Nightmare at Houska Castle

Lately, I’ve been having intensely disturbing nightmares.Numbers running through my mind, numbers I cannot get out of my mind.50.4910. 14.6240.They seemed so random at first.But when I first told my friend Jesse about the numbers I kept dreaming about, Jesse told me what the numbers sounded like Longitude and Latitude.A quick trip to Google Maps led me to verify that. The first hit took me to the middle of the ocean, but when I checked with the first number as if it were North and the second one as East? It took me to an actual place: Houska 1, Blatce, Czechia, also known as Houska Castle.It’s not that the numbers matched an actual location, it’s the nightmares that occurred when I received the numbers that were disturbing.They always started the same way.I would wake in a puddle of water, something barely deep enough to get my ears wet. I swear I could feel the water like it was not a dream, but as if it were real. I would stumble to my feet and as I did so, I felt the ground shift beneath me, and I realized I was walking on smooth river stones.Behind me on the river was a gate. Behind the gate were people, so many I couldn’t count, all pressed up against the gate.They reached out with pale boney fingers, pleading and begging. They all cried out to me:“Release us!”“Let us out!”“Please, have mercy!”I backed away, taking in my surroundings, my eyes locked with the apparition's eyes behind the gate.“Who put you there?” I asked.“Release us!” they shouted.I shook my head, “no, no you’re there for a reason,” I said as I backed away from them, turning from them.When I looked around, I found I was standing in a stream. Surrounded by a dark landscape. The sky was a dark deep red, filled with heavy clouds overhead.At first, I thought the water I was standing in was blood. That is how dark the crimson of the water was. But upon investigation, I dipped my hand into the water; I found it did not stain my hand and was just normal water.Off in the distance, I could see a pair of figures standing on opposite sides of the riverbank.I made my way towards them, slipping, stumbling, but I managed. Finally, I got to the left-most riverbank, and a voice would emanate from one figure.“Took you long enough, this time,” the androgynous creature would smile at me.Now closer, I could see them in more detail.The creature that spoke had eyes that glowed with yellow fire, the hair was dark, skin pitch black, as if it was old and decayed, the face was boney and thin, as if someone mummified its body. It wore a dark brown canvas robe stained with black splotches and stunk of decay. A rough rope around its waist. It looked like an old monk’s garb.“How many times am I going to have this dream?” I asked, frustrated.“Either 50.4910 times,” the yellow-eyed figure taunted me with a devious laugh.Another voice called from behind me, and I spun around, a lighter voice echoing through the air from the opposite side of the river, “or 14.6240.”This figure wore lighter robes, though still apparently made of canvas, and their eyes shimmered a brilliant blue. Its skin was a pale white, and the robes were a light brown, and clean, with a silvery rope around its waist.“What are you?” I asked the pair of apparitions.The yellow-eyed figure snickered to me, its voice in my ear. I could feel the hot putrid breath sending cold shivers down my spine as they whispered: “Inevitable.”That's when I’d normally wake up, covered in a cold sweat, my heart racing, and I’d reach for my Xanax to calm myself down.Stress was weighing on me a lot lately, as time and time again this year kept dealing me blow after ridiculous blow.A busted pipe in the house, the place getting condemned, my insurance company fighting me at every turn, losing my job because of downsizing.The nightmares started when I lost everything.At first, I only recalled the water and staring up at the dark red sky, but soon remembered them with more clarity.Now, I find myself in Prague, a strange and ancient place I didn’t think I’d ever visit. It’s not my eventual destination, mind you. It’s just the closest place I could travel to by plane from my homeland in New Zealand.I bumbled my way through a cab ride into town, I basically just asked the taxi driver to take me to “The Best Spot” to rest. Prague, as a note, is an old and stunning city.The landscape was strange from my home. Less sprawling mountains and forests. Lots of ancient churches, buildings, and such were strewn throughout every street corner.After meandering through multiple streets, we came to a stop outside of a large building in what appeared to be a busy side street.To my surprise, there were signs in both English and Czech all over. I recognized a few that read “Change”, “Souvenir Shop”, and then I saw the sign of the hotel just as the taxi driver informed me of where we were.