Neve Emek: Room 102 - Part 7 of ?

7

I stirred awake with a gasp, my hands wrapping around my throat as if I were surfacing from the depths of the ocean, heaving for air. Eyes shot wide open.

For a short while, I did not know where I was. The ceiling above me was cloaked in darkness, the frame distorted and sagging, barely holding up something that should have long since collapsed down on me.

The walls loomed close, breathing foully, their patchy and mottled surfaces full of rot due to the damp air. I lay there motionless, utterly confused, my mind racing to understand and stumbling through fragments of memory as I finally recalled how I ended up here. From the airport’s harsh white lights, the train’s rattling windows, to the taxi driver’s stubborn refusal to cross further than the outskirts. Each image returned like the scattered shards of a mirror, until at last the truth arranged itself into something coherent, something that made sense to me.

Neve Emek.

Cold sweat trickled down my still body as the name of that place overtook my mind, the shirt clinging to my bare skin as though I had run a fever. A bead rolled from my temple down the side of my cheek and sank into the pillow, which reeked far worse than what I wanted to describe in these passages.

I turned on my side, trying to force my breath into a calmer rhythm, but the silence pressed in from every angle and suffocated me. Something had woken me. Something that no longer was here, inside. But what? The certainty of it gnawed at me, though I could not say what. No sound lingered now except the faint, insistent throb of my own pulse drumming in my ears.

But I was sure. Something had stirred me.

It almost sounded like… dragging.

The sound of metal scratching against the decaying floorboards, digging deeper and deeper into the rot, until it turned into a bone-chilling shriek.

I closed my eyes for no longer than a few seconds, forcing myself to chase the comforting embrace of sleep again, but behind the lids, a dull pressure now swelled. Unbearable. The thought wouldn’t leave me; it carved itself into my mind, as irrational as it was: why had I woken at all? What had been here that wasn’t anymore? What was that sound, even?

I rolled onto my back and fumbled for my phone; the glow blinded my eyes, too stark against the surrounding murk, but I managed to squint at the digits. 03:36 am. I had only been asleep three and a half hours. Now, sleep wouldn’t come to me. Not as easily as it did hours earlier.

That was when I recalled the last image of yesterday in my mind and sat up abruptly, my shaking gaze settling on the crumbling wall across me. It was gone. The doll. Then again, was it ever really there? In either case, it did not matter. What mattered was that something woke me up, and now I couldn’t sleep anymore. I had to check it out. Though the thought of feeling blindly through the corridors again did little to soothe me, it was either that or… lie here like the dead in their tombs and wait for it to return.

The air outside the covers wrapped me in clammy cold, pricking sweat into gooseflesh across my arms. I reached for my phone and let the dim glow stretch into the dark. Its beam caught swirls of dust drifting in the air, dissolving as quickly as it formed.

The door handle was cold to the touch when I closed my fingers around it and paused. Listening and straining my ears to catch anything out of the ordinary beyond the door. But there was nothing to hear, save my own irregular and shallow breath.

Then, steeling myself, I twisted the handle and stepped into the corridor.

Turning my head from one direction to another, a deep frown now formed between my brows as I tried to make sense of what had happened during the few hours I had slept. How was this possible? The entire corridor was darker than I remembered, darker than it should’ve been, as though the walls themselves had absorbed what little light remained and left nothing but a heavy, oppressive black in its place.

My hand found the switch just beside the doorframe. I flicked it up, then down again, once, twice, thrice – straining for even the faintest flicker. But nothing happened. Not even a spark. Then again, why did I even assume this place had a working electronic system? And even if it had, surely, the overhead lightbulbs were in no condition to switch on.

I advanced reluctantly, navigating my way through the murk. Each step forwards seemed to linger longer than it should, reverberating down the empty hall and returning to me as though someone else were walking at my back.

The first door I tried was stiff, the knob so cold it numbed my fingertips. I twisted hard, but the lock held firm and resisted with a groan, travelling down the corridor in a strange, amplified way, before spitting back in a low echo.

