//------------------------------// // Sink or Swim. // Story: This Old House // by Undyne Devotion //------------------------------// I must’ve dozed off in the basement, the whole world was black once more. Cold careless abyss inching over my body at a leisurely pace, my muscles tense and my chest tight as I could make out nothing in the world around me. The phone gone from my grasp, a part of me wondering if it was there at all? I could hear an odd thud from upstairs, the darkness was calling to me again as if mocking me with faux hope. I was scared to see what horror the abyss had in store, yet with a weary heart I forced myself to my feet before limping towards the steps. Hands against the wall gently caressing the cool brick outline, I took slow steps upwards using the wall as a prop to not fall down the stairs in a bone shattering crash. Each step felt as if I were walking through wet cement, each step feeling as   if it were sapping the air from my lungs. The house was pitch black as I entered the hallway again, the eerie creak of the door behind me coming to a close. This darkness was thicker and far more heavier, the whole world feeling as if it had more gravity. I could just slump over defeated, slowly dragging my legs across the house towards the kitchen. Poking my head inside my mind was a haze of emotions, my body being pulled downward lower and lower. Eyes gazing to a figure sitting at the table in reflection, she wasn’t ‘The Pale One’ she seemed far more less human. I could not make out her face covered in shadows, nor could I see her body completely. She was simply ‘Hollow’ in detail, missing pieces from herself that would make her complete. I just stood against the wall watching in awe, her slender hand pointing behind me in a unbroken silence. I spun around to find the world falling away under my feet, I was falling backwards as if thrown out of a plane. I wanted to scream but could not afford to do so, my body so weak and helpless as I hit the floor like a ton of bricks. Eyes making out the sofa in the living room, had I been flung a few feet away into this area? I whimpered in pain the gravity much worse, I couldn’t lift my head nor even twitch my fingers. I was being crushed into place upon the floor, I was being compressed and crunched like a bug among heartless humans. Eyes darting up to the sofa in front of me as wicked dark violet heels clicked on the floor beside me, a figure of the night crossing long slender legs in a smug fashion. She was ‘Midnight’ itself, wearing a flowing wispy dress of shadows that seemed to ebb in and out of reality. Skin a darker violet hue that was flawless and that of perfection, she wore glasses of hellish flames while lovely violet umbra hair was lifted into a seductive style. She seemed familiar yet distant, she was I but not me. The doppelganger casting soulless icy eyes upon me in disappointment, lips pursed in anger as she searched for the perfect words to speak. “Pathetic.” “Hideous.” “You seem so helpless, yet desire no aide?” She flaunted a delicate hand towards the front door, it swung open as an icy chill cascaded into the room. Eyes widening in shock as my exit was mere feet away, I needed to lift my body off the floor. Out of the darkness and leave this place, yet every inch of my body was that of a thousand pounds. “Weak.” “Lift off the floor girl, the door is open.” She slowly kneeled down beside me in a curious gaze, watching in delight as I failed to lift even an inch off the floor. “Of course you can’t, you need others to carry you. You fail at being strong because you’ve never lifted, you’ve never broke free of the chains holding you down.” I could feel the air being painfully pulled from my lungs, my body being crushed under the immense pressure of the night. Shadows drowning me in a shallow wave of despair, the open door before mocking with pale blue moonlight. “They are gone now, sink or swim.” Midnight lifted upward with ease watching from the shadows as I let a groan of pain escape my lips. “They can’t hear you, only you can save yourself” My body suddenly gave way to the pressure around me, bones cracking loudly as I screamed in pain. My body was sinking into the wooden floor, I could gasp in horror as my cheek seemed to sink inside. My skin was becoming wooden and cold, my body flattening as the bones within were shattering. “Sink, I see?” Midnight shook her head side to side, the front door slamming shut as it locked tight. I could only moan in agony, my skin melting off the bones into the floor. My skeleton becoming nothing, my body hollowing out in a sickly gurgle of pain. Midnight lifting a sharp heel onto the back of my head, pressing down swiftly as I was soon being devoured by the shadows. Crushed under her heel, like the disgusting bug I’ve become. A horrible crunch of my skull inward, I found myself pulled into the abyss. I was floating in a icy prison with no escape, I desired to find the end yet could not find the will to search it out. I was lost in this nightmare, the red glowing hue in the abyss watching. Humming aloud with an unblinking gaze, cradling me back down to earth where it would bask me in hellish light. Morning would soon be here, the cameras around me... Always watching, always watching.