a geyser. All of this, along with the plants gnawed by ants, constituted the decrepit image of the front garden.
Reluctantly, the boy opened the gate and, avoiding the liquid shadows spreading across the ground from inside the car; he crossed the dilapidated threshold of the front door and entered the hallway. It was dimly lit by an orange glow coming from the adjoining room, where the music he sought resonated more strongly. He walked to the end of the hallway and entered the orange glow, arriving at the dining room.
The decay caused by humidity was even worse there. Black stains and white mycelium seemed to cover every corner of the room's walls. The rhomboid-patterned tiles were full of weeds and exuded the same dark liquid found in the front yard. The wooden furniture was infested with mold, and their structures had completely collapsed, except for a bed in the center of the room. Next to it was the object he had been searching for, his record player! However, he was unable to approach it due to the terrible presence in the room.
On the feather duvet, two ethereal amber antennae, similar in shape to the sensory tentacles of a slug, observed him with impassive persistence. When their gazes met, a change occurred in the atmosphere. The air became heavier, making it difficult to stand. But the most unusual thing was the strange waves, like water ripples, that distorted the space occupied by the duvet. In the center of those waves emerged an immense marble column engraved with golden veins. At its upper tip, the creature's amber antennae, devoid of a head, observed him stoically. A pair of large, reddish-gray tentacles extended from the sides of the column, while two white-feathered wings emerged from the golden veins on its back. From the lower end of the column, a voluminous snake tail covered in blue scales mockingly swayed over the bed, now completely destroyed.
The boy collapsed to the ground, his hopes shattered upon realizing he had fallen into the enemy's trap. He felt overwhelmed by anguish and intolerable helplessness as he faced his inescapable fate, guided by a demon capable of bending reality to its will. He could only scream what was harbored in his enraged mind.
“Why are you tormenting me like this?!...Why did you bring me to this place?!... If you so desire to kill me, just do it already! I won't resist... I'm... tired of all this.”
The only response he received was silence, as the two antennae of the creature, which until now had been watching with great attention how the boy wept inconsolably on the ground, cursing his life, noticed the growing presence of the liquid darkness seeping through the floor tiles.
The entity observed how the pools of darkness expanded with unusual speed, accumulating around the boy, creating some kind of portal beneath him, causing him to slowly sink into an abyss of infinite shadows.