One door after another was either locked or immovable.

My phone’s glow stretched thin against the walls, trembling with every shift of my hand. In its quivering beam, the corridor seemed to bend at odd angles and distort, twisting even. Peeling paint flayed like scabs, water stains crawled down the walls in shapes that morphed into grotesque faces, and mouths were frozen open in silent howls.

By the time I reached the end of the corridor, my nerves were haywire and my distraught mind a jumbled mess. How come I found nothing? Not even a single—

A creak pierced through the silence.

My eyes stretched wide, frozen for a split second by the bizarre sound, before I whipped around and held my breath. My heart pounded hard against my ribs, faster and louder by the second, my mouth dry as chalk. Unable to calm down or ease my senses. Not until I saw where the sound had come from.

Down the corridor, not far, not even halfway, one of the doors I had already tried now stood ajar. It hadn’t opened for me, not an inch, yet now it hung cracked wide enough to show the blackness within. For a long moment, I could not move. Something about it pulled at me in ways no words could even come close to describing, causing a sudden tremor in my whole being.

My body decided before my mind did, and I retraced my steps.

The stench hit me before I even fully pushed the door open.

A sour odour that clawed down my throat and made my stomach churn. It was the smell of rot layered over waste, of damp stone left to rot, of pipes that hadn’t carried clean water in years. I retched in place, teeth clenched, bile rising in the back of my throat.

But necessity forced me forwards, one reluctant step at a time.

Overhead, a single bulb dangled on a length of cord, swaying faintly in the draft that seeped through unseen cracks. It was dead, no glow left in it, just the brittle rattle of its glass shell when I brushed near.

My phone’s flashlight cut a flickering arc through the dark, sweeping across the ruin: cracked tiles buckled from damp, streaks of discolouration running up the walls like the veins of a tree, each stain resembling something organic and animate. But it wasn’t these things that arrested me as I stepped further into what I could only describe as a restroom of some sort.

The only intact sink was slumped against the wall at a crooked angle, its porcelain riddled with cracks like spiderwebs, the edges sharp nubs. Rust ringed the drain in the colour of dried blood, thick and ugly, as though whatever water had once passed through it had taken pieces of it with it.

The faucet resisted at first, stiff, then gave with a groan, shuddering and coughing, before it spat from the tap with the stench of corroded metal and something more pungent. The thick stream of water, greenish-brown in colour, was so sour that I jerked back unwittingly, chest seizing, but then the water thinned and ran cold against the porcelain.

I dipped my hands under, the chill biting at my skin as I gingerly sniffed it. The sour smell had faded, as had whatever had caused the foul colour to form. What remained was the stench of corroded metal from years of still water inside the pipes. It wasn’t safe to use, not to mention drink. Perhaps the caretaker knew where to find clear water? I’d better ask him.

When I twisted the tap shut, however, it didn’t stop. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why it wouldn’t. The stream kept running and pooling into the basin. I turned harder, wrenching it back and forth until my wrist ached, but the water gushed stubbornly on. A strange tightness now pulled in my chest, rising with each second I failed to stop it.

Then… the water began to change. Again.

Slowly, gradually at first – then all at once.

It darkened and thickened, shifting back to that foul murk, until it became a sludge-like torrent that filled the sink with alarming speed, bubbling. It then frothed against the drain, lapping at the cracked porcelain lip, before spilling over and gathering on the floor. It all happened so fast, I had no time to react properly or process what was happening. Not fast enough, that is.

The stench was unbearable now, suffocating. It pressed into me, gagged me, clawed up into my sinuses until I staggered back, the foul water seeping inside my shoes and soaking my feet through. And then—

The door slammed shut behind me.

It was so violent that it caused the tiles under me to vibrate, driving the foul water into twitching rivulets and setting the bulb above trembling. Had I not held onto the cracked sink just in time, I might’ve lost my footing. But when I swung my phone wildly, slicing through the dark, towards the door, it was still cracked open. Just like I had left it.