“Best Spot Hostal? Yes, yes?” the cabbie asked with a thick accent I had trouble understanding.I frowned, “I suppose.”“Somewhere else?” The taxi driver asked.I shook my head, “no, it’s fine,” I sighed, “how much?”“750 koruna,” he stated.I flinched, “uh, I thought you used Euros, so I exchanged my cash for Euros. Do you take Euros?” I offered him €30.The cabbie grumbled and sighed, “not good, prefer koruna! Euro? Pay 40 Euros!” His accent seemed less thick as we negotiated.I gave him a nod and handed over €40. I found out a few minutes later when I exchanged my currency, that I paid almost twice as much as I should have. I couldn’t get upset, at the time I was in no position to reason or haggle.After heading out of the currency exchange window, I noticed a large crowd gathering outside an ornate building.My curiosity got the best of me, and I wandered towards the crowd, looking at the towering building.In front of the building looked like a pair of clock faces, each massive, but neither the likes of which I had ever seen back in New Zealand.They covered the lower one in circles and ornate artwork. The top had a pair of golden wheels, one offset from the other, over a blue and red backdrop.Surrounding the clock faces were many statues, some angels, others of saints (I assumed).The clock chimed, and I saw people stop and marvel at the enormous tower.I watched as what was basically the world's biggest coo-coo-clock: bonged, chimed and life-sized figures paraded about at the top of the clock tower. I watched as four figures moved about, one of which was a skeleton alongside three other figures. The skeleton made me dizzy, why I could not explain.As I looked down at the lower clock face, there seemed to be wood carvings of figures crawling beneath it. They appeared crushed beneath the massive clock-face, and I could swear they were moving, reaching out, as if for help. An angel to the left stood still. Were the bodies reaching out for help, or were they asking for mercy?I tried to squint and see if there were any numbers on the clock, but I couldn’t make anything out of them that looked like the time, as far as I could tell. Eventually, I saw that high on the tower, was a normal analog clock. So what were the two huge clock faces representing?It was after the clock stopped its cycle that someone approached me, “First time in Prague?” he asked.I jumped slightly, turning to face a man wearing a hat with a long peacock feather in the blue band around his hat, which sat on his brown hair. He had blue eyes and dressed in a pure white shirt, a blue ascot around his neck, and a brown vest with bronze buttons. The vest was closed up tightly over his shirt and he smiled widely at me as I faced him.“Uh, yeah. How can you tell?” I asked.He laughed, “you look like a fish out of the water!” He grinned at me, “also I am used to tourists! Did you come alone or with a group?”I shook my head, “no, traveling alone. I’m trying to find a specific place.”“Just as I surmised!” The man took his hat off and gave me an extravagant bow to me, “My name is Viktor Veselý!" He said with a slight accent, "Guide for Prague, and all areas of interest around her!” he announced enthusiastically.“Nathen Su,” I said, offering to shake his hand.“Pleased to meet you, Nathan!” Viktor greeted me.“If you’re a guide,” I motioned to the clock tower, “can you tell me what this is?” I asked.“My, my,” Viktor laughed, “you are a fish out of water!” he shook his head as he looked me up and down. “This is the Prague Orloj! An Astronomical clock built in 1410AD. It’s one of the oldest astronomical clocks in the entire world," he boasted.“Really?” I glanced at the clock-tower and spotted the large ornate door to the left of it.The door had four lions on it, two on each door, but what sat over the door caught my eye.A strange creature with fangs and an opened mouth, and horns.As I looked at the figure, a ringing began in my ear, and it was almost as if the strange face was looking right at me.That’s when a voice whispered into my ears, drowning out the tinnitus.“Houska…”I shivered as Viktor’s cold hand shook me back to reality.“You okay?” Viktor asked.I turned to Viktor, giving him a nod, “yes, sorry…”“What are you here to see?” Viktor questioned, smiling wide, clearly having asked while I had zoned out.“Oh, yeah… uh… the Houska Castle?” I asked.Viktor smiled, “ah! A bit of a paranormal junkie?” he chuckled, “fair enough! I can arrange such a journey! I might even have a few interesting stops along the way!”“I’m not sure-” Viktor cut me off.