It was always the same; she was walking up a path, to a house that seemed so familiar, and yet so different at the same time. She knew she should stay away, but despite her internal protests, she kept walking. She would open the door, and enter into a kitchen. It was such a normal kitchen, much like the rest of the house. The normalcy of the room was almost surreal. In the kitchen, stood a small wooden table and chairs, set out for six. Every item in the kitchen seemed so traditional, and yet it felt so homely; personal. Photographs littered the walls, the faces blurred beyond recognition, like looking through a fogged mirror. The corridor leading to the sitting room seemed too long, and too thin. More pictures blanketed the otherwise bare walls; the majority of the faces were blurred out, but the odd few could be seen. She would walk down the corridor, peering through three open doors along the way.
The first lead into a cosy looking sitting room, an open fire glowing in the wall opposite the door, and two armchair’s, one slightly to the left, one slightly to the right, faced it. A cup of tea sat steaming on the small table that stood between the two chairs, directly in front of the fire. She never ventured into the room to see who sat in the chair, instead her focus lay on the upholstery of the arm chairs; it was an old pattern, with something incredibly common that she could never quite place. The walls were much the same, as was the carpet. Nothing else, bar a large Book case, occupied the room.
The second lead into what she could only label a den. It was smaller than the sitting room, but it didn’t feel as cosy. It was colder, and left goose bumps on her skin. It contained a scruffy looking sofa, made of dirty brown leather, with chocolate brown fluffy cushions; something she wrinkled her nose at. A glass coffee table stood in front of that, and an armchair was parked at the head of the table. On the other side of the room, stood an overly large TV. She never saw the walls of the room, it was dark, there were no lights on, bar a dull glow from the TV, the kind that occurs when it is first switched off, and it doesn’t quite settle to black straight away.
The third room was a bright white bathroom, a stark contrast to the den. The lights were bright enough to give her a head ache. Despite the pain in her head, she never squinted. Her eyes stayed wide open as she scanned the room. Pristine white tiles lined the walls, a white claw-foot tub in one corner, a shining silver shower head attached to the wall above the tub. A matching sink and toilet bowl, also pristine, clung to the wall opposite the bath. There was nothing personal about the bathroom, not that there ever is in the average bathroom, but this room wasn’t even homely, it was clinical.
From there, she would walk down the remainder of the corridor, and reach a staircase, with a fourth door to the side of it. She always ignored the door, and moved straight for the stair case. Every footfall felt rehearsed to the point she didn’t need to input. The corners of her vision weren’t in focus, as though she was slipping out of consciousness. She would walk up the stairs painfully slowly, and once at the top of the stair case, she would turn left on automatic. By now she knew what was beyond the door ahead of her, and even though she would scream and shout and cry at herself not to open the door, she always did. She would stand in the door way and take in the sight before her, still screaming, still crying.
A man stood in the room with three young women tied up before him. He would eye each one in turn, trailing his fingers over their bodies. Brennan could see one girl tugging and struggling to move against her binds, while the other two stood rigid. There features were blurred, and the expressions on their faces appeared almost animated, smiling or frowning like a constant parade of traditional drama masks. She watched as the man moved closer to one of the girls, his lower body blurring with hers as he invaded her personal space. He saw her face over his shoulder, the mask of her expression stretching, the eyes opening into pools of black, tears pouring like rain, her mouth widening in a scream. The other two girls in the room mirrored her expression, and the faces began to twist and stretch in a clock-wise direction, mouths and eyes widening, joining and twisting, forming a whirl pool of black holes and flooding tears, swallowing the scene in front of her. And she would scream. She would scream louder and harder than she had ever screamed in her life. She would tell herself to run, but her body would not co-operate, and she would stand as the darkness swirling before her moved closer, engulfing her.
And then, she would wake.
Apologies for spelling and grammer, i was in a hurry when i wrote this.