My eyes narrowed as I took in the scene before me, unsure of whatever had just happened – if it had happened – when my gaze suddenly settled on the sink I was clutching hard. Dry.

I let go with a wheeze, hyperventilating.

The entire basin was empty, and the tap sealed tight. Not a drop was spilt over, nor was there any puddle on the floor. No evidence that it had ever run at all.

I staggered back against the wall as the realisation hit me like a punch to the guts, my breath coming out in ragged bursts, sweat crawling cold across my skin despite the heat. How!? How on earth…

Too out of it to think straight, trembling all over, I staggered out the open door and did not dare look back. All sorts of dire and macabre thoughts were racing through my mind to distort me further, but I pushed them all away and made it back onto the drafty corridor blanketed in pitch-black darkness. But as soon as I turned my back against the restroom door, something stopped me.

That sound again. The one that woke me up.

The shuffling.

Gulping hard, my glassy eyes unable to focus, I turned around.

Slowly.

Afraid to make a sound, to make a hasty move.

And my eyes narrowed.

There. Beneath the narrow gap between the doorframe and floorboards, a shadow shifted inside the restroom. A definite movement, not a trick of my unsound mind playing games with me. Then that sound again. Metal scraping against the floor. Scratching and shrieking in a morbid tune, drawing closer for every second I lingered here.

Every nerve screamed at me to run, to return to the safety of the guestroom, but I couldn’t move. My whole body was crippled, paralysed beyond repair. Like I was a puppet pulled by invisible strings, strings that controlled my every move, my every thought.

Then it came to a stop.

I held my breath, my feet finally staggering back.

It left, whatever it was.

I thought.

A sudden crash tore through the corridor as the restroom door burst outwards, the frame cracking and spraying splinters across the corridor as the hinges screeched, then tore free entirely, sending the door skidding past my feet. From the darkness behind the shattered frame, something heaved itself forwards – huge, uneven, its silhouette dragging against the dim-lit walls.

I staggered back, blinking. But not enough. My legs still wouldn’t listen to my commands, still wouldn’t do as I instructed them. All I could do was watch as the horror unfolded before me, drawing closer and closer by the second. But what was I even looking at? How to describe it without sounding mad?

It was made of fragments, of body parts that should never have been bound together. Overlapping stitches, dozens of human shapes pressed into one another as if they were one single entity. Some faces were visible only in profile, eyes closed, as if still in prayer; others blurred into the creature’s torso.

And its head, if one could call it that, was encased in a tarnished metal helm shaped like a tilted Khamsa, fingers stretched downwards instead of upwards. The helmet was engraved with eroded calligraphy of verses of the holy Qur’an, though the writing was incomplete and the verses incoherent in places. I recognised it almost instantly, my mind reaching deep into my memories of a time when my grandfather recited the Qur’an in the peacefulness of our home.

A massive metal blade lurched behind it, carving a jagged trench through the floor as though the floorboards were nothing but paper. It hauled the weapon with a slow, grinding pull, each movement accompanied by a metallic shriek that shot up my spine.

Then it straightened.

Not like a person rising, though.

Its spine snapped into place with a brittle, jerking motion, the movement so sudden the air seemed to recoil from it. The warped metal helm tilted, as if listening to something I couldn’t hear.

Then—

Without warning.

The blade arced upwards in a single motion, rising with impossible speed despite its massive weight. The air didn’t just whistle – it fucking screamed, a thin, tearing sound like something ripping under water. The very air around the blade arced, the corridor’s lights flickering as if afraid to illuminate the swing, as dust billowed up in a choking cloud, fluttering like ash.

My lungs clamped shut as it all went down in a rapid sequence of events. It felt like the thing had cut the air itself, severing the breath right out of me. I hardly managed to process what was unfolding before, unable to focus.

Not until it lunged. Straight at me.

I wrenched my eyes away almost instantly, forcing my feet down the corridor, barely managing a stumbling near-run. My heartbeat hammered so wildly it felt broken, slamming against my ribs with enough force that I swore it would rip out of my skin any second.

