No Way Out

Nicholas pondered what the man had said as he made his way down the passage. He was unsure of what to think of it.

"This isn't right." He spoke his thoughts aloud. "It can't be right." He stopped walking and shook his head. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Come to me, my child." He expected no answer, but a woman's voice pierced his thoughts, making him jump. It sounded like it came from right in front of his face. Quickly, he turned all around, but he didn't see anyone.

"Who's there?" He said anxiously.

"Keep going." The voice said. "Come, this way, my child." Nicholas looked ahead with his light. My child? He thought. He realised he had taken a few step forwards without noticing. He felt odd, a strange mixture of fear and excitement he couldn't quite describe, with a quiet, soft, ringing in his ears. He turned around, considering going back and finding another path. But where else is there to go? He thought. I'm not going back up there with that monster. He pressed on as the odd feeling and the ringing faded away.

After a while he came to a statue to the side of the tunnel, just about as tall as him and made from the same dark stone that the cave walls were composed of. He stopped at it and took a look. It depicted a woman with long hair standing in a relaxed posture, in a long gown that went down to the floor, wearing a mask over her face, and a crown of thorns over that. The statue was on a thin pedestal with the word mother carved into it, Nicholas crouched and looked closer at the pedestal. The statue's title had been carved poorly, and untidily, like someone had just carelessly taken a knife to it and carved it in. Just as he was standing up, he heard a single, heavy footstep right behind him.

"Huh!?" He whirled around and jumped back. Standing behind him was another statue, this one made from a black marble of some kind. This one also depicted a woman, but stood on firmly planted feet, rather than a pedestal. The statue's gown was also torn up, and it wore no mask, instead displaying a face locked into an expression of utter malice, scowling menacingly with a hateful frown. "Where the fuck did you come from?" Nicholas said. He backed away, but then he hit a wall behind him. "What!?" He turned around. The passage he had come from had completely vanished, replaced with just another stone wall, like the passage had never been there in the first place. He looked all around the wall and to the sides. It's gone!? How!? He heard another footstep from behind and turned back around. The statue was right behind him, only a couple feet away.

Nicholas pressed his back against the wall, muttering a curse. He looked into the statue's eyes, solid, unblinking black spheres, that made him feel more unnerved the longer he looked. He started to move around it, keeping his vision fixed on it, he took just a few steps, then it turned its head suddenly. He barely had time to gasp before it then surged to life, reaching out and grabbing his shoulder, the sharp fingers digging in. He screamed and swung his arm at the statue's head, which just so happened to be the hand holding the flashlight. The glass lens shattered on impact and the light died instantly, and he felt the statue let go of him, followed by hearing it crash to the floor in the dark.

He dropped the flashlight and pulled his phone out while quickly stepping back, once again bumping into the wall behind, and tapped a button on the home screen. A light kicked on, revealing the statue collapsed and crumbled into pieces.

"Jesus…" He ran the light across the remains a few times, noticing the head still intact and no longer displaying a face of hatred, now it appeared as a screaming face with its eyes shut and tearing up, as if in pain. Nicholas shuddered. "Uhh, screw that."

He stepped over it and carried on, reaching a tight corner and peering around it, and the first thing he saw was another 3 of the black statues. "Oh you've gotta be kidding me." All 3 were in different poses and spread apart from one another, but there was no way forward without having to brush past one of them. "Not falling for this again." He said. He quickly scanned the floor, his eyes landing on a small, loose chunk of stone, keeping his eyes and light on the statues as he went in to pick it up. He then crept close to one of them and lifted the rock. If the light could smash one, then surely… He threw the rock, hitting the statue square in the chest. As he had hoped, it broke apart instantly, but then both of the other statues animated suddenly, turning their heads and stomping towards him. "Fuck!" He whispered bitterly. The first one reached him before he could back away, aiming a punch. He raised his foot and quickly kicked it in the stomach, it felt much lighter than he expected, recoiling back just as a normal person would've as a chunk of its waist crumbled away.

The second one closed in, taking a swipe at his head, but it moved slowly and predictably. He ducked under the attack and pulled out the knife the man had given him, lunging at the statue and stabbing its side. The stab made a huge piece of its hip fall off and it stumbled away, tripping over and breaking apart completely when it hit the floor. The first one had dropped to its knees and was clawing at the wall, trying to find purchase, seemingly unable to stand back up. Nicholas stepped forward and kicked it hard in the face, causing it to fall to pieces. He took a deep breath and went to put the knife away, but then he heard a cacophony of stomping and shuffling from behind.

He turned around and was faced with a whole swarm of statues blocking the way back, he counted at least a dozen, all packed tightly against each other, barely fitting amidst the tight confines. "Oh, come on!" Like an army of machines, the statues advanced, faces locked in a furious gaze.

Nicholas turned and ran further into the passage, trying his best to ignore the stampede of stone footsteps pursuing him.

