The Corridor

The rusted door clangs shut behind you, locked -
and the echo dances down into the distance.
You stare into the perspective, a blank
claustrophobic corridor of black bricks,
not like obsidian but like soot, or dried blood.
The walls seem to undulate, but you realize
it is merely the feeble flickering of
the few candles drooping from the arches.
You smell a rank rot; it permeates your senses.
You take one step, and hearing a heavy breathing,
wheel around - ah...! It is your own.
You are alone. Yet you do not feel alone.
Slowly, afraid to make a sound, you push at the door -
there is no handle of any sort - but it does not budge.
You turn around and strain your sight, but
the light is too dim, and the narrow tunnel
too tapered - oh, too terrible! You tremble.

You attempt to recall something, anything about
what has befallen you - in vain, for your
last memory is of drifting off to sleep peacefully -
o cursed sleep! - in your lover's arms.
Your heart kicks in your chest - it is merely
a dream! You pinch yourself, hard, and your
YELP! resounds into the chasm. Looking down,
you realize that you are naked as the walls, and
your skin is spiderwebbed with scratches.
A sob lunges through your lips, but the hundred
piteous replies stuff it back into your throat.
You choke, and check above...behind...nothing.
Every bone in your body shrieks at you to stay still,
yet somehow you know that safety lies
only at the other end...if at all.

One step - careful, tentative. Another step -
small, forlorn. A third, a fourth, a fifth.
A sliver of a shiver runs up your spine, like
a knife tickling its way towards your neck -
you are being followed! Shaking, you force
your head around, but the door, a cadaver's
length away, stands solitary and silent.
Unable even to blink, you move forward once more,
alternately glancing behind and taking a step.
You reach the first candle and slide to the side to avoid
its flame. A stalagmite of wax has stacked upon the path.
The slight warmth reminds you how frozen and
brittle you are, and in the dark your foot falls
in a puddle - a chilled and viscous puddle.
Your eyes lock on your legs, now sprinkled with
a rich redness that writhes in the candlelight.

You freeze. You must scrub it from your skin, yet
you cannot bear to! So you stand, clasping yourself
for a length of time measured only by your
haggard heartbeats, like a panicked pendulum.
A raw determination grips you - you will live,
you will escape the horrible corridor! - and you
move once more. Half an eternity later,
your eyes can no longer distinguish a door behind
you, nor ahead, and only scarlet footprints
betray which hell you've descended from, and
which is gaping, waiting to damn you.
A laugh! A merry, mocking crescendo!
Amusement of the most manic tenor!
You answer, mimicking the madness with
a wail of dismay, a howl of horror.
And suddenly your legs are churning, heavy
as they are, breaking into longer strides
with each step. There is no more laughter.
Your rabid gasps drown you in waves of
confused wind, beating you from every direction.

You are abruptly aware that the corridor is narrowing -
it is now not even the span of your arms.
There is nothing behind you. You slow to
a walk, your breath eccentric as your thoughts,
and then spy a deviation - a single brick,
purely white, a foot wide, spanning the width
of the passage, a step ahead of your feet.
You stare. You extend a foot to touch it -
then hesitate. It is white. It must be pure...
but perhaps it is a trap! Perhaps it will unleash
droves of demons, salivating for your soul. No!
You must not, nay, you cannot touch it.
Reluctantly, you step ahead, and as you raise
your eyes, you see...light! Glorious light!

Another hundred steps and the dancing stars, so
blinding at first, have resolved into a milky way
of shards - mirrors! Broken mirrors littering the
tunnel with light, a fractured fantasy of fragments.
And across them, no more than a dying breath
away, another door! Rusted, rotting, but containing -
oh joyous day - a hardy handle!
But to reach it, to cross the sharp shards,
you must hold your breath and walk.
Each step - a dozen nails - a dozen knives -
a scattering of sanguinity upon the stones.
You scarcely feel the bites, but almost across
your strength seeps out of the caverns in your
soles - the catacombs of your soul.
A last leap, and - God be praised! - you spill
to your knees mere steps from the threshold.
Conjuring your final shreds of courage, you arise,
carrying your cross, and clamber to the handle.
Drawing a concluding breath, your terrible torture
about to be terminated, you turn the handle, and -
cold metal on your neck, hot hand upon your hip! -
a monotone mutter in your ear! - "you lost."


-3/3/10