Chương 231: Chapter 231
The door had always been there. No one could remember when it first appeared, or why. It was just a door—nothing special, no markings, no inscriptions, no hint at its purpose. But it stood in the farthest corner of the house, hidden from view, where the walls met the floor like they'd been there for centuries.
No one ever paid it much attention until the day Richard decided to open it. He was a curious man, always drawn to the unknown. Maybe it was because the house, his family's home for generations, had grown unbearably quiet over the years. The walls whispered less, the windows stared blankly out into the world. It was as if time itself had stopped.
That day, the house seemed even more oppressive than usual. The air thickened around him, the stillness felt suffocating. He had seen the door a thousand times, always ignoring it. But something about it felt… different that day. Maybe it was the way the light filtered through the cracked window, or how the floorboards creaked with an unfamiliar urgency. Whatever it was, he couldn't resist.
Richard approached it, the worn knob cold under his fingers. He hesitated, but only for a moment. Then, with a quick turn, the door swung open.
Nothing. There was no other room behind it, no hall, no closet. Just darkness.
But the darkness was not like the usual shadows that filled the corners of rooms. It was deeper, thicker, as if it swallowed all light, consumed it whole. There was no air here. Richard felt a chill crawl up his spine, but it wasn't from the cold. It was the kind of feeling that made your heart skip a beat, the kind that made you question your own senses. He stood there, staring into the void, uncertain of what to do.
He was about to step away when a force beyond his control pulled him forward. His feet shuffled, dragging him toward the abyss. He tried to fight it, but his body moved on its own, as though it had no say in the matter.
Before he could react, his legs crossed the threshold.
Everything changed.
The air disappeared. The world went silent, but not in the way a place might fall quiet. It was an absence, a void that devoured sound. The pitch-black space stretched endlessly in all directions, so complete that even his breath seemed to vanish before it reached his ears. Richard couldn't tell where he was or if he was anywhere at all. His skin prickled as he stood there, surrounded by the suffocating blackness.
The floor beneath him felt strange, uneven. He reached out, desperate to find something, anything to hold onto, but there was nothing. His hands met empty air, and his feet slid across the smooth surface. No walls, no floor, no horizon.
The silence grew unbearable. He moved forward, but each step felt like it carried him further from something he couldn't name. The world was a void, unbroken by sound, by light, by anything at all.
Then, just as suddenly as it had started, a sound cut through the stillness. A footstep. Or maybe it was his own, but he couldn't tell. It was followed by another, then another. They didn't echo, didn't bounce off walls. They were absorbed by the blackness, vanishing before they could leave a trace.
Richard's mind raced. Was it real? Was he still in the house? What was happening?
He took another step, and then another. It felt like the ground stretched forever beneath him, but his body couldn't tell the difference. The emptiness seemed endless, like he was trapped in a space where the passage of time had no meaning. No sense of direction. No sense of being.
And then it hit him: there was no escape.
Panic set in.
He spun around, trying to grasp the doorway behind him, but there was no door. It was just darkness, stretching out in all directions. His breath quickened, chest rising and falling in a frantic rhythm. He couldn't tell how long he had been standing there. Minutes? Hours? Longer? Time had no relevance here, not in this place.
His mind began to unravel. The fear turned into something worse—something cold, something devoid of hope. The loneliness was unbearable. There was no sound, no movement, nothing. His eyes strained against the void, but there was nothing to see. His hands trembled as he reached out again, searching for something tangible, something to cling to.
Nothing.
He stumbled forward, almost falling, but caught himself. The absence of everything was starting to tear him apart. His skin felt raw, as though it was absorbing the void around him. It pressed against him, suffocated him. He wanted to scream, but the silence crushed the sound in his throat before it could leave his lips.
It was then that he realized—he wasn't alone.
At first, it was a whisper, a scrape, a sound that barely registered. But then it grew. It was as if something was moving through the blackness, something just beyond the edge of his perception. Something that knew he was there, something that wanted him. He spun, eyes wide with terror, but there was nothing. Nothing but the darkness.
And then he heard it again. The scrape, the shuffle of something dragging across the ground. It was closer now. Much closer.
His heart pounded in his chest as he took off running, but no matter how fast he moved, the darkness closed in around him. It was like trying to run through water—sluggish, slow, and pulling at him, keeping him in place.
The sound followed him.
Richard's breath came in ragged gasps as he stumbled and fell, his hands scraping against the cold, featureless ground. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know where he had been. The fear that clutched his heart was primal, something deep inside that told him he wasn't meant to be here. He wasn't meant to find this place.
But the darkness had other plans.
It reached out for him. He could feel it, brushing against his skin, crawling across his neck, down his back. He screamed, but no one would hear it. He couldn't hear it. There was only the sound of his own breath, harsh in the suffocating silence.
Then the thing touched him.
It wasn't a hand, not really. It was more like a presence, something intangible, yet undeniable. It pressed against his chest, hard, suffocating. Richard gasped, clawing at his throat as the thing pushed further into him. His limbs went numb. His vision blurred, not that there was anything to see. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think.
The thing was pulling him apart from the inside out, devouring him slowly, piece by piece. And Richard couldn't stop it. His body went limp, a puppet with its strings cut. His chest heaved for air that would never come. The darkness closed in tighter, crushing the last remnants of his mind.
And then, with one final push, the blackness took him completely.
Richard was no longer himself. He had become a part of the void, a small piece in a world that would never release him, that would never let him go.
The house, somewhere in another place, stood empty, forgotten, silent.
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