Post by PASTIE on Mar 19, 2007 23:01:45 GMT -1
PASTIE found himself scrabbling on the floor like a rat.
Something was stirring in Corridor 4. There was a buzzing like a low persistent tinnitus in his head. PASTIE might have been convinced that it was only in his head were it not for the occasional jolts that had shuddered through the floor and walls and caused the cans to roll and the foul bucket to topple over.
Now, again, came the jolt. This time it was more violent than before. Above him, the chandelier not only swayed but the bones within it rattled. An ancient decayed tooth dropped and bounced on the floor alongside him.
PASTIE’s instincts were running wild. Something within him knew that the pending darkness would be absolute. Through the impenetrable darkness, he somehow sensed that the floor, the ceiling and the walls were being sucked together by the vacuum which was closing the corridor like an artery being clamped closed as a heart fights to beat through a slammed shut valve. The same threat of annihilation swept upon him.
And PASTIE found himself scrabbling along the floor like a rat.
Panic. In this vortex there was no sound, but the silence told him that the faster he scurried along, the faster his reality was being deleted behind him. His knees slithered through dog ends and his knuckles swept aside the cans and the bottles. There was no time to preserve the worldly goods, the ‘Netherworldly’ goods, now so familiar to him. He simply scampered for safety without any knowledge that it was attainable.
Then the floor simply gave way. Or maybe it wasn’t there. Or maybe it spun him round. Whatever the cause, the reality for PASTIE was that suddenly he was tumbling through dark air. As the wind’s breath brushed his ear, his hair, his eyes, his tongue from every direction he had no sense of whether he was spinning or being sucked along. Had the darkness finally caught up? Was his Prowling terminated? Had PASTIE himself been deleted?
A surprisingly soft thud brought PASTIE back to a sense of orientation. The floor was beneath him. There was the dark and the still air. Nothing, yet everything, seemed familiar. He felt safe, comforted, even optimistic.
Somewhere, high above, there came the sound of doors opening and closing. Was this it? Was this the rescue, the liberation, the time to step forth into bright sunshine and sparkling air?
Suddenly, PASTIE was peppered with falling ten pence pieces. He cowered, until their rattling ceased and he was gently caressed by the snowflake descents of a thousand cigarette butts. Another door opens and slams, and a bucket comes sailing down through the darkness. A pause and another door moves way above. A huge shadow plummets towards him. PASTIE dives clear, narrowly avoiding impact and being sprayed with a fine cloud of foul smelling liquid.
Squat, turgid and dank on the floor, Pete’s sofa all but steamed.
A final clank from above, and the skeletal chandelier came swinging into view, gradually settling to a slow, gently spinning pendulum rhythm.
“Bugger”, said PASTIE. Hope was gone.
More doors opened and shut.
“So this is Corridor 5”.
He was already on his way to acceptance of this new fate as the soft thuds of human forms impacting came from all around. PASTIE sat and waited.
Once again, The Prowlers were coming.
Something was stirring in Corridor 4. There was a buzzing like a low persistent tinnitus in his head. PASTIE might have been convinced that it was only in his head were it not for the occasional jolts that had shuddered through the floor and walls and caused the cans to roll and the foul bucket to topple over.
Now, again, came the jolt. This time it was more violent than before. Above him, the chandelier not only swayed but the bones within it rattled. An ancient decayed tooth dropped and bounced on the floor alongside him.
PASTIE’s instincts were running wild. Something within him knew that the pending darkness would be absolute. Through the impenetrable darkness, he somehow sensed that the floor, the ceiling and the walls were being sucked together by the vacuum which was closing the corridor like an artery being clamped closed as a heart fights to beat through a slammed shut valve. The same threat of annihilation swept upon him.
And PASTIE found himself scrabbling along the floor like a rat.
Panic. In this vortex there was no sound, but the silence told him that the faster he scurried along, the faster his reality was being deleted behind him. His knees slithered through dog ends and his knuckles swept aside the cans and the bottles. There was no time to preserve the worldly goods, the ‘Netherworldly’ goods, now so familiar to him. He simply scampered for safety without any knowledge that it was attainable.
Then the floor simply gave way. Or maybe it wasn’t there. Or maybe it spun him round. Whatever the cause, the reality for PASTIE was that suddenly he was tumbling through dark air. As the wind’s breath brushed his ear, his hair, his eyes, his tongue from every direction he had no sense of whether he was spinning or being sucked along. Had the darkness finally caught up? Was his Prowling terminated? Had PASTIE himself been deleted?
A surprisingly soft thud brought PASTIE back to a sense of orientation. The floor was beneath him. There was the dark and the still air. Nothing, yet everything, seemed familiar. He felt safe, comforted, even optimistic.
Somewhere, high above, there came the sound of doors opening and closing. Was this it? Was this the rescue, the liberation, the time to step forth into bright sunshine and sparkling air?
Suddenly, PASTIE was peppered with falling ten pence pieces. He cowered, until their rattling ceased and he was gently caressed by the snowflake descents of a thousand cigarette butts. Another door opens and slams, and a bucket comes sailing down through the darkness. A pause and another door moves way above. A huge shadow plummets towards him. PASTIE dives clear, narrowly avoiding impact and being sprayed with a fine cloud of foul smelling liquid.
Squat, turgid and dank on the floor, Pete’s sofa all but steamed.
A final clank from above, and the skeletal chandelier came swinging into view, gradually settling to a slow, gently spinning pendulum rhythm.
“Bugger”, said PASTIE. Hope was gone.
More doors opened and shut.
“So this is Corridor 5”.
He was already on his way to acceptance of this new fate as the soft thuds of human forms impacting came from all around. PASTIE sat and waited.
Once again, The Prowlers were coming.