“Now, now,” he laughed, placing his cold arm around my shoulders, “I’m a guide! What sort of guide would I be if I ignored the sights literally along the way!”I sighed, “as long as we get there. How much?”“For you, my friend, only 4200 Koruna,” he grinned.I checked my wallet and handed him the money. It was half of what I had on me, but once I did, he smiled, and led me towards a small van which had some colorful lettering on it stating “V.V. Tours.”“That’s you?” I asked.Viktor laughed, “Viktor Veselý!” he announced, “that is I!”I hopped into the van, and soon we were off.“It’s a bit of a trek,” Viktor grinned back to me, “but well worth it!”Throughout the trip, Viktor told me this and that about the areas we were passing. The knowledge he gave me honestly went in one ear and out the other. My mind kept wandering back to the strange nightmares I had every night.After about forty minutes, we pulled off the main road and along a dirt path.The area was a normal-looking, and a rather charming little area with old houses, gardens, and well-kept lawns. We pulled up to a dirt parking lot, and Viktor smiled at me again.“All things considered, I figured you’d enjoy this stop! And do not worry, it will only take about ten minutes!” Viktor coerced, parking the van into a dirt parking lot.With no other choice, I hopped out and looked up a large hill. As I did, I got a strange sinking feeling. I had a strange sense of Deja Vu, the same feeling I remembered from when I was laying in the water from my nightmares. The landscape here had so far differed vastly from New Zealand, sans for this one grassy hill and wooded area.After a few minutes, I came upon an unusual sight.A pair of stone faces carved into a pair of massive rocks.“Allow me to introduce: Čertovy Hlavy,” Viktor turned to me, grinning widely, “or as they’re known in English, the ‘Devil’s Heads’.”One face had a beard of sorts and a look of near shock from its large and empty eyes. The other head was far more unsettling.The second face reminded me of a mummy’s, its lips pushed up and back as if the skin had decayed. Whoever carved this enormous head had carved the upper lip in such a way as it appeared pulled up, revealing the upper teeth of the mouth. While the lower lip looked to be sucked in over the bottom set of teeth. The brow of the face was prominent, but the eyes were the same as the bearded head, deep, empty, and otherworldly.As I looked at these stone carvings, I noticed something in the empty sockets of each stone head’s eyes.The bearded head’s eyes began to glow. At first, I had to rub my eyes, thinking that perhaps I had not been seeing it right. But the eyes glowed blue, and that ringing in my ears returned.It was as if the sun itself dimmed, and the sky darkened, highlighting the blue glow from the eyes of the statue.The lips shifted and moved, dust cracking and sputtering from the mouth as it did so. The sound of stone grinding on stone resonated under a deep voice which rang out in my ears: “Go no further, or all will be lost.”The head to the right now spoke, only its lower jaw moving as its yellow eyes burned into my very soul.“You are close… so close... Do not turn now… complete your journey,” the yellow-eyed head spoke, “seek the ultimate truth.”The yellow-eyed head’s skin seemed to shift, the rock face changing to blackened skin, and the nose growing slightly, and the lips thickened. It turned, black skin closing over the eyes in a blink that hid the yellow glow for but a moment.Now the yellow-eyed head grinned wickedly, “go, now, do not dawdle!”I had not noticed the other head gaining flesh, but now its skin had shifted. Not blackened by decay like the other, the skin was healthy and vibrant. A white beard moved with its jaw now. Blue shimmering eyes tried to calm me, but I was still unsettled.“Turn back,” it gasped, the voice of an old man echoing through the air, his breath kicking up dust from in front of him. “Turn back now and be saved!”“Continue,” the yellow-eyed stone head demanded, “and fulfill your ultimate destiny!”A black hand soon fell on my shoulder.The hand now squeezed my shoulder, and I heard the yellow-eyed stone head speak again, “shall we continue?”I turned to the black hand on my shoulder, I realized it was Viktor. His hand was normal now, and the sky was blue once more.The world around me seemed completely normal. Viktor’s smile remained, “ready to go?”I blinked, looking around, seeing I was standing on what had to be the top of the heads. “When did…?” I looked down, seeing photos on my phone.There were rather interesting photos of the area that I had apparently snapped. One of me standing in front of the statues.There I was, brown hair, my brown eyes obscured by my half-closed eyes because of the sun. My mother always complained about me squinting in photos, telling me I ended up looking like a character in an anime who never opened their eyes. Asian problems.I was posing in front of the stone heads like a normal touristy photo, and it seemed I had lost a good twenty minutes.