Chapter 1
661 Words
'Hello, is anybody there?' my voice echoed through an empty hallway. Nobody responded, which didn't really help the situation I was in.
One moment ago, I had still been on the streets, facing a red car coming at me with fifty miles an hour. First of all, you weren't supposed to drive that fast. About half the speed was the limit. And second of all, I was walking on a crosswalk. Pedestrian zone, crosswalk. You simply are not supposed to be run over by a car there. Or anywhere really, but especially not there.
There was something fishy about this hallway. I think the design was the first problem, to begin with. The ceiling was black, as was the wall on my right. But the floor and the wall on my left were white.
The second problem was that there were no doors. None at all. And that the hallway did not seem to have an end. From where I was standing, it looked like it continued endlessly, in both directions.
So I was alone in a hallway, with no end to be seen, no doors, no windows or any way out. Completely alone without anyone being able to tell me where I was. Scrap that. Completely alone in an unknown place was enough.
'Arwen Galloway,' a voice suddenly said. I looked around, both right and left, ahead and back, and up and down, but there was nobody to be seen. Literally nobody and nothing but myself and black and white paint.
Last time I checked, I wasn't hearing voices in my head. But well, those things had to start somewhere, right?
'Arwen Galloway,' my name was repeated. I looked around again and found something that had not been there just moments ago. A door. In the black wall, there was a black door. A crack of light came through the barely open door.
Despite me being glad I wasn't alone anymore, there were a few things that were bothering me. First of all, that ominous feeling when I looked at the door. Second of all, why the hell did someone here know my name?
My mom had always warned me about my curiosity. She always said, "curiosity killed the cat". So of course I opened that door and of course I stepped inside, exactly like you just imagined.
At first there was a lot of light, but afterwards, darkness followed. It took some time to adjust my eyes to the dark. Eventually, I was able to see four people, sitting in chairs across me. Two of them almost seemed to be consumed by darkness, but around the other two, the darkness seemed to disappear.
'Greetings, Arwen Galloway,' the one at the right said. One of the ones that drove darkness away. 'How do you know my name?' I asked them, surprised by my voice. I had expected it to tremble, to give away fear at the very least, but it seemed it didn't.
'We know everything about you,' the one at the very left answered. That answer creeped the hell out of me. 'What is this place?' As I expected the third from the left answered. 'It's where we decide your fate.' Maybe I really really had gone mad. Maybe this was all in my imagination. I hoped it was all in my imagination. Please let me wake up.
'Decide my fate?' The second from the left answered me this time, completing the row. 'Yes, we are going to. Do you know why you are here, Arwen?'
Well, the last things I remembered was seeing a car coming for me. I didn't remember how I got here or when. I didn't remember what happened after the car hit me. The realization hit me, maybe as hard as the car had done.
'I-I'm not dead, am I?' The one at the right responded by nodding. I felt my breath escape me. Anguish rushed over me.
'You died six hours ago, Arwen.'
- Writer
