Have you ever sat in a dark room with
no sound? Close your
eyes for a moment and picture it. A cold floor. Stone or concrete or maybe even metal. You can't tell where
the walls begin and the floor ends. You can hear the air move around you if you stop
breathing for a moment, but if you stop breathing you can't tell if you're really there or if this is just a
dream or
hallucination. If you stop breathing, you won't know if you're really alive.
This is the room in the back of our minds. The absence of everything except your thoughts. No one should be there with you, but you can't tell if those footsteps are yours echoing in the confines of the space or someone else's footsteps in this never ending cell. Is that hair on the back of your neck yours? Are you sure? It could be a bug or a cat or even another person.
You only hide in the back of your mind to relax. Turning on a waterfall in your imagination is easy. If you lie down on the floor of the room you can pretend you're listening to a tape of nature sounds and meditate. The floor warms to your body's heat and the silence no longer roars in your ears.
DRIP!
Where'd it come from? Where's that noise? That's not a waterfall, that's a single drop of water! Are you sure it's water? It could be anything. Water, grape juice, tears, blood... it could be anything. This is your mind, not mine. I don't dwell here. You already know what it is, why you're wet, why you're trembling and sweating with fear... this is the room where you meet your monsters, not society's.
Now, just like I said. Close your eyes...
This is an original work written for the Scary Stories Quest.