(edited)

The suffocatingly dense thunder clouds disoriented my vision. towering walls loomed over me dripping the raindrops onto my already wet hair. The surrounding greenery took on a dark hue creating an atmosphere that the crumbling castle I was in could not shield me from. There was this fog that didn’t seem to be affected by the pouring rain that the clouds spat out, in contrast, I felt as if it amplified the sharp sound that the thunder and lightning gave out. It mixed with the scream-like whistle that the wind created from racing in and out of branches outside and stone around me. The combination of sounds created this harmony. A harmony without peace, unity, or tranquillity. A deadly false hope for the ill-minded to finally rest at ease which I almost fell for, just almost because obviously I am sane… actually, I’m probably better than you… The snapping of thunder shook me out of my trance. The coldness freezing my skin like water freezes into ice as I sat on the mossy stone now wet from the rain. I smelt decay but among it there was the aroma of the fresh rain that put my racing mind at ease.

My name is Zoe Quinn, or at least I think it is. I woke up in an abandoned looking castle that looks like half of it Is missing along with rubble and dust everywhere. I’ve got no memories, just this remaining unsettling feeling that laced the fabric of my being and my already torn clothes. An originally white shirt had stains of this wine-red, bloody colour mixed in brown patches of dirt. an old pair of stretched out, ripped jeans that still had broken off thorns and blades of grass woven into them. An old pair of worn out, off brand trainers that looked like they were about to fall apart from overuse. Why were all my clothes so dirty and ripped? Not to mention the blood… it was truly unsettling. it would have been fine if I were alone… I mean I promise I’m not crazy and I know I came here alone I just know that someone is watching me. I can feel those laser-like eyes burning my flesh, trailing all my sluggish movements as I attempted to stand. it makes me uncomfortable to say the least, but I was also exhausted. I don’t know why, it was all so confusing. I listened to my body and slowly placed my head onto the nearby moss that grew on the old stone. Right after I looked around that is… Just to make sure. My eyes shut as a raindrop rolled down my freckly cheek and my brain finally succumbed to the well awaited sleep.

I was dashing forward with speed that well exceeded my physical limit as I crossed the forest’s darkness created by shadows. My heart surpassed the speed I was running at and my legs moved with a mind of their own, trampling across any and all remaining life that might have been in the way. I felt an amount of adrenaline I have never before, enough to run as fast as I was and even faster, all to outrun the bone-chilling creature that was tracing my every step with increasing speed and precision. Everything was all so blurred… the looming trees, dark berry bushes, the rumbling thunder in the distance, all of it. I smelled decay that was being washed away by the pouring rain but also an eerily misplaced calmness that acted as a drug. My blood ran cold as looking back and forth frantically looking for that thing I was pouring in all my efforts to escape from. There was this ancient structure I failed to recognise in the short amount of time I was gathering my thoughts for. I heard crows in the distance mocking my every move and ridiculous thought as well as raindrops crashing onto the densely grown leaves above. I ran further and further into the depths of the forest, as far away from that crazy and dreadful place as possible, the place I didn’t quite recognise… why was I running? I don’t know that, but what is very clear to me is that it is a place where evil, trauma and pure hell were made creating a void of sorrow that awaits its next victim. It screamed pain and the trailing, heavy footsteps also didn’t go unnoticed. They were dragging a red shadow invisible to the naked eye but also faster than light itself. I got a spine-chilling feeling… Something was really wrong, and the danger was obvious but there was something that didn’t make sense. Where are all my memories? I didn’t get much thought on it as I felt a sharp pain shoot up from my leg. I tripped on something that felt unnatural, at least I think it was. Wind glided across my face as the icy rain pushed down on my body making me hit something stone like. My head bounced off the stone jolting my eyes shut tight. Next it was all just dark…

