Descent

PART ONE
Fear

Fear. The feeling you get when you look behind the shower curtain and nothing is there, and you know that, but you look anyway, why? Because there could be, there could be something lurking behind that shower curtain, ready to grab you, to eat you, to kill you. Now, my friends, fear is one of the most valuable feelings, you know why? Because it keeps you alive. Living, breathing, alive.

Oh, but I don’t need fear.

I don’t need it to feast on your succulent, juicy, oh so tasty flesh.

Am I dead? No. Not yet anyway. For now, I am very much alive.

Are you scared yet? You want to close this book right now and forget you ever opened it?
You're not? Oh, that’s just great because it's awfully boring here in the basement, the only sound I hear is drip, drip, drip. Oh the dripping, it's awful, unbearable, I'm being tortured down here!
Do you think you could come and save me?
No? Ha! Oh, well maybe you will change your mind when you hear my story.


Lucy

Lucy lived in a big house with her mother and father. Though, Lucy, I'm sorry to say, is not me. I will come into the story later, but for now, we focus on Lucy. Lucy, Lucy, Lucy… delicious…. Oh no, did I say that? I meant… uh… pretty. She was very pretty. Ten years old with long, luscious, blond hair and eyes as blue as the ocean. I couldn’t bear to see her get all bloody, so I did away with her quickly and easily. Her parents, unfortunately, were not so lucky. But that’s what happens when you come down here. Down here with me. We play a little game… but, unfortunately for you, I get hungry.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? You don’t even know who I am yet! You might think of me as some kind of murderous psycho monster, hm? Well, I can assure you that I am perfectly sane, and not at all a monster… I'm human, just like you… or at least, I was…

Me

You can call me Charles. And the house Lucy lived in was my house, is my house, for I am still in it. Though, sadly, I am confined to the basement, horrid place, with the dripping… oh, the dripping…

Drip, drip, drip…. Always dripping… always… Why doesn't it stop? Why won’t it stop dripping?

But, I should probably start with what I look like. I used to be quite handsome, indeed, but unfortunately, the ravages of time have caught up with me. So just imagine me sitting on the cold, dark basement floor. My light blue eyes rimmed with pink, darting around nervously, my long, black hair a tangled mess… or maybe my hair is gray now… it's been so long I can’t tell anymore. Huddled in the corner, listening to the dripping… the drip, drip, drip… It never stops! Why doesn't it stop… why… the dripping! The drip… drip… drip… it's okay, it's okay, I'm fine, I'm okay… it can't hurt me… why are you laughing? Stop! Get out of my head! Stop laughing… oh no, now I'm laughing too, I’m on the floor laughing… hahaha…. What’s so funny? Oh, just the voices… the dripping, awful voices… they make me do this… they make me hungry. Are you hungry too?

Insane
They call me insane. I don’t think I am. I’m just doing what I need to survive. Wouldn’t you eat your own kind if you were starving? Most people are turned away by the notion, but spiders do it, and, well, people are quite… tasty. I never really liked the saying you don’t know until you try, until I realized how true it was.

Before
I was a doctor. When you’re a doctor you learn two things. How to heal, and how to kill. Oh, don't be like that, I was a good doctor! I saved many people! But, I still learned how to kill, I learned where their vital organs are, I learned what medicines do what, and what too much of them can do, I know what all the doctor tools do as well. I know many things now.

But now all I want to end is the dripping, the dripping, the drip, drip, drip…

Ha! Wow, you must think I'm pretty crazy, huh? If you were locked up down here you wouldn’t be exactly 100%. Or are you so perfect you can keep it together, you can starve, you can sit down here for ages and ages and ages, just listening to the dripping? Oh, really? No. You wouldn’t last a day down here, and even if by some miracle you did, you’d still have to deal with the rats. Oh, the rats.

Rats

Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle, chew, chew, chew, bite, scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.

It's all they do. Every day.

Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle, chew, chew, chew, bite, scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.

Sick

Sometimes I cough. Other times I kneel on the cold basement floor wheezing as bloodied globs of saliva force their way out of my throat. They told me I had tuberculosis, and before, as you recall, I was a doctor. I know about tuberculosis. Without proper food and medicine, I don’t have long down here. Please, just help a sick old man live his last days out in peace? Preferably not in a basement, and with food.

