His works are in vain though, he did not wake up on his warm yellow bed or get to cook hsi favourite noodles for breakfast himself and continue on with his life and play with his best friends….his favourite people in the whole wide world, family he chose himself…a family that he actually feels close and loves, a family that habits broken children..a family that-

Like….

“Oh. My. [REDACTED]. God.”

Skyler mutters to himself, thinking real hard, but as always to no use.

He can’t remember his friend, or friends, their names..personalities… anything, it's like they’ve been ctrl+x’d, and he has no idea…how many friends did he even have, or by now, had?

It must’ve just been the halls, yep, the halls, they’re making him have dementia, and he’s afraid that if this keeps happening, he might forget his name.. (subtle fors-)

Friends have..always been a part of his life, a giant part actually, and he can't afford to miss any one of them..and that news makes getting out of here more urgent than ever.

He goes and tries to walk towards that invisible barrier again, or whatever was left of it. It’s like it was made out of air! (pun intended).. And…..a new twenty or so door, good, what was he expecting anyways? And…all of them except 1 or 2 had no knobs..

Well, there's really not an option, is there?[a]

The goopy slime on the floor really didn't help either…disgusting.

Then he chose one of the 2 doors…

It was old and decaying just like the others..

That..felt..familiar for some weird reason..

Before he prepared himself for the dangers and thrills ahead, he read the tiny tiny writing on that door..he didn't recognize the writing, it wasn't hi[b]s..his one was much more messy and scrawny.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“THALASSOPHOBIA” the writing wrote

Thalassophobia..? What's that?...it’s fear of something..apparently.

Oh this doesn't sound nice, not at all. But, after all, he has no free will in this torture chamber and it’s the only choice available…he deep br-wait no, don’t do that. Skyler closes his eyes and focuses for a few moments, concentrating on the surroundings and the sound of water dripping..dripping..dripping…

“[REDACTED] it..it’s all fake anyways.”

He thinks to himself, voice echoing through his mind..

Creak

[c]

The door opens, and it wasn't what he expected, and only then he remembers what thalassophobia means..fear of the sea. And when he opened the door, he saw..an almost opaque sea of scarlet, thick, and gooey liquid. It smells like metal and rust… The water has no borders, rising way over the door frame and somehow not spilling out. Is this a dream? He doesn't know by now. What was he even supposed to do? Swim? Somehow drain this?

After a while of just staring at this until his eyes hurt, (Skyler didn’t even register he wasn't blinking) he subconsciously reaches out for this liquid, putting his hand through the door frame, gazing into this red wall, feeling his hand get colder as the liquid came in contact with his cold skin, it was..warm. It was warmer than him, atleast.

Before he knew it..half of his body was in the red liquid and he was bathing in scarlet half-transparent goo. And when he realised and recovered from his weird hypnotised state, he panics and tries to reach for the door again, but being blocked, he feels like he cant even breathe, can't even move, just staring into the depths of this room, or what he could see of it.

He can’t speak, he can’t speak, he can’t speak…or think.

As he looks at the door (shut tight behind him) he swims and swims to get closer to it..

“FIND. BREATHE.”

The tiny messy handwriting on the door says[d]

But no, he can't, can't, can't, can't, c- his lungs fought to breathe, but the rest of his body refused to…and he wasn't dying, so far.

Skyler can only find…find what? he wasn't sure he needed to find.

“[REDACTED] this [REDACTED] PLACE!!”

He shouts, he knows that the liquid will gush into his mouth, and it did. He has o idea why he did that either. And only then he realised the mysterious red liquid was, in fact, blood. Concentrated blood..it was salty. It really was. It was always quite obvious it was blood, but he suppressed his thoughts, hoping this wasn't, holding onto that strand of hope wow, “hopeless hopeful” as they always said.

Skyler swims and the blood dyes his hoodie red..it was hard to swim in this set he had, but he did anyways.

He came across giant floating pieces of metal, a picnic basket, a piece of…human rib cage. All floating in this liquid.

He swam and swam.he wasn't a particularly good swimmer, but at this moment, it was like he was born a fish.

A few seconds later,he reached a table. The Same old wooden table he found the missing piece of picture he had on. It was much more decayed and very much red and bloody now, also he had just found that it was an old school desk of some variation. And on it was just 3 simple things.

A piece of a old polaroid picture...a part of what seemed like a wheelchair, and, a note, again.

Skyler blacks out.