“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” I said to Viktor confused, as we headed out once more. If I was experiencing blackouts, perhaps I should find a doctor?A quick trip down the hill and we were back on the road.Viktor smiled to me as we got underway, “honestly there have been few tourists since the outbreak. Where are you from where they allowed you to travel?”“Luckily I live in New Zealand, where we took the outbreak seriously,” I confessed, “Granted it’s probably easier to control outside contamination on a giant island. But it’s nice that things are mostly back to normal there now.”Viktor grinned, “Sounds like you’re a very fortunate young man to live in such a safe place!”“I guess fortunate is the right term,” I looked out at the country roads we were passing, seeing old farmhouses dispersed sparingly throughout the roadside as we continued northeastward.“Normally I take larger groups,” Viktor chuckled, “it’s why I’m taking the whole van with just you. The Castle will be fairly empty.”“Empty is good,” I rubbed my temples, the ringing in my ears returning.After about forty minutes, we arrived at what looked much less of a castle and more of a large mansion.I looked at the front and was unnerved, at first, by the strange decorations outside. One lamp post appeared as if it were a skeleton’s arm reaching out from the front lawn.We had already passed by black iron gates, and I noticed the roof of the immense palace was some kind of metal. The stone sides of the building appeared to have sections of the façade that had fallen away, revealing the underlying concrete brickwork. Ivy crawled along half of the building, avoiding the windows.As we parked, I noticed Viktor was grinning at me, “here we are!” he announced with some theatrics, “Houska Castle.”I climbed out of the car and the entire building seemed to take on a dark aura. My heart raced as I looked at the doors, the conflicting voices telling me to both enter and to leave rang in my head.Viktor soon placed his cold hand on my shoulder, and gave me a warm smile, “not losing your nerve now, are you?”“No,” I said out of sheer knee jerk reaction and bravado.“Good, because the rumors are that evil spirits haunt this place,” Viktor laughed, “and more so than that, there is a dark secret within!”Viktor grinned at me as he led the way down a dirt path towards a grand set of doors.As I looked around, I saw almost no one there. No cars, no other tourists. “Not a popular attraction?”Viktor laughed, “normally? Yes. Sadly, the lockdowns are keeping folks away. Most tours aren’t running as they used to.”I gave a nod, “well, lucky me coming from a country that can handle a simple virus.”“Haha,” Viktor laughed, “we’ll see.”“We’ll see?” I asked, confused by his dark humor.“Follow me,” Viktor explained as we headed towards the building.As I reached the doors, I saw a sign on the door, announcing that the building was closed.“Uh, it says no entry,” I pointed out.“Temporarily closed to the general public,” Viktor announced, pulling a key from his pocket, and unlocking the door, “but we are not the general public, now are we?”The doors creaked as they opened and I looked around, spotting normal tourist fare. A souvenir shop, a deserted stand which looked to serve food.As we walked Viktor led me towards a courtyard in the center of the castle.It was a perfectly square courtyard. It was here that I met a gruesome sight.In the center, I saw three soldiers laying over a small square set of bricks which created some kind of small pond.All three men were dead, their eyes wide open as they lay in the center of the square! Each soldier wore a Nazi uniform, and each of them gripped pistols in their hands.Their faces were that of abject horror and torment. A bullet wound to each of their heads made me question if they took their own lives or if they had made some sort of pact.Their mouths were agape, their eyes staring ahead in shocked terror.I could tell one man was an SS Officer, the other two soldiers. What concerned me most was that they looked as if they had just died. Blood pooled under their bodies, staining the sand under them, and tinting the water in the pond red.“Wh-what the hell?!” I shouted, stepping back from the gruesome sight.Viktor turned to me, a concerned expression on his face, “Something wrong, Nathan?”