Heavy Void

Heavy Void is a short horror story that deals with the fear of the unknown and a threat that looms in the darkness. You can also listen to Heavy Void on YouTube.

Darkness.

All consuming and eternal, so complete that I can’t even see my own hands and feet when I look down. I’m unsure how long it’s been since I woke up in this space. It’s disturbing how quickly our perception of time leaves us when we can’t see the sun, moon or stars. I’d check my phone, but that was one of the first things I tried to do. It’s gone.

I can hardly remember what led to this. I went to the bar with some friends, had a few drinks. I remember waiting outside for my ride home. I hadn’t been that drunk. So how did this happen? Did someone drug me? Did someone do this to me?

I keep walking through the endless darkness. What choice do I have? I hope that I can find a way out. Even if I can’t find a door immediately, if I can find the wall, getting to an exit becomes as simple as following it around.

What if there is no door?

The thought comes unbidden to my mind. That maybe this expanse is truly infinite. That I’m just stuck here forever with no escape. I try to push it away, but it won’t leave. It stays in the back of my mind, taunting me. I feel my anxiety spike. I was already afraid. Now I’m feeling desperate.

I break into a run.

I can’t see where I’m going. The darkness is so deep and impenetrable that it feels thick, heavy. It feels like it’s physically weighing down on me, closing in around me in a stranglehold. I have no destination in sight but I keep running anyway. If I run straight into a concrete wall, that will only be a relief.

But I don’t run into a concrete wall. I trip over something instead and land face first on a hard floor of what I think is some sort of compressed dirt. The shock of the fall snaps me out of my stupor.

I find myself instinctively taking in deep breaths as I force myself to calm down. Panicking won’t get me anywhere. The ground feels like dirt. But it’s dirt that is packed in so tightly hardly any of it comes free when I scrape at it with my hands. That implies it isn’t natural, suggesting that this place is man-made after all. If that’s the case, it will have an edge. There will be a wall eventually. There will be an exit.

Perhaps whatever I tripped over will give me a hint about what happened to me, I think to myself, pushing myself up onto all-fours and crawling back across the ground in what I think is the direction I came from. I don’t want to accidentally step over it and keep walking never to come across it again.

My hand comes into contact with something wet, soft and squishy and I recoil, scrambling back a foot or two. I had been expecting something hard for some reason. 

“What the hell was that?” I speak out loud for the first time in what feels like a long time, my voice doesn’t carry at all through the crushing blackness. Yet it feels distant, like it was spoken by someone else. I can’t parse that, so I return my focus back to the mystery that I perhaps can solve.

I feel my way back to the object, my wet and sticky hand coming into contact with more of the same. In an instant, I know what this is and I scream. 

In my shock and panic, I throw myself back away from the body. Fear grips me, sinking its claws in tight and refusing to let go. My breaths come quickly, too shallow to properly provide me the air I need. I can’t stop. I want to run again but I can’t even stand up. The strength has gone from my trembling limbs. 

I hyperventilate long enough that I get dizzy, my thoughts become a hazy soup. If my vision wasn’t consumed by total darkness already, I might have started to see shadows creeping in around the edges.

I must have nearly passed out. I was slow to come to my senses, clarity of thought gradually creeping back to me. Still trembling, I sit back up. I go back to the tried and true breathing method to try and calm myself. It’s hardly working, but I can think somewhat clearly now. 

They aren’t good thoughts.

My hands are slick with someone else’s blood. Someone else was down here. It might even have been one of my friends who I had been out with. It’s so dark that I’ll never know. Whoever it was though, they’re dead now. They had suffered a grievous, wide wound to what I think was their abdomen. 

How did that happen in this place? I hadn’t run into any obstacles at all before tripping over the body itself. The ground is completely level too, it isn’t likely they just fell from a ledge or something.

That leaves only one option in my mind, the most concerning one: this was done to them. That means that I’m not alone in the dark. Someone or something is in here with me. A chill creeps down the length of my spine. Suddenly, my fears about this place feel a lot less existential and a lot more tangible.

Looking around me, I see no signs of imminent danger. But I wouldn’t. I can’t. There is nothing but the endless dark. I can’t see what did this to the dead person any more than I can see the way out. There is only the void and if something is lurking within it, stalking me, I am helpless to do anything to stop it. I can only wander on and pray that my wandering leads me out.