The Dark: A Short Story for Hallowe'en

THE DARK 

I wrote the following flash fiction to see if I could. I hope you enjoy it!

The freezing stone floor set off a spasm of shivering and she awoke, unknowing of her surroundings for they were as pitch. Panic set in. She had been walking to her car. Where was she? How did she get here? Don't panic, she thought in an effort to quiet her malleate heart. Turning over, she crawled on all fours, her hands burning on the cold as they fluttered to feel what she could not see.

Knees aching, her hands scraped against a wall as firm and steadfast as the floor. She whimpered. She needed to get out; needed to be free; needed to bathe in the warm summer sun. 

Following the right angled path of wall and floor, she scrabbled to gain purchase of her surroundings. No sound except for her panicked breath, rasping clothes and tapping fingers, filled her consciousness. She flailed about, searching for a break in the wall, a difference between frozen stone and a possible wooden door, but found none. 

Stumped, unknowing how many circuits of the small room she had spun, she grasped the wall before her and pulled herself up. If there was no indication in the blackness of a door near the floor, then maybe there would be one higher up. Again, hands outstretched before her, she circumambulated the midnight stone room. 

Nothing.

No door. No window. No way in. No way out.

How did I get here? WHERE AM I?! Her mind cried out.

A rasping sound, far above, followed by a chuckle. Something hard hit her on the head before a wash of fluid cascaded, splashing, over her. More laughing, deep and male, before it was cut off by the same rasping sound.

Her back sliding down against the frozen stone, she crumpled to the chilled floor, hugging herself, her tears mingling with the droplets eking their way down her face. She knew now she was captured, that far above, in the darkness, was the door she must have fallen through into this place, this oubliette. It still did not explain why she could not see, why all around her was atramentaceous.

Numb from the cold, her fingers brushed away a droplet threatening to fall in her eye and halted the motion at the strange feeling before her finger tips. Breath staggering, she brought both hands to her eyes and felt –

Nothing.

Her eyes were gone!

Only empty sockets remained!

Mouth opening, she screamed into the darkness. Her tongue was gone, too.