The Hallway

It’s late, he knows he should be in bed as it’s a school night. Something random on the box has caught his attention as the dark room’s walls dance around him in the jagged TV light. He will forgo morning freshness for an extension of his evening and leaves the room to get some juice from the fridge. He returns and tries to settle again but soon feels the twinge and knows he must go to the bathroom, but he is anxious. The kitchen is fine at night as it is the first room down the hallway from his living room but the bathroom is at the far end and involves passing the darkened rooms where he knows it waits. Since it’s appearance he has periodically been pissing in the kitchen sink so as to avoid passing an empty room but has stopped that, concerned at the implications on food preperation. He switches the hallway light on in the knowledge it won’t help, it only makes the dark rooms even darker to either side of him. First he passes the kitchen to his right, as he expected it is there. In his peripheral vision only, if he turns to look into a room it will be gone, but as he passes any room at night it is there and has been for a few weeks now. It is thickly black and tall, hooded perhaps but he can’t pick up such detail. Next he passes the guest bedroom and again it is there. Finally he reaches the sanctuary of the bathroom where he diverts his stream away from the water and on to the porcelain, loud splashing noise doesn’t seem appropriate. Then there is a flush and a wash of the hands before continuing back up the hallway past the guest bedroom on his right, it is there. Finally past the kitchen on his left, it is there. His eyes are soon on the TV but his thoughts are on those rooms. Why now? There have been several explanations he has come up with but the most obvious and plausible is that the figure is death and he is soon to die. What other reason could there be for a tall, black, probably hooded figure living in the peripheral vision of his unattended rooms. Tonight is different from previous nights though. A feeling of heightened awareness and terror washes over him unchecked as he powers down the TV and this time in complete darkness moves down the hallway toward his bedroom, past the kitchen on his right first, it is there. He stops at the guest bedroom on his right and stands motionless, it is there, he tries to focus on it as best he can without turning. It seems to move slightly in a forward and backward motion as though readying itself to dissapear when he turns to face it.

‘I don’t want to die.’

His words echo around the stillness of the hallway with it’s wooden floors. Perhaps it’s just a ghost, or better still simply his overactive imagination. Finally he can resist no longer and he turns to face the now empty room. He knows if he walks back down to the kitchen it waits for him in his peripheral vision but he is scared and plans to beg for sleep. His head twists and turns on the pillow for what seem like hours when the smell comes to him. He raises himself on to his elbows and looks at his closed bedroom door in the knowledge it is standing directly outside.

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