The Shadow Within- Chapter Five; The Building

             The inside is dark, cold, and moist. I walk as far from each wall as I can, the ceiling floating ominously above. Papers litter the ground, though almost all of them are deteriorated and left unreadable. A musty smell fills my nose as I explore, indicating the ancient age of this place.

              As I walk down the corridor of the entrance, another doorway comes in sight ahead. A few steps in what remains of the used-to-be double doors comes into the light. I hesitate. Do I dare to press forward? It isn't too late to turn back. I remind myself. After a moment, I step over the broken door, and enter a hall that divides into three paths. The walls are a grey plaster color, one of which one would expect to see inside hospital grounds. It gives off an uneasy feel, the opposite really of what one would expect to be first intended by the architects. Adding to the effect, the ceiling has begun crumbling, and the paint is etched off in random patterns.

                  I continue going straight, shuddering and pulling my arms closer to my sides as I pass the surrounding rectangular openings of emptiness. The walls are torn in areas, making visible the pipes that run like veins and arteries into the heart of the structure. The ones that stand exposed are heavily rusted, and some lie broken and crumpled on the floor, blending like sand into the rest of the debris. A ceiling fan, the blades broken, twisted, and rusted, lies crumpled in the corner as I turn.

              I feel a cold breath on my shoulder. When I turn there is only the usual darkness, but something seems off. A figure stays just out of reach of my peripheral vision as I turn, my head filling my already uneasy thoughts with paranoia. My knife seems more like a candle, I quicken my pace down the hall, so as to not let anyone or thing snuff it out. Who knows what would happen if I was swallowed by the infinite abyss of shade. Perhaps I would end up like the ruins around me.

            I walk faster. I don't get scared easily, but something definitely doesn't seem right. I pass rooms, their doorways have also broken down. I quickly look  through the openings as I pass. Huge amounts of space is taken up by them, the ceilings slightly outreach the radius of my light, and with it my view of anything beyond. The sides are taken up by metal desks, most of them propped to a side, their legs have rusted so that they cannot withstand much weight. At the far end lies an outstretched table, stretching from one wall to another, and connecting into the back wall. Laid scattered on it's surface are smaller pieces of equipment, some recognizable, such as microscopes and vials, but some seem very strange, syringes as well as twisted hunks of metal and glass. All of which however, are in very poor condition.

               The center of the room puzzles me. It consists of a conjoined structure of metallic and glassy cylinders, stretching to the ceiling. It seems almost like a lab, or some outlandish idea of one anyway. After staring for a moment, and piecing together what I can, I walk out. I'm desperate to leave, the pressure building up with the feeling of another presence.

                As I leave the room, I hear something behind me. A quiet exhale, no, more of a sad sigh. I quickly walk towards the way I came, the rips and tears in the walls familiar. I hear taps behind me, like nails brushing against metal. I walk faster.

         I'm getting close, I had traced a mental map of the turns and distances of which iv'e gone. A left. A sharp right down the corridor with a broken ceiling fan in the left corner. I'm almost there.

                   As I reach the original intersection of four hallways, I stop. My heart stops with it. The entrance is gone.

                     The four paths are now three, a new wall blocks the only way out.