The Never-Ending Nightmare
“Hell! That’s what I call it” I thought, “a never-ending nightmare, which has shattered the barriers between dreams and the real world. I can’t tell what’s real anymore!”
I had woken up in my apartment this morning, to find dew on the leaves of my plant kept on the windowsill, the fog outside the window made an amazing contrast with it. “Winter’s approaching”, I thought… alas, I had never been so wrong. I sat up on my messed up mattress… I had never been a steady sleeper, and being alone for almost 7 years now, I never had the need to become one.
My apartment was the same as before; a room filled with trash, in which finding a way out was more difficult that finding the masonic pyramid. A wardrobe on my left contained some of my clothes, shoes and other accessories; the majority of them were lying on the floor. A study table and a bookshelf held all my university books, they filled up so much space, that there was barely enough left to open any one of them… after all, being a professor at Harvard was no easy job. A sofa and a bed stashed in the middle of all this took up a lot of space too and was all the comfort I had whenever I was here.
I got up from my bed and went straight to my bathroom… once there, looking at the same drowsy face in the mirror did nothing to cheer me up, though I cannot say the same about my body. I got ready for the university as I did every day of my single life. When I was done, I am sure I was looking significantly better than when I had entered the bathroom. Grabbing my required books and stashing them in my bag. I started for the university. As it was barely a mile from my home, I usually walked there… stopping at the bakery halfway, to have my breakfast.
But today was different… as I walked through the front door of the building my apartment was in, I noticed that it was a little too chilly for the month of September. I wrapped my hands around myself and started walking at my usual pace and direction. Because of the dense fog, when I had started I had thought that I couldn't see other people but soon figured out that… there was no one, there to see. The street was deserted… and so was the next. Even the bakery was closed. Now I had started feeling that something was not in place. Deciding that I would get something off the University canteen, I moved on.
When I reached Harvard… I knew something was not right. The usual security guard who checked the Identifications of the people entering the campus was not in his booth. “Now that’s unusual.” I thought and moved on. When I reached the canteen, I totally was not ready for what I saw… the canteen was a mess! All the food was littered on the floor, the glass counters were thrashed and the wooden furniture was broken into pieces. I had enough!
I walked straight to the head-of-staff’s office… on the way, I noticed that the corridors were deserted too… and so were the classrooms. When I reached the office, I knocked on the wooden door, only to find it open. Now that was something… that was way too out of place. “He never leaves his door open!” I thought, placed my palm on the door and pushed it open.
And here I was… standing outside his office with door wide open. And there he was too… standing behind his desk, in a black suit. But there was something different about him today… something devilish. “Sir” I called out, “Actually, the campus is deserted and the canteen’s a mess… so I just thought that, maybe I should inform you.” He turned… slowly, I saw his side, his cheek and then… his face. I stood, rooted to the spot… all color drained out of my face, it was frightening… no, killing, it was… his face. His face was as white as snow, eyes yellow and when he opened his mouth, his blood-red mouth and long-pointed teeth was all I could see… “David Langdon” an icy whisper filled the room, “You are… not alive! You are… in hell…”