Dark Dreams: The Two Starcases

Picture a room about the size of a high school gymnasium. The walls, about 20 feet high, are all concrete painted a light gray. They are featureless save for a bank of small, embedded windows that go across the top, giving the impression that the majority of the room is underground. This sense is deepened by the fact that the only other features in the room are two staircases, also concrete, with the standard metal railings one would expect in an industrial setting. The staircases both go up to the same wall, one of the short walls of the rectangle, and both go down in the same direction, giving the entire space a near perfect symmetry. At the top of each stair case, against the long wall, is a single door, a large, metal thing painted the same shade as the rest of the room with the exception of polished steel handles and hinges.

Are you picturing it?

I'm standing at the top of one of the staircases. I don't know how I got there, but I know I was put there on purpose. I try the door next to me, and it's locked. Looking across the room, I can see the other staircase and the other door. They are about fifteen feet away from me, and for some reason, I'm sure that the other door is not locked. So I start down the stairs, and that's when I notice that the entire floor of the room is under about four feet of water. The entire room, expect for the staircases, is submerged.

The water is completely full of bodies. The bodies are the same gray as the walls except for the clothing and hair.

The water is not still. Instead, it churns slowly as if there is a source coming in from somewhere. I don't think the water is getting deeper, and I watch the staircases to make sure. Still, I know that if I want to get out, I will have to wade through the water. Through the bodies. I start to panic, and wonder why I'm being forced to do this. I start walking down the stairs towards the water, the entire time looking across the expanse of bodies, slowly shifting and sliding, each being gently moved along with the water.

I am about three steps away from the bottom of the stairs when I look across again at the other staircase. As my eyes trail back, I see that one of the bodies is face up, and his open eyes appear to be looking at me almost greedily. I stop, breathless, temporarily frozen by the gaze. I shake my head and tell myself to keep moving, telling myself that they are all dead. The eyes in the gray face staring at me roll back into the man's head, a small moan escapes his now gently smiling lips, and he shifts below the other bodies, engulfed by the water.

And I know that I was wrong. I know that not everything in this room, not everything in this water that I have no choice but to cross, is completely dead. Those that aren't...well, they don't intend to let me reach the other side.