Right now, I'm on the floor, my fingernails digging into the dusty wood as I hack up what’s left of my health, oh, yes, it's disgusting. Half of the time I don’t even know what I'm coughing up, and when I do, it's not pretty. Mostly a lot of blood. Please, please help me, I don’t have long down here. Sure, I did badly things, but I don’t deserve to die like this.

PART TWO
The Past
Copenhagen, Denmark
1934

Charles walked into the huge house, the walls were a warm oak and the couches by the fire were red velvet. Once you got past the comfortable living room, there was a spiral staircase leading up to the two bedrooms of the house. “Father?” asked his almost eight-year-old daughter, Lily, tugging on his shirtsleeve, her wide, green eyes conveying depths of confusion and sorrow, “Why isn't mommy coming with us?” Charles sighed, he got down on one knee to be at eye level with his daughter, “Oh, dear, sweet Lily.” he smiled wistfully and ran his hand through her long, brown hair, “She fell asleep, remember? She fell asleep, and now we can’t wake her up, or we might disturb her.” Charles couldn’t come to tell Lily her mother had died of strep throat, and how she was in so much pain, and how he wasn’t able to save her, one day he would, but today was not that day. Tears filled Lily’s eyes, “But I want her to come with us!” She cried, and threw herself at Charles, who embraced her, letting his daughter’s head bury into his chest as tears filled his eyes, “I know, I want her to come too.”

Lily
Copenhagen, Denmark
1937


Charles ran into his daughter’s room, and crouched by her bed, she was coughing. Horrible, wretched, coughing. At that moment he knew she was dying, he grasped her hand in his, it was cold. “Lily, my dear child, please don’t leave me…” He sobbed, “I’ll have nobody left…” Lily’s bleary, red rimmed eyes looked up at him, and she smiled faintly, “Bye-bye, father.” she squeezed his hand once then let go, “Do you think i’ll see mommy up there?” she asked him hopefully. Inside, Charles was sobbing, but he smiled anyway, “I bet you will.” He replied, “I bet you will.” Then Lily closed her eyes, still smiling, “I’m ready to go see Mommy now.” she whispered, and Charles stood up, “Okay, my dear Lily, i’ll never forget you, you hear me? I’ll never forget you.” Tears filled his eyes and he crouched down again, burying his face in his daughter’s hair, that still smelled like cinnamon from when they had made cookies earlier.

Steve

Steve listened. Steve understood. Steve knew. Steve, who came to my home after Lily had died, somehow he knew, knew I was grieving. I still don’t know how he knew, there was no funeral, no other family to mourn her, just me. But Steve knew, he knew it all, every single little detail. I trusted him that day, with his priest collar and his pamphlets, I trusted him.

God

Steve told me about God. Jesus. Angels and Heaven. I’d heard about them before, I assure you, but until now, I never thought about them, really thought about them. These thoughts made me feel warm, safe and in a way whole. I owe that all to Steve, wonderful, magical, Steve…. No. No. I don’t believe that anymore, not after he told me I had to repent.

My dear friends, let me assure you, I am not naive, or dumb, or stupid. I was grieving, I was vulnerable, and Steve got into my grieving, vulnerable mind and told me to repent for my sins. I did as he asked.

I went down into the basement and stayed there, thinking about God, Jesus, and Heaven and how I had failed them, all of them. I stayed down there forever and ever and ever… and that’s when I got hungry.

Remember

Remember at the beginning of my sorrowful tale? When I talked about Lucy? Well, guess what, Lucy was Steve’s daughter. Little Lucy wandered down into the basement one day, and didn’t come out, and her parents followed soon after.

Death

It’s coming for me, I can feel its black, inky, shadow tendrils reaching around my neck ready to slowly and oh so painfully squeeze what precious life I have left out.

Help me.

Ceased

The dripping has ceased. I can’t hear it anymore.
The rats have ceased their scuttling.
They’ve stopped everything.

Dead

You were too late, too late to save me, for now, I am dead. Dead, dead, dead… oh, you could’ve helped me, yes, but did you? No. You let me starve down here, you let me starve and die and burn in the fires of unforgiving darkness.

I’m not the monster here.

You are.

Thank you! Hope you liked it!
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