Chimerical [ii]

 
Part 2

The smell settles like a layer of grease on your face. Your eyes are locked on the far side of the room, on the shadow crouched over. You put your hand up for the light switch, but it's gone. The wall, the door, is gone and the sudden emptiness behind you grips your pulse and squeezes.

"Wake up, wake up," you mutter.

The black surrounds you but for a faint glow from a weak streetlight, flickering  in a sickly dishwater glow a hundred feet away.

Something metal clangs in the distance, but you are still staring at the first shadow, trying to understand. You shift your weight, and your bare feet scrape on rough ground — warm dust, grit and something sticky.

The part that held the original shadow shifts, turns. In its grip, a grey gleam, a half face stares back.

You slowly stretch your fingers downwards, bend your knees and blindly feel for a potential weapon. Was that clanging a piece of pipe? The dust shifts, small pebbles, a dried twig... nothing. Your breathe in dirt and let your eyes crawl over what you hope is a trick of the light (the dark), what appears to be a grey skin taut across a half-skull in a permanent grimace. It has scarred tissue, no lips.

You scrabble and run, racing towards an industrial door beneath the streetlight. You need some space to understand where you are and how you got there. The handle and hinges are rusty but if you heave, you know it will open.

There's another clang of metal – this time, it sounds like it is coming from behind the door. You pause for a second, try to control your breathing.



** Readers' choice**

Do you open the door? Or do you turn and fight the skull shadow? Majority votes dictate the story, and there is no 'undo', so choose wisely. Part 3 when we get a few votes in.

Sweet dreams...