“You don’t see that?!” I glared at Viktor.Viktor crossed my path, he blocked my view of the corpses for a moment. By the time he passed me, I saw no bodies.Only the brickwork at the center, a square with water and coins within, and three strange metal figurines no taller than 40cm each.I ignored the coins as they didn’t concern me; I was far more focused on the three figurines. I walked towards them, looking at the three tarnished metal sculptures within.The three figures were odd shapes, but none identical.One metal figurine was stained green and was the shortest of the three. It was in the position I had seen the dead officer in. It looked like a flattened and bent blade. Like an upside-down pendulum, the crescent blade had jagged edges on one side but was smooth on the other.The next metal figurine appeared as if it were a round metal pole shoved into the pond with a square base. It broke at an odd angle, and unlike the other metal figurines, appeared to be bronze. I had guessed bronze, as it did not tarnish green as the other sculpture had.The last figurine was an oddly shaped oval piece of metal that looked like some kind of shrapnel. The center was hollow, and the base was squared. One corner on the base looked eroded, it was uneven as it seemed to tilt in the water. Time had rusted this pole to a brown hue, telling me it was iron or steel.Whoever placed them here had arranged all three in a triangle, perfectly arranged within the center of the square pond in the ground, the clear water revealing hundreds of coins, each from a different country and in different denominations.I could hear voices somewhere in the back of my mind. Not behind me. Voices, as if they were coming from the back of my skull. Resonating within it, bouncing around.I could hear crying, rattling of chains, people begging for mercy.The tinnitus was back now, rising to a cacophony as, once more, Viktor’s icy hand on my shoulder startled me.I screamed and turned around, my body shaking as Viktor tried to pass off an innocent expression.“Just me, friend,” he smiled, and for once, that smile wasn’t disarming. It looked predatory.“Why did you take me here?!” I demanded.“You asked me to take you here, remember?” Viktor said, his smile not fading, “you feeling well, Nathan?”“Why are we the only ones here? What is this place?!” I demanded, my hands still shaking, and I swear I could hear voices in different corridors of the castle.Viktor smiled at me, “come, we’ve got more for you to see.”“What happened here?!” I shouted.“You didn’t see it? Three men died right there,” he pointed to the small pool of water at the center of the courtyard. “They say that someone assassinated three German soldiers here. No one knows why,” Viktor said with a smile.I shuddered as I had seen it. But did Viktor know I had seen it? I didn’t know this man. I just believed that he knew what he was doing, as he had an official-looking van and seemed to know where I wanted to go.Was this even the right place? I pulled out my phone and typed the numbers quickly.50.4910N. 14.6240E.The map app showed me I was right there, on the dot.“I…” I faced Viktor.“Come along,” Viktor smiled, “we’ve more to see.” He walked towards another door. Rather than remain in the eerie courtyard, I rushed after him.After a moment of walking inside and through a hallway, I saw something out of the corner of my eye.A set of windows, with alcoves shaped just like the windows surrounding it on either side. There were four alcoves, two on each side.Above the alcoves, I noticed faded paintings on the wall. As I looked up three more massive windows reached up from the middle of the wall up to the ceiling, coming to a point. The ceiling reached up to a tall spire, and a chain holding a chandelier hung from the peak.Around a small table were a set of chairs, on the table was a dagger and a bible.The blade glinted blue. The dagger had a tarnished bronze handgrip, a thin chain wrapping around the metal handle. Whoever had made it had etched intricate carvings into the handle, as the guard split on either side with even more carvings.I looked at the blade; it was 20cm long and had a sharp edge on either side.Before I realized it, I found I was holding the blade in my hand, turning to Viktor, who stood far away from me.“I wouldn’t stand there if I were you,” Viktor pointed out.“Why?” I asked, wondering why Viktor wouldn’t come near me.“That chapel you’re standing in? They say that they built it over ‘The Pit’,” Viktor said with a grin.“The Pit?” I asked.Viktor nodded, “yes. A pit they say goes directly to Hell.”I hurried from the chapel, rushing back to the hallway, my hand holding the dagger tightly as I did so.