'The Chamber of Silence': A Story by TheNerdyDeviant

The chamber was dark, and the droplets falling from the broken water pipes above were the only things to be heard. Oscar was paranoid, scared and unaware of the reason. He stood in the dark, damp room, staring at a series of rusting old bars that were fixed in a concrete wall. He watched into the distance through the miniature space in between the lumped bars, but as he observed, it only got darker and darker until he was sure the world around him had completely vanished. The only thing assuring him he was still standing in the damp chamber below his newly-bought house was the tapping of the droplets on the cold, concrete floor. “Tap, Tap, Tap”.

Oscar Cray blinked and his eyes focussed once more. He now saw something new to his eyes: a single, dangling padlock. Frightened beyond belief, (yet, without clear reason) Oscar Cray tapped the decaying lock with the very tip of his finger… and the lock cracked – his ears rung and spiked as the sound from the cracking lock pierced the near-silence of the room. Oscar repeated to himself out loud, “I’m not crazy… I’m not”. As he spoke, he immediately wished he could stop, as the ringing in his ears grew stronger as sounds were introduced to the room. But, he had to keep reminding himself – because, if he didn’t, he was sure he would be become just that. It felt to him like an entire eternity had passed while he stood there on his slightly-numb feet. He was still watching the lock and as soon as he blinked, the decaying lock crumbled and was soon merely a small pile of dust on the concrete. He lightly pushed the metal grill forward towards a tunnel of emptiness. It scraped and crunched on its barely existent hinges. The chamber was no longer silent, and Oscar welcomed that. Once the malevolent, metal grill finished its piercing screeching as it opened and finally clashed against the inner concrete wall, Cray took a step forward; his ears were flinching – almost like they were begging for him not to go any closer. Cray, as scared as he was, continued closer… one step at a time.

His leather shoes splashed and dipped as he stepped into puddles with each step. He shook it off and continued forward. He was so close now that he could smell the odour coming from within the concrete-laced tunnel. He couldn’t see anything anymore; the darkness from within the cavernous tunnel filled his eyes until nothing but darkness could be seen. Curiously, within the blackness of his retina, images of severed flesh morphed into his vision. They danced in his sight as his brain tried to create some sense from the devastating and ineffable blackness.
The odour could only be described as… maleficent. The tunnel stank of sewage and reddened skin. Oscar took a large whiff and slowly walked backwards. He started to imagine growls and groans from the deepness of the burrow-like passageway. The groans grew louder and louder, and in synchrony, Cray thundered up the staircase at the opposite end of the chamber. He cracked each step as he climbed them, still, while the groans grew louder… and closer. He got to the top of the staircase, turned to face the inner chamber, gripped the decayed wooden door and slammed it. As almost in slow motion, as the door was shutting, Oscar zoomed in on the droplets from the pipes – which he now noticed, was blood that was dripping from a severed arm that was jammed in the pipe. He flicked his eyes towards his shoes that were now covered in deep red blood. The puddles in the chamber were gathered droplets from the blood in the pipes. A sudden strike of groans escaped through the crack in the door as it finally shut. Oscar jumped in fear and ran from the house where he’d murdered every member of his family reunion that he was holding and hid them in the deep, cavernous passageway in the chamber below the house. He didn’t mean to hurt them, and he didn’t remember doing it, but they just wouldn’t stop scraping the cutlery against their plates. His ears hurt and burned on the inside as a result. His consciousness disappeared and something else took over. For, what felt like months, he was trapped in the head of his own body as another entity did his actions for him.
He continued running down the gravel path from his house up to his bordering fence and didn’t stop. Passing all the cars his family had arrived in, he felt a sudden punch of grief and, instead of running away and hiding for the rest of his life, he ran to the nearest open police station and turned himself in. They locked him up… and he never wanted to leave.