"Nicholas!" The voice in his head returned. "This way!" He noticed a small gap in the wall on his right, it looked only just big enough for him to squeeze in. A faint, white glow was coming from it. He looked behind him and saw the statues a fair ways behind, but still close enough that they wouldn't need more than a handful of seconds to catch up if he stopped. Holding his phone in one hand and the knife in the other, he ran up to the gap and pushed himself inside, managing to fully get in just as the statues reached it, clashing together and fighting to be the first to squeeze in after him. He saw more than one of them get broken by one of their own.

The gap ended in another narrow passage, he got out and readied the knife, seeing one statue forcing its way through the gap, but then it stopped. It wiggled back and forth, reaching towards Nicholas to no avail. It was stuck. Nicholas held in a laugh, but couldn't help but smirk. "Keep going, Nicholas." The voice said. "Here." Nicholas looked down this new passage and saw a painted wooden door just beside him, roughly embedded within the rock. He took hold of the handle and opened it.

The first thing he saw was the fluorescent lights on the ceiling of a long corridor, then the patterned red carpet, and then the white wallpaper with door after door on both sides, each with a different number painted on a small, gold plaque attached to it.

"No way." Nicholas said, stepping inside. The door slammed shut behind him, there was no knob on this side and it didn't budge when he tried to shove it back open. He sighed. "Of course."

He turned his attention back to the corridor, he recognised it. "This can't be the same place." A few dozen steps and he came to an intersection where he could continue forward, or take a left or right. He turned right, following a familiar path, noting the numbers on the doors. "221, 222, 223, 224." He reached a point where the corridor ended in a large room with 2 elevators on one side and some chairs, couches, and a couple coffee tables on the other, with another corridor opposite him leading past more labelled rooms. "Owen's apartment place?" He said. "This can't be right, that doesn't make any sense." He went over to the elevators and pressed the button next to the door, but nothing happened.

417. He thought of a particular number, Owen's apartment, then he went down the hall and round a corner that led him to a set of stairs. Everything here was the same as the last time he had visited Owen, from the old pictures on the wall to the big stain on the carpet he always joked with Owen about, how it had been on the stairwell for years and the cleaners still couldn't get rid of it. But how have I ended up here now? He thought. He made it up to floor 4 and just down the hall was room 415, then 416, 418, 419. "Huh?" He scanned the doors a second time. There was no 417. "But…how?" Suddenly he heard a man scream from down the hall. "Oh, what now!?" He said, looking in the direction it had come from.

Just as he did, a man came barreling round the corner, his clothes were all torn and dirty and there was blood on his pale white face, he didn't even look at Nicholas for a second, instead he was constantly glancing behind him. Nicholas thought he recognised him from somewhere but wasn't too sure, maybe one of Owen's other friends he met once? He made it to Nicholas and sped right past him.

"Run!" He barely managed to shout in between panting breaths.

"From wha-" Nicholas couldn't finish the question before the answer rounded the corner.

It was the woman from the temple, he recognised the dress and her hair instantly, and he saw a scar over her eye from where he had cut her, but she had changed. Multiple new arms spouted from her back, twitching and flailing wildly, as well as an extra pair of legs attached to her waist, turning her into a stampeding monstrosity, screaming incoherently as she rushed towards him.

Nicholas ran and quickly caught up with the other man, overtaking him with ease, he was limping hard, and Nicholas could guess by the sound of his panting, that he was utterly exhausted. Once Nicholas had gotten a handful of steps past him, he stopped and turned around. He was ahead of the woman by a good bit, but she was gaining on the man fast. "Gotta help." He said quietly. "Come on!" He ran back to the man and took him by the arm, getting behind him and starting to push him along with him.

"Ah! My leg!" The man tripped and fell, bringing Nicholas down with him. He righted himself quickly and tried to help the man up, but he struggled to move him, that's when he noticed the wound on his leg, a claw of some kind had ripped right through his trousers and horribly maimed his thigh.

"Ah, shit." Nicholas said, whispering so the man couldn't hear him. "Come on, man! Get up! We've gotta go!" He heaved and pulled, but it was no use, and a second later, the woman was upon them. She reached for Nicholas at first but he ducked away and dodged it, causing the woman to trip and stumble over the downed man. Nicholas watched with wide eyes as she crawled over him, all her extra arms grabbing at his throat and mouth, smothering him and silencing a cry for help. His skin started to darken as he struggled against her less and less, going from white to grey, and then after only a few seconds, black as coal. His limbs started to stiffen and his skin began to take on a shiny, smooth appearance, the hairs on his arms fell out and his clothes turned black as they seemed to fuse with his skin.

"Shhhh…It's alright. I will look after you." The woman said, gently caressing the man's face as his expression became fixed and unmoving. "You don't have to be scared anymore." Long strands of stone hair quickly formed on the man's head and the shape of his body itself shifted and took the form of a woman, and that's when Nicholas realised what was happening. "There we are. Don't cry now, everything will be just fine." She ran her hand down the statue's arm and then the face again, and smiled.