“Best to put that back,” Viktor warned, his smile finally gone, “that’s not yours.”I glanced at the dagger, turning to the chapel. “I, uh… right, sorry.”Viktor gave a nod as he watched me cautiously walk to the table again, I placed the dagger down on the table. The moment I did, Viktor’s smile returned as he announced loudly, “come on! So much to see!”I turned and walked after Viktor as he walked down the hallway. I glanced back to the dagger, however, the blue light caught the shining blade once more. I dashed back to it and grabbed it without Viktor seeing me, my trust in Viktor waning now as we continued.I slipped the dagger into my backpack, catching up to Viktor.Viktor turned to me, “see something?”“Just… I keep hearing voices,” I confessed. I wasn’t lying, I knew he’d see through a lie. Sadly, I was now hearing the voices even louder. The only place I didn’t hear them, oddly, was the chapel.We reached a doorway, and when Viktor opened it, I felt an immediate sense of dread.Old stone steps lead down into a dark abyss.“Ready?” Viktor smiled, as he pulled a bright flashlight from his pocket.“What if you shut it off on me?” I asked, nervous about walking downwards to what might be a trap.Viktor pulled out a second flashlight, “here you go.”I took the small flashlight, and Viktor walked down the steps first. I followed him down.As I did, I could hear the tormented voices grow louder.“They say,” Viktor announced in a very tour-guide styled voice, “that in World War II, the Nazis who occupied this place tormented prisoners, performed experiments on them, cult activities, and many other atrocities.”My stomach felt uneasy because I swear I could hear more voices calling out for mercy, begging, and pleading for the sweet release of death.I swallowed hard as Viktor turned to me, “you haven’t lost your nerve, have you?”I shook my head.Viktor smiled, “they also say that, from the pit, horrible creatures arose. Terrible amalgamations of man and beast,” Viktor’s face fell, for once his smile vanished as we got to the base of the steps, “wait, what’s that?” he turned to the right.I turned to the right and gasped.Sitting on a small iron seat was a strange goat-like creature! Horns twisted over a human face as a goatee of sorts covered a thin face with lifeless eyes!The creature sat on an iron chair, its hands clasped in front of its chest. Furred arms and hands led down to a set of goat's legs. A silk shirt covered its upper body.I screamed and stumbled backward, collapsing to the floor.Viktor laughed, “oh!” he grinned, approaching the creature, “how I love the curators of this place!” he turned to me, placing the flashlight under the creature’s face, “it’s a doll!”I gasped, looking up and seeing that it was a depiction of a goat demon sitting on an iron chair.I narrowed my eyes to Viktor, “I could have gotten hurt! I hate dolls!”“I didn’t expect you to be so frightened!” Viktor defended, as he approached me to help me to my feet.I heaved a sigh.“Favorite joke of mine to play on tourists!” Viktor grinned, “my sincerest apologies.”“Apology accepted,” I said as I dusted myself off.Viktor’s smile returned as he pointed the flashlight ahead, “now one last stop. Then you can go.”I continued to follow Viktor, my concern only growing as we continued to move downward.Finally, we reached what looked like a large well, about two meters in diameter.Viktor stood nearby, and grinned at me, “This is the bottomless pit.”I lifted my eyebrow, “there’s no such thing.” I moved to the edge and shined my light down into the darkness.The light illuminated deep into the hole, and I could see there was brickwork leading up from almost three meters down before the raw rock of the earth took over for the rest of the hole.I only saw darkness below.Viktor took a coin and flicked it up into the air. It spun, glinting, and then fell down through the center of the well.I watched as it fell downward, glitching as it fell through the air, and even reflecting a bit of the flashlight from within the abyss below. Finally, I saw it vanish from sight.I listened for it to hit the bottom, but no sound came back up.Viktor smiled after a minute or two of silence, “Bottomless.”I gave a nod, “so, what’s down there?”“None know,” Viktor taunted me with a sly grin, “they cast prisoners inside. Some came out, some never did. It changed the ones who came out, hair white, mind’s broken, or some even claim to have suffered mutilations.”I shivered as the darkness seemed to be devouring the light from my flashlight. As if it were creeping upwards from the depths below.“What did they see?” I asked softly.Viktor’s voice now came from behind me, “See for yourself.”With a push, I found myself thrust forward and then falling downward.I screamed, turning myself around as I fell, looking at Viktor’s rapidly disappearing form.