IRC-Galleria

Conrad walked forward through a doorway and, without looking, hit the lightswitch on with his left hand to illuminate the place a little. After a few minutes he had looked through every room of the house, his inquiries of anyone being there echoing around and bouncing from the walls of the vacant house. It wasn't a huge place, one floor consisting of a kitchen, a living room and a small room between them that linked the two and the front door together. The kitchen also led to the bathroom that he also checked just in case someone had fallen asleep in the tub or something and hadn't heard him yelling. The furnishing was pretty basic. Tables and chairs in the kitchen, a sofa and a television in the living room.... the place didn't have much of a lived in feel, no opened mail anywhere or used plates or such. The only signs of life that were immediately apparent were a few rugs that had been pushed out of place in the kitchen and the tire tracks outside. After a few minutes of searching it seemed pretty apparent that there was no phone in the house. He cursed vocally. One would think that any kind of a house would have a phone. He weighed his options. It didn't seem like a viable idea to brave the journey outside back to his car and onward from there, since he had no clue how far he would have to journey in the cold before reaching help. Although he figured that the walk would probably be completely survivable, since no place should be that remote, but he still didn't feel like risking it especially since he was now in the comforting warmth of this small building. He felt tired anyway and a small clock on the wall told him that it was almost 5 pm and indeed it had already gotten fairly dark outside. It seemed like a viable option to just stay here and wait for whoever owned this place to return. Then he could just explain the scenario to the owner and the situation would resolve itself even if the person would get scared and call the police. He figured that the end result would place him safely back home eventually anyway. The couch looked very inviting and the tv just might be the thing to remedy the agitation that plagued his mind after all that had happened. He didn't even take off his coat and just lied down, placing his feet on the armrest. He noticed a remote on the table next to him and turned on the tv. As he put down the remote, he noticed a small piece of folded paper on the table as well. It stood out since it was the only item on it. Without really thinking anything about it, he took the piece of paper and noticed some writing on it :


"Have we done something
To fill the need?
For you can't hear anything
When your eyes bleed."


Conrad shuddered at the macabre text and put the piece of paper back on the table. He started to wonder if this place was truly safe. Why was that note there? Who had written it and what did it mean? As he pondered this, he started feeling dizzy again. The vertigo also seemed to return and his whole body just screamed for some rest. Soon Conrad gave in to the exhaustion and lost consciousness.


Awake. The sunlight glared in from the window. Conrad stood up form the couch and noticed the tv had shut down on its own. He looked around and felt a serious sense of disappointment. He was still in the mysterious house and apparently everything he had experienced was real. He stood up and noticed the piece of paper was still on the table. It wasn't folded though, but crumbled. Curious, since he distinctly remembered simply putting it neatly back on the table last night. He picked up the paper to look at it and maybe try to make some sense of it. After turning it around for a few seconds with an expression of confusion on his face, he dropped it to the floor. The paper was blank. He buried his face in his hands and wondered what the hell was going on. Was he going insane? Why couldn't this all just be a strange dream? He suddenly lifted his head and looked to the distance and thought to himself : "Dream. What did I dream of last night?" He struggled to remember but managed to recall a few visions of visiting some town, meeting some random people, driving and.... feeling happy. Suddenly he started to smile. "I didn't see the nightmare...", he thought to himself. He was still utterly confused about what had happened to bring him here, but this was still such good news, that he thought that maybe all of this was in the end a good thing. He walked into the kitchen, since he was feeling a little bit hungry and opened the fridge. There was nothing inside except a small brown glass bottle that didn't look like it would hold anything edible. The text on the label had worn off into a faint smudged mess. He took the bottle to examine it more closely and removed the lid. Feeling curious, he smelled the contents carefully and immediately started to feel unwell as the scent stung his nerves like a needle from the past rattling his brain. He couldn't really describe even to himself what that sharp smell was but it somehow did feel familiar. He had definitely smelled it before sometime. He just couldn't place it. The liquid inside the bottle was obviously not useful to digest so he put the container back and closed the fridge. His gaze then turned to the large freezer that had a lid on the top. He figured there would have to be something to eat in there and attempted to open the lid. It wouldn't budge. It didn't feel completely stuck, more like it was locked perhaps. He looked around and indeed noticed a heavy padlock on its side. Why would anyone need to lock the freezer in his own home? He was about to give up on his search for food but then noticed a key on the floor below the padlock. He figured he might as well try it. The lock clicked satisfyingly when he put the key in and turned it. The lid was immensely heavy. Closing his eyes, he strained his muscles to push it fully open. After opening the lid, he opened his eyes again. And wished he wouldn't have. He opened his mouth to scream, but just froze to to look at the horrifying sight before him. It was Helen. Tears of horror started to pour out from his eyes as he couldn't look away from the woman who had huddled into the fetal position and frozen to death with a distinct look of desperation on her face. Conrad then noticed a note on the inside wall of the freezer : "NOW YOU KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE BETRAYED AND LIED TO. I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT." He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Who could do something like this? As he was about to turn away from this traumatizing display, he noticed that the woman was holding something in his hand. A cellphone. He immediately reached for it, but paused as he really didn't want to touch the body. But he felt he had to go for his only chance to call for help. He reached in and carefully tried to yank the phone out of Helen's cold brittle hand feeling a terrible chill everytime the frozen wrist and fingers cracked and snapped with every tug on the phone. Finally he pulled harder and could hear at least two fingers breaking as he got the phone free. The battery was empty. Of course it was. Otherwise she would've called for help with it. Suddenly he realized the phone wasn't hers. At least not the one he had seen her with the last time almost a year ago. His hand started to shake. Slowly he turned the phone to look at its back cover. His eyes widened and a sudden headache seemed split his brain in two. He fell to the ground screaming both in agony and shock. As he started to lose consciousness he threw his gaze at the phone's back cover. It had the letters "C P" on it.


Conrad opened his eyes as he was lying on the kitchen floor. He looked at the clock and noticed that he hadn't been out for more than an hour. He stood up and looked again into the freezer with a grim look on his face. He felt like he should say something. But couldn't really think of anything. He didn't even know what to think anymore. Now everything made sense but... what now? The feeling of emptiness overwhelmed him. He knew what he had done, but couldn't really justify it. Taking his dead cellphone with him, he left the house and started to walk along the road. He hadn't bothered ever to undress inside the house, so the bite of the cold didn't feel all that bad. The world was bright and calm and the rays of the sun bounced around in the snowy landscape, but for Conrad the world was in flames. He came to the bridge and noticed a set of half snow-covered tire tracks that led over the edge right next to the stone pole to which he had leaned on yesterday. Shaking his head he stopped walking, turned to the pole and tried to collect his thoughts. There was a moment of calm in his mind as he searched his feelings and memories as the freezing wind was picking up again. Suddenly he knew. He had to get out of here. Had to escape. He opened his coat, took a step forward and looked upward with a blank look on his face... and let the cold sink in.