Echoes of the Damned

Raelyn stumbled through the darkness, her leg barely able to support her weight. The blood-soaked ground beneath her seemed to pulse. like the earth itself was alive, watching her. She could feel eyes—hundreds of them—following her every movement. But they weren't in the walls, nor in the bodies that littered the floor. They were everywhere, and nowhere at the same time.

She could sense it. like a presence just behind her, breathing softly down her neck. Something was guiding her, pushing her forward. Each step she took felt orchestrated, as if she were walking down a path already laid out for her. But how could that be?

Raelyn's thoughts felt strange now, disjointed, like they weren't own. Every thought felt less like a choice and more like something she was being told to think, like her mind was no longer hers. She glanced down at her hands, caked in filth and blood, and for the briefest moment, they didn't feel like hers either. Almost like she was someone else.

No... not someone else. Something else.

A cold chill ran down her spine as the air grew thick and oppressive. The walls around her seemed to shimmer, the decayed flesh stretching and contracting as if it were...breathing. Her heart raced, pounding in her chest, but it wasn't just the fear of being watched—it was the unsettling realization that whatever this place was, it knew her. Knew every choice she had made, every thought she had, every scream she had stifled.

She couldn't shake the feeling that she was walking deeper into something that wasn't just alive—it was aware.

With each step, the walls seemed to narrow, pressing in, the bloated bodies leaning closer. Their hollow, lifeless eyes watched her, but they weren't random bodies anymore. They felt familiar. She swore she recognized their faces, but from where? A dream? A memory? No, something closer, more intimate. 

She walked faster, the sound of her ragged breathing bouncing off the walls. A strange, low hum filled the air, growing louder with every step. And then, she heard it. Whispering. Faint at first, like a murmur just beyond the edge to hearing. It was soft, but persistent, like it wanted her to listen.

She slowed, her pulse racing as she strained to make out the words.

"Turn the page..."

Her blood turned cold. The whispers wasn't coming from around her. It was coming from inside her. Her thoughts stuttered, slipping away from her control as if something —or someone was writing them for her.

"Keep going. You have to."

The voice was not her own. It was...colder, detached, and infinitely knowing. The whispers continued, coiling around her mind like a serpent, weaving through her thoughts, threading them together. Her hands shook, but they kept moving forward, like they had a will of their own.

Raelyn's feet dragged over the uneven ground, and with each step, the floor beneath her shifted. Words written in blood began to form on the surface, smeared and broken, yet disturbingly clear in the dim light.

She blinked, her mind screaming at her to turn away, but her eyes refused to leave the ground.

"Yes can't stop now."

Her breath caught in her throat. The words felt like they were speaking to her, about her, and yet... they weren't.

She stumbled forward, barely able to keep herself upright, and the whispers grew louder, overlapping now, a cacophony of voices fighting for her attention. They weren't random. They were directed at her. They knew her name.

"Raelyn..."

The sound of her own name, spoken in the disembodied voice, twisted her stomach into knots. She was sure she hadn't heard it out loud. The voice was crawling through his mind, rewriting her every thought, guiding her toward something she couldn't understand.

"Turn the page."

Raelyn's knees bucked as she fell to the floor, her fingers digging into the cold, wet ground. The words smeared beneath her touch, but it didn't matter. She couldn't outrun them. She couldn't hide from them...

The walls, once silent, began to shift, the faces of the dead twitching, mouth moving but sound came from their rotting lips. And then, without warning, their eyes snapped open— each one fixed on her, as through waiting for her to understand something she couldn't grasp.

"Don't stop."

The whisper felt closer now, the words forming in her mind even before she heard them. It was like reading a sentence you already knew would appear, like an unspoken script playing out in front of her. Raelyn's hand trembled as the realization settled deep into her bones.

This wasn't just happening to her. This was her.

No—this was about her.

The ground pulsed beneath her, and with each pulse, the blood soaked earth seemed to lift forming shapes. Letters. Senescence.

"You are being read."

Her mind broke at the sight of it, the words etched into the flesh of the floor, the walls, her skin. They were all around her now, sentences forming from the very fabric of her surroundings. The whispers were louder, more insistent, pushing her further into madness.

"They are watching."

She looked up, her vision blurring, and saw them. Eyes. Not just from the bodies. No, these eyes were different. They hung in the air, disembodied, massive, and unblinking. They didn't just watch—they devoured her. Every step, every scream, every tear was theirs to consume. 

"Turn the page..."

Raelyn stumbled backward, her head spinning, her mind unraveling. The more she fought it, the more the voice twisted inside her, guiding her hand, her foot, her breath. And as she turned, she saw something that made her heart stop.

A mirror.

It stood there, impossibly clean amidst the rot, reflecting a version of herself that wasn't her. Her face was twisted, her skin pale and cracking, her eyes wide with terror, yet her lips curled into a smile—a smile that wasn't her own.

And in the reflection, just behind her, she saw it. The shape. The presence that had been whispering in her mind.

Not a figure. Not a monster.

A book.

A massive, ancient tome, dripping with blood, its pages flickering with words that she couldn't read but somehow knew.

It turned its pages with a slow, deliberate motion. Each turn was accompanied by a sickening tear, like flesh being ripped from bone. And as it turned, she felt her body shift, her thoughts splinter, as if her life was being rewritten with each flick of the page.

"Turn the page."

Raelyn screamed, but no sound came. The pages kept turning.