“Sorry friend!” Viktor shouted down after me, “But if I don’t feed him a new soul,” Viktor’s voice echoed, “he’ll take mine!”“Who?!” I thought as I continued to scream.Viktor’s form disappeared from the rapidly vanishing light from above.I was falling for what felt like forever. Soon the light vanished, as I struggled to find my flashlight. I pointed it down, not seeing any floor coming towards me. The feeling of falling filled me with complete and utter terror as I watched raw hued rock pass me by.My ears popped as I continued downward, ever further down.Soon I could hear the screams of others who had fallen. First one, then more. They were screams of people like me, cast into the pit.Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I saw a light at the bottom of the pit! It was a reflection of my flashlight!I realized it was water! I took a deep breath, closed my eyes tight, and positioned myself to drop into the water feet first. I prayed to God the water was deep enough to break my fall.The icy water surrounded me, like a thousand knives stabbing into my skin, the pressure of the water surrounding me in darkness once more.I blacked out.When I came to, I opened my eyes unsure as to what had just happened. But all I could see was the dark red clouds above me, just as in my nightmare. I sat up, sitting at a riverbank of some mighty stream.My heart raced as I recognized the sky. I knew where I was. The place from my nightmare.“Took you long enough, this time,” the voice of the yellow-eyed creature called to me.I got to my feet, running towards him, angry as I charged him, pulling the dagger out of my backpack.The creature grabbed my wrist with a blackened boney hand swiftly as it grinned wide to me, “Oh, how cute Selaphiel, you thought he knew how to use a holy weapon?”I gasped and grunted as I turned to where the blue-eyed figure stood on the opposite shore of the mighty river.“I suppose I expected more of humanity, as of late,” the brilliant blue-eyed creature, who must have been Selaphiel, explained.“So, their time is nigh?” the yellow-eyed creature grinned at me.“Wh-what do you mean, ‘their time is nigh’? What are you?!” I shouted.The yellow-eyed creature pulled me close to him, a putrid breath spilling from its mouth. While it pulled me closer, a sickly horse approached us.The horse had sunken eyes and looked like a skeleton of a horse wrapped in sickly and thin flesh. No fur was on its body. Open sores covered its skin, along with lesions that oozed with pus, attracting flies.The yellow-eyed creature before grinned at me with putrid stained teeth, “They called me Akkadian for millennia…” he grinned, “but you can call me… Pestilence.”My eyes went wide as Akkadian’s eyes burned a brighter yellow. Those eyes bored into my soul.Akkadian’s lips soon met mine, as it kissed me I tasted a putrid flavor of rotten meat! Soon, everything once more went dark.…By the time I came to, I found myself in a hospital bed.I sat up slowly, confused. “What happened?”As I looked around, I saw a nurse coming towards me. She had a much more familiar accent, nothing from Czech. Was I back in New Zealand?“Sir?” the nurse asked.I gave a nod, “yes?”“Oh, lovely!” She smiled, “you’re awake! I’ll go get a doctor.”“Right where I want you,” I heard the voice of Akkadian in my mind.“What?!” I shouted, getting to my feet. I was in a hospital gown, and my bare feet hit the cold floor, sending a shock through me.“I thank you, boy. Now, I can try again,” Akkadian’s voice echoed through me, “right where I failed before.”“Try what again?!” I shouted. I coughed as I staggered out of the room, heaving breaths as I got to the hallway. I felt dizzy, my stomach felt sick, and I covered my mouth as I vomited out a putrid green liquid.I fell to my knees, looking down at the puddle of sickness in front of me.The vomit writhed before me, teaming with many maggots and tiny insects.“Why, to infect them ALL!” Akkadian cackled in my ears as I felt weak. As I collapsed onto the floor, I saw others near me collapsing. More and more people fell ill, and I watched helplessly as those who tried to help soon succumbed to the same mysterious illness I did.I gasped heaving and failing breaths, each shorter than the last as screams filled the air.“I will not forget your sacrifice!” Akkadian taunted, “for you have helped me bring forth the Final Plague!”My lungs burned as they filled with fluid. I gasped, coughed, heaved, but like so many others in that hallway, and surely the world around me, I felt the icy grip of death, but it wouldn’t come. It wasn’t death that was within me.I was the vessel for the Horseman of Pestilence. via /r/nosleep https://ift.tt/34N3You