It was in one of those abandoned houses in the woods, forgotten by time, a secret passage only my father and I knew behind a shelf. Behind the shelf was darkness, and behind the darkness was a small staircase that led to the main source of my nightmares, The Crow’s Lab. What I have seen down there is something so terrible that no one should live through it. Almost every night, for a whole year, my father would wake me up in the middle of the night and hand me a flashlight.

The first night when he woke me up, I remember being very confused and a little bit scared.

"Don’t be afraid, Adrian; your dad is going to show you what he was working on."

My father was a lot of things: an artist, a pianist, and once he was a good father as well, but since that day he has stopped being that. I always loved hanging out with him. My mom was always busy; she worked in a mental hospital, and she was almost never home, but my dad was always there. When I would get home from school, I could see my father working; he was painting or playing the piano. I would always join him. I loved doing everything my dad was doing; he was my role model.

But one day, when I would get home from school, he was almost never there anymore; the piano was covered in dust, and his brushes were left dirty and untouched. A couple of times I saw him sneak out of the house at night, and he would come back very late. I never mentioned that to anyone; I didn’t want him to get into trouble. I was old enough to assume that he was probably having an affair, and if someone found out, his mother and his father would probably get divorced. That would destroy my life—the life I got used to living. If I only knew that the secrets my father was keeping for himself were scarier and more destructive than the ones I was thinking of.

The first time he woke me up and told me to follow him silently, I listened to him and went with him. We got out of the house without saying a word or making a sound. When we got out, the moon was covered by a giant cloud, and darkness ruled the night. We turned on our flashlights to help us move faster in the dark, and we headed towards the forest.

He was in the lead, and I followed him. We went to an old abandoned house far away from anyone and anything. It was so deep in the forest that it took us 30 minutes to get there. I remember how thirsty I was after the long walk. Everything was covered in darkness. I was afraid, but I trusted my father, who told me to get into the abandoned house, and without thinking much, I entered into his domain.

The windows were covered in layers of dust; they looked like a solid wall and not like windows. The old wooden creaking door was filled with holes, and the air was heavy with a bad smell of decay. Meat hooks were hanging from the ceiling, swaying gently left and right. The wooden floor was covered in dust, except in places where you could see where someone was walking. My father pointed his finger at a shelf tucked away in the corner of the room. There, on the floor, by the marks left, I could see that it had been moved many times. He pulled on the shelf; it groaned in protest, and behind it, a hidden passage leading downward was revealed.

The passage is narrow and dimly lit by a flickering bulb, creating dancing shadows on the uneven walls. As I descended the stairs, the air got colder.

"Now slowly, Adrian, hold your hand on the wall."

I did as I was told.

After a brief walk, I found myself in front of a metal door that was holding back the screams of the person behind it, and when my father opened the door, the voices came out, asking for help and mercy.

I stood at the entrance. I didn’t want to go in.

"Come on, son," my father looked at me with a smile on his face, "don’t be afraid."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Once again, I trusted him; after all, he was my father. A mistake that will haunt me forever.

The door opens up into a spacious basement. Wooden shelves line the walls, but instead of holding meat, there are only old jars covered with dust left. In there, there was only one source of light, and it was directly pointed at the person who was tied up to a stool. Blood was everywhere, on the person's face and all around him on the floor. I could see that he was missing one eye and that some of his toenails were pulled out.

"Let me show you what I was working on," he said, looking so excited to show me. "This is ART. This is the real art. It took me so many years, so many books, and so much research, but finally, I found the truth. Look. Come closer. My new project."

I had never seen him like that—so happy, so excited.

"My new project looks And I know how you liked doing many different projects with me in the past, so I thought, why not let us do this together, son?" He hugged me, I felt sick, and the person on the chair stopped screaming.

"Of course, people don’t know that this is me, but they already gave me a pretty good nickname, The Crow. I love it! Do you know why, Adrian?"

He waited for my answer—an answer I didn’t know.

"Do you know the answer?"

Silence. I was too confused and afraid to even try and guess; I didn’t know what was going on.

My father didn’t like that. The smile on his "nice face" disappeared in a second. He was mad, and his face became red.

"I ASKED YOU A QUESTION! Now ANSWER ME! DO YOU KNOW WHY THEY CALL ME LIKE THAT?" he slammed his hand on a small table next to the stool that had many different tools on it. The tools were scattered around the floor, and they made a terrific noise. The guy tied up on the stool started screaming again, even louder. My father turned towards him and slapped him so hard that he stopped screaming again, and he turned to me. I felt like he was going to hit me now.

"N-n-no. I do not." I somehow pulled the words from my throat. My eyes started to tear up.

"It is because," he continued with his normal calm voice, "after I’m done with them, I use this small hand tool to gouge their eyes out. I heard that the police think I do this to keep it as a trophy. But what they don’t know, and you are the first one to know this, is that you are so lucky that after gouging them out, I like to eat them while their screams still bounce off these walls."

The person on the stool started crying. "Please, let me go."

"I already ate one eye from this guy, and I decided I should let you, my son, eat the other one. It will be much more fun to do this together, don’t you think?"

He didn’t wait for a response. He picked up a small knife from the floor and stabbed the guy in the eye. He pulled it out, and blood started to gush out. The guy lowered his head; he looked like he was dead.

"Now eat it, son, while you can still remember his screams. such a beautiful sound." I started crying. "EAT!"

He shoved the eye down my throat, and I ate it. It didn’t take me long to start puking all over the floor.

"It is okay because this is your first time, but for the next time, you better not waste any of it, understood?"

I could only nod my head. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare as I watched my father drop down on his knees and get the pieces of the eye I just puked and ate them.

My own father, a well-respected person in the town, had such a dark secret that no one could believe him, even if he told someone.

Then, my father took the same knife he used moments ago and stabbed the guy in the neck.

"We can go home now; I will clean this tomorrow; he will be safe here."

I watched from the entrance how he turned off the lights, and the shadows and the darkness swallowed that man whole in a second.