Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25089042-20140709072925







Sisyphus



      You wake up. The concrete ground is unnaturally cold, as if blanketed by a thin sheet of ice. It is dim and dusk-like. Carefully, you get up and stand. There is a door--and only a door--in front of you. It is painted white, a sharp contrast to the blood-stained walls. Behind you, you hear a cacophony of wails and moans that sound neither human nor animal but somewhere in between. The disjointed sound echoes louder and louder towards you like an approaching siren; it petrifies you.



      You force yourself out of your daze. One thought possesses you: I must escape. So you dash forward and slam the door with your shoulder, breaking down the entrance.



      You see stairs. You climb them, one flight after the other. Your pulse crescendoes.



      You sneak a look behind you. There they are. Half-lit, disfigured faces. A mob of gruesome hands, tattered in bloodless wounds exposing bone, reaching for you. You climb faster.



      Up. Up. Up. The stairs seem endless; you've lost count. There are no markers between floors. The horde of hands and voices trail behind you, inching closer with each flight. Their noise drowns out the sound of your footsteps.



      Fatigue starts to set in. Your tightened muscles feel like they're on the verge of collapse, of cramping up into twisted knots of flesh. But you continue to climb and run. You must.

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<p class="Body" style="tab-stops:439.35pt">      Finally, the stairs have stopped. They lead to a wide, empty floor without columns or furniture. The wall in front of you is a massive window made of translucent glass. You run.

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<p class="Body" style="tab-stops:439.35pt">      A finger scratches the skin on your nape. Their moans escalate to screams that assault your ears. A single misstep would mean the end of it all.

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<p class="Body">      Your legs scream in agony. Each step tears a bit of muscle fiber and sends shockwaves through your joints. Fire fills your lungs. You are almost there. A few seconds more to cover the distance to the window.

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<p class="Body">       Four. You expend all your remaining energy, as if you would never use your legs again.

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<p class="Body">        Three. You lean forward and brace your head with your arms.

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<p class="Body">        Two. Half a dozen hands claw at your back.

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<p class="Body">        One.

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<p class="Body">      You crash into the window, shattering the glass into a million fragments.

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<p class="Body">      For a moment, you are weightless.

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<p class="Body">      Gravity quickly catches up with you. You fall facing the sky, your back on the ground. Time passes slower and slower, almost infinitesimally so, reminding you of Zeno's paradox.

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<p class="Body">      Fragments of your life flash before your eyes. Memories float away like photographs in the wind. You see the sun rising above the concrete building you've climbed. The bright sky is cloudless and blue.

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<p class="Body">You think it's funny how the rest of the world seems unfazed by it all. Still, the sun shines. Still, rivers flow and mountains stand. The world is indifferent to pain, to horror, to love, to beauty, to meaning. The world is not human. It simply is.

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<p class="Body">      One thought resurfaces: I must escape.

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<p class="Body">      A whisper escapes your lips: "Why?"

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<p class="Body">      A second later, you touch the ground. It is instantaneous.

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<p class="Body">      Blackness.

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<p class="Body">      An infinite dark.

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<p class="Body">      Then, you wake up.

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<p class="Body">      The concrete ground is unnaturally cold, as if blanketed by a thin sheet of ice. <ac_metadata title="I&#039;m making a creepypasta for a friend - need feedback"> </ac_metadata>