The corridor became distorted as I fled, everything blurring except the knowledge pounding in my skull: I couldn’t slow. One misstep and it was all over. But finding the exit, the stairwell going around the obstacle ahead was impossible in this darkness – if not feasible. I couldn’t risk it. Instead, I directed my flickering eyes to the right side of the corridor, searching for the guestroom like a madman, the scraping sound behind me overwhelming all my senses and forcing them on high alert.

It was around this time that I noticed belatedly that I no longer had my phone with me to illuminate the corridor. I must’ve lost it during my flight, somewhere down the corridor behind me. Even so, there was nothing I could do about it now. I couldn’t turn, not even look back over my shoulder. Not until that thing stopped pursuing me. What was it even? Some kind of ghost? Entity? Or—

The guestroom!

My hands were slick with sweat as I fumbled to slide the key into place. It was like my hands had forgotten how to function. When at last the lock came into place with a harsh clack, I pushed the door open and locked it, stepping away without taking my eyes off the door. Waiting for something to happen. For the door to burst into pieces. But nothing happened.

That was when I noticed it was gone. That shuffling.

Still, I wasn’t convinced. I did not budge, not even for a second, for several minutes. Just listening and waiting. To be proved wrong.

But nothing happened. Nothing at all.

I doubled over and gasped for air, only now realising I had been holding my breath this entire time. Relaxing, although still not fully convinced I was safe. Thousands of thoughts were racing in my head, each one worse than the other. My first thought was to flee. To escape this place. But what if it was still out there? What if it waited for me to make a mistake and fall right into its trap? For now, it seemed, the guestroom was the only safe place to be. Though I did not understand why that was. Why had it failed to come here?

My eyes unwittingly drifted to the hole in the wall.

Blinking. Frowning.

Something moved. Inside that room. Beyond the wall.

I advanced.

My whole body trembled as I drew closer, crouching to take a closer look inside through the gap. My shaking hand resting against the thin wall, unable to ease, my quivering eyeballs fearing the worst.

I peered inside.

Sitting atop the crumbling bed was the humanoid creature, its sharp blade as heavy as lead tucked at its side. Its helmet-like head was turned towards the gap in the wall, dropped low, as if it knew I would be there. Then—

It stood up, the metal blade falling to the floor with a loud thud, the eye of the Khamsa locking onto mine without hesitation.

I backed up. Waited. Listened.

But not for long.

The air behind the wall thickened, pressing against my skin as though it carried the weight of something monstrous. I arched my brows, unsure of what was going on, when my ears suddenly rang with a low hum, a vibration that seemed to come from nowhere.

Then came the first scrape.

A long, dragging sound that rattled through the walls.

Another followed, louder, slower this time.

I held my breath, every fibre in my body screaming at me to run for it. To flee before it was too late. But my feet were frozen to the floor. Paralysed. Still, I tried hard to make my body listen, to move. Even so, it felt like I was stuck in place, rooted in cement and unable to budge.

That is… until a violent, unnatural shudder split the wall, bending inwards with a wet, splintering crack, so that dust and fragments rained down in a choking cascade. I couldn’t believe my eyes! The wall bulged like it was made of flesh, pushing towards me!

I stumbled back from the shock and tripped over.

That was when the walls stopped moving. Just like that. As if I had hallucinated it collapsing just seconds earlier! Like I had lost my bloody mind!

Before I could recover, however, the wardrobe burst open with a violent snap, and a swarm of critters poured out. Cockroaches. Dozens of them. Their legs skittered across the floor like a thousand tiny claws, surging towards me before I could crawl away, scattering over my arms, my chest, my neck.

I slapped at them, clawed at them, but more kept coming in waves. They climbed inside my clothes, under my collar, down my sleeves, and across my cheek. I shook violently, twisting on the floor, trying to peel them off. But one of them managed to shoot straight towards my mouth.

I gasped in shock and rolled over, my face flushing and turning blue, as the critter forced itself deeper into my throat, suffocating me. My gag reflex fired violently in response. I retched, coughed, clawed at my neck, tears streaming from my eyes.