My eyes snap open almost instantly. Was it a nightmare? Whatever it was it scared the hell out of me, enough to make me shake from the bottom to top. The fear turned to panic accumulated in my body as I tried to stop hyperventilating. that dream… It seemed way too real, like I was already there and the details I remembered reached beyond that dream like the freezing oversized hand that gave me a little but violent push from behind, not a simple tripping. And those—those damn red eyes carved words with creepy precision saying words I didn’t Wanna know the meaning of. It was here too, I just knew it. I felt those eyes follow all my movements. I had to take a walk around to try and silence my mind and it wouldn’t hurt to know more about these ruins of the overgrown castle this was. Also, that gaze… I had to know what it was. I mean I’m not crazy I know someone is there I just have to prove it. I walked around the place trying to get familiar to my surroundings, every little corner, all despite the fear that made its way into my being. I walked on random paths and various entrances; some destroyed some not. Some placed pulled me in more than the others, just a feeling of familiarity and compelling darkness which I had no idea why, yet I followed the invisible demands. Eventually after a long time of walking around wearily, I arrived at a set of old rotting wooden doors in the ground, it looked like an entrance to some sort of basement. The lock that once guarded this place was all covered in rusted orange and the chain snapped off with obvious force. This black unsettling aura was almost pouring out like an overflowing glass of water. That’s when it hit me, what I thought was a simple recreation of hell from my mind wasn’t. it was a flashback of a forgotten memory and that was more terrifying than the increasingly burning gaze on me that I could still not pinpoint the source of or shake the feeling of.

I pulled at the door with more effort than needed making me stumble back with a gush of old, stale air meeting my face. I don’t know what it was, but something called me down there… like a voice that embedded itself In my head telling me to descend into the unknown. The cobblestone wall surrounded me as I carefully tread down the stairs, it had this creepy texture and the bumps and cracks reminded me of a unsettlingly realistic face with a smile that haunted nightmares. Each and every stone called out my name in amplified echoes as if trying to warn me over and over again to stop and turn back around, but the echoes resonated through my brain in the worst way possible making it impossible to make sense of the words through the knot of voices that was created in my head. It created this pain that felt extremely overwhelming. Why won’t they just shut up?! I slammed my palm over my ears not realising my overgrown nails were digging into my scalp drawing small droplets of blood out. I run down those cursed stairs trying my best to escape those walls and block out the gut-wrenching, deafening screams that came from somewhere outside those wooden doors, although, at the same time, if you focus hard enough, it was so silent I could hear the little waterdrop from the outside rain quietly splashing against the Gray dust below, that also began to accumulate in my lungs, or the little tip taps of mice scrambling across the floor from one side to another fighting for food. I slowly took my hands off from my ears and looked around, I noticed that under my fingernails there was blood, but I was too distracted by what I saw to care. A dungeon. that’s what this place was, once used for torture now empty with just a dark presence as a reminder of the hellish acts committed here. It was a long but tight path that guided from the stairs to the darkness ahead. I tried but couldn’t see what was at the end. it could be the fact that there was no light in here except the sunlight that barely even reached half way. It came from the wooden doors that now glared almost mockingly, telling me “you should have turned back when you had the chance to”. I was still stood at the bottom of the staired, not yet brave enough to take that step forward. I looked around and into the cells that were to the sides of the path, they had chains hanging from the ceiling and rotting straw in the corners. What a horrible place to be in.

Something was awfully familiar about this, almost too familiar… the voices that I heard came back along with the haunting presence that I swear is everywhere. The cobblestone still yelling at me and the darkness ahead making me paralysed with panic. My heart started to race along with my mind with thoughts that felt foreign to me. It made me mad, insane even like I know I’m not crazy, but I can’t take it! I curled into a ball on the wet stone floor rocking back and forth, back and forth trying my best to block out the deafening, but fake noise. My skin didn’t feel my own, it felt like it belonged to that horrifying thing that loomed in the darkness. It made me want to rip my skin off but before I could do anything I ran out of time. My pain turned into screams and yells but were blocked as if they just couldn’t escape… my throat was blocked off by something that felt like a balloon being blown up making it increasingly difficult to breathe. I couldn’t make it out in my panic, but I felt this uneasy weight coat my shoulders and arms. I turned around wanting to run away but like the door supposedly conveyed to me: I lost my chance to run the second I descended those stairs. The weight made me fall to the wet stone below with a thud and then the worst happened. The stairs I wished I could run back up and out of got smaller… and smaller... and smaller. I was moving backwards, getting dragged back with a speed I didn’t expect. The opposite direction I wanted to go, however, each time I snap my head in any and every direction no one was there… just more and more darkness that enveloped my being in an unwelcoming and frightening calmness. It hurt…