"Holy shit…" Nicholas said quietly, carefully stepping away. The floor creaked under one step and the woman's head snapped up. Nicholas froze, locking eyes with her, and waited. Her smile disappeared so quickly he wondered if it had even been there in the first place.

The lights went out, plunging the hall into total darkness for a silent moment, and then bright red, emergency lighting flared to life overhead, accompanied by the sudden blaring of the fire alarm. The woman stood, and stared at him for a long time, tilting her head ever so slightly. Her mouth moved, muttering something that was drowned out by the alarm, and subtly shook her head. She took a single step towards him, and that was all he needed to see.

He turned away and started to run, and he heard the woman's footsteps beginning to run after him.

"Do not run, child!" She screamed, her voice hurting Nicholas's ears and sending chills through his flesh. "Mother will have you!" Nicholas ignored her drivel and constantly looked left and right as he ran, trying to find a way to evade her, but all he could see on either side was only more rooms and hallways that just led past more rooms. He looked back and saw the woman starting to gain on him, her added bulk lending her momentum with each thunderous step.

"Why are you doing this!?" He shouted back.

"It has to be this way! She demands your flesh!" The woman closed the distance even more, only a dozen metres behind him now. "You'll never understand, it must be done!"

Nicholas heard her footsteps speed up suddenly, and looked back just in time to see her break into an even faster sprint, arms already outstretched to grab him.

"Fuck!" He dived aside and only just got out of her way before she rampaged past him. She tried to turn around but she tripped over one of her many extra legs and tumbled to the floor. Nicholas wasted no time in getting back up and running back the way they came, going for the stairs.

The alarm became louder, the lights brighter, hurting his eyes and ears with their onslaught of intensity, and over the sound of the alarm, he heard the woman right herself and continue running after him.

"You…can't…escape this!" Her voice practically sent shockwaves of force towards him that made the whole building shudder, or at least that's what Nicholas thought was happening. He was no longer sure, half deafened and disoriented, the only thing he could concentrate on was continuing to run, but even that was difficult with how his legs felt weaker and sorer the longer he ran. Come on! He shouted in his thoughts. Come on!

The stairwell's entrance entered his view, and a few seconds later, he had reached it, throwing himself through the door and denting the wood as it opened.

The woman was not far behind, bursting through the door, destroying it entirely. But then, as Nicholas had hoped, tripped and fell the second she started trying to descend the stairs, falling down them like a small boulder of legs, arms, and tattered clothing. Nicholas rounded the corner and went to go down the next set of stairs but he had to stop himself hard when he saw the giant flames creeping up the stairs.

"Oh come on!" He instead turned and barged through the door to the third floor just on his right before the woman could tumble into and crush him, and then watched as she fell past and went right into the fire. The scream that came from her almost made him scream out of horror himself with how horrific, blood curdling, and nightmarish it sounded. He knelt down and tried to catch his breath, his eyes fixated on the fire, trying to see the woman, but she was totally hidden behind the fire and smoke. "Ugh." His head was pounding and he could not keep his hands still. After a minute he pushed himself up, wincing at the growing pain in his legs. "Gotta…gotta keep going." He started to turn away and head into the third floor, but in the corner of his eye a burning figure came rushing out of the inferno.

He screamed and forced himself to continue running, doing his best to shrug off the pain that came with every step. The woman wasn't even speaking words anymore, only horrid shrieking that assaulted his ears and made his headache worse with each passing second.

Around another corner and then, further down the hall, he saw an elevator.

"Nicholas!" Said the voice in his head. "Here!" The elevator started to open, and he didn't think twice, hurling himself inside and practically punching the button to take him to the ground floor, before collapsing and looking on at the door as it slowly closed. The woman's footsteps came closer and he could see the orange light of the flames engulfing her, but then the doors closed completely, and he let out quite possibly, the deepest sigh of relief in his life. The elevator started to move downwards.

He sat up against the wall and tried to focus, but his mind was still much too frazzled, he could hardly believe what was happening.

"This isn't real. It can't be real." He said, frowning and shaking his head. "This has to be just an awful nightmare."

"No, Nicholas." Said the voice in his head. "This is real, you are not dreaming."

"Why the hell is this happening!?" Nicholas said. "What did I do to deserve this!?"

"Come to me, my child. I will help you."

"Wher-" A deafening crash from right above him cut him off.

"No! I won't let you leave!" The woman screamed. Nicholas heard the elevator cables snap, and then it was falling.

"Gah!" He grabbed onto the railing next to the buttons for support, but still fell onto his knees. He looked at the screen above the door showing what floor he was on, but it just displayed static. The fall continued, faster and faster, until he was struggling to keep himself on the floor, trying to cover his ears without letting go of the railing to shield them from the cacophony of screeching steel and the woman's piercing wails.

And then the elevator slammed into the bottom of the shaft and everything went dark.