Panic drowned out every other sensation.

The room spun.

I managed to scramble to my feet, stumbling towards the door, throwing myself at it. It didn’t budge. Not even slightly. I fumbled with the lock. The keyring slipped from my grasp as I did. By then, my vision had become so blurry that I could no longer discern the keys from the floorboards.

My breath came in shuddering bursts around the critter lodged in my throat, my nails scraping uselessly at the doorframe, at the handle that refused to turn. When I staggered towards the window, my vision now tunnelling, the first thing I noticed was the frost crawling across the panes in thick, white lines. I had to seek help! If not, then I—

My fingers burned as I pressed my palms to the frozen glass, smearing it with streaks of heat from my breath and tears, as I tried to shout for the caretaker. But all that came out was a strangled, choking rasp. The glass was too thick. I had to open it. Now fumbling with the latch, coughing, retching, the creature inside me withered with every heave.

The latch gave way.

And then…

Everything stopped. I felt my throat repeatedly, trying to find a trace of the critter despite breathing normally now. Even the walls behind me had stopped moving and pulsing violently. What…

My hands trembled as I blinked at the frosted window. In the mess of smeared condensation from my laboured breathing and desperate fingerprints, a clear streak cut through – just wide enough to see out.

The burial grounds unfurled beyond, bathed in the pallid glow of the moon. The headstones stood rigid, their shadows stretched and contorted into crooked silhouettes like an army in eternal formation. And there, exactly where I had seen the open grave before – a movement.

It was the caretaker. But what was he doing there, in the dead of night?

I froze as my breath fogged the glass, unwilling to blink or look away. Then, too suddenly, he straightened and his head snapped upwards, face tilting towards the frosty window. Even at this distance and angle, despite the depths of darkness, I saw his eyes glint as he met mine for a split second, and I dropped back at once, pressing flat against the wall, heart hammering in my ribs like it wanted to break free.

The pane of glass was so thin, the frost so fragile – had he seen me? Or had the veil of ice concealed me just enough to trick his brain? I didn’t know. All I knew was the sound of my laboured breathing and frantically beating heart. And in those harrowing moments, all I could do was count each beat of my pulse, each shallow gasp of air.

Seconds stretched into minutes like this.

When at last I dared another glance, sliding low towards the cleared streak of glass, the graveyard lay still in all its eeriness. This time, the caretaker was gone, and only the disturbed patch of soil where the grave marker was supposed to be remained as proof he was ever there.

The frost had reclaimed the window once again in those few minutes, sealing my view ahead, but my eyes still lingered on it. Sleep was impossible now, even in this standing position. Every time I shut my eyelids, I saw the caretaker’s face turned upwards, those eyes glinting in the moonlight, or the creature that had pursued me down the corridor, charging at me with its heavy blade.

So, I lingered near the window. Hour after hour, rubbing fresh circles into the glass and staring out at the burial grounds. On high alert. Ready to flee the second I caught anything unusual in the stillness.

The gravestones seemed to me to shift in the shadows as though they leaned closer whenever I blinked sleep away. Like they were alive and watching me – just as I was watching them. And each time I wiped the glass clear, I expected to find the caretaker or that creature standing there, shovel in hand, staring back at me. But nothing of the sort happened.

Now and then, the wind stirred the branches and frost cracked faintly against the glass, every sound jolting through me like a nail driven into my chest and my body bracing with each flicker of movement.

And like this, the night stretched thin and black morphed to grey, then purple and orange. By the time the first smear of light rose over the horizon, I was still there, stiff and shivering in front of the window. For the first time in my life, I was afraid, afraid of what my mind was capable of. At the same time, I wasn’t fully convinced I had only seen things. That my mind simply came up with stuff to scare me witless.

What I saw – what I thought I saw – maybe they were all fragments of a truth this place was desperate to hide. And if that was the case, the caretaker knew more than he let on. I had to get to the bottom of this mystery. Before whatever haunted this place got to me first, that is.

To be continued...