Nightmare at the Sanitorium

      Talrun looked around the forest as the trees seemed to close in on him. He knew better than to go to deep into the Haunted Woods, but he and his sister Marcy had planned an adventure. They had taken an expedition out to the Meepit Oaks Sanitorium and figured that they could explore it during the day while it was bright out. Gilly herself had gone through it no trouble, and the two siblings were both older than her, so what would they worry about?

      But even from the start strange things had started to happen. Doors and hallways kept shifting and changing on them and Marcy did not seem to act like herself at all while exploring the ruins. She was usually a very bubbly Jubjub, but now she just seemed to be a little out of it, like she wasn’t really there. Talrun could not figure it out. The whole expedition would turn out to be a waste if they kept getting turned around in the shifting hallways.

      Talrun had wanted to just take a quick look around and then leave. No sense staying too long in the building and potentially getting lost, especially after how much they already seemed to be now. Marcy kept asking to go a bit deeper in, she wanted to find some sort of souvenir to bring back to show that they had explored and survived. Talrun reluctantly followed along after her. As Marcy lead the way through another passage Talrun was sure had not been there previously, he noticed a door slightly ajar. It had an intricate design carved out of wood and what seemed to be a space for a nameplate on it. Talrun figured this must be a staff office or something similar. He told Marcy that they should check it out, maybe her souvenir would be in here.

      The two siblings went over to the door and slowly pushed it open, and immediately jumped back. There was a skeleton sitting at the desk in the room. After recovering from that excitement the two looked closer, questioning why a high ranking official would have been left here. Wouldn’t they have left first and it would only be the pets left here who would leave a skeleton? Or if the pet was left here, why was it? The two adventures looked around the room to try and see if there might be any clues. As Marcy checked the desk Talrun looked around the shelves filled with dusty books.

      He kept trying to pick up the books but for some reason he just could not. Whether the books were covering in something or his paws were not working right, he could not tell. Every time he went to grab a book he would somehow miss, or the book would look like it had moved away from him. He asked Marcy if she had any issues and she walked over and picked up a book and started to read it. Talrun tried to look over her head and see what was written, but even this proved difficult. He felt like there were words on the page but he just could not make out what they said. They seemed either too blurry or just a little bit illegible. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, but still no luck. Marcy seemed to have no issue reading it, and when she had skimmed the page she put the book back, declaring it did not have anything interesting in it.

      They decided that this room probably did not have anything else really interesting so they started to head to the door, but it was closed now. Talrun specifically thought he left it open. He reached for the handle and the same thing happened as with the books, he somehow kept missing grabbing it. As the two stood there and stared at the door there was a strange rumbling sound. They both turned their heads trying to determine where the sound was coming from.

      Then, without warning, Talrun and Marcy went tumbling down through the floor. Talrun tried to flap his wings, but for some reason he was still falling and falling. He should have been able to fly being an Eyrie, but nothing he did seemed to let him catch the air. And then he realized that they were falling a lot longer than he would have expected. Just how deep was this pit? He feel for what seemed like an eternity, before finally crashing into the ground. He shook his head as he looked around, and realized that Marcy was nowhere to be seen. Once he managed to haul himself up on all fours he tried to see where he was. It looked like a normal hallway except for the floor which was just dirt, the walls and ceiling were still made of crumbling stone blocks.

      Talrun looked again, the ceiling was also made of stone. There was no hole where he had fallen. How could he have fallen down here when there was no hole to fall through? He was wondering if he and Marcy had gotten themselves into more trouble than they should have. The Haunted Woods were really haunted afterall and who knew what strange spirits would play tricks on them. He really needed to locate his sister, but he was not going to find her by just standing here and wondering about the ceiling though, so he took off running down the hall. He passed by multiple locked doors, wondering whether the red on the doors was rust or not, and decided he did not want to know what it really was.

      Moving along he started to notice the light was dimming in the hallway, except for straight ahead and farther down. There looked to be a pinprick of light down that way and Talrun figured he should keep going towards. His paws pounding on the dirt floor as he kept moving faster and faster towards the light.

      Then without warning a door opened right in front of him and he smacked into it in his mad rush to the light. Dazed and confused he shook his head as he saw something on top of him. It looked like a foot was pinning him down, and as he raised his head up he saw that it was Marcy holding him down. Except this thing was not her, but only looked like her. All her hair was standing on end and sticking straight up, the most evil looking smile currently on her face. She stepped further up on him and Talrun found he could not move. Something had happened to his sister and he felt powerless to stop it.

      Marcy stepped up again and he felt her foot on his head, he could no longer see the light he had been following and felt her pressing down hard. He had no idea what had happened but he suddenly felt a shift and it felt like her foot had slammed down on his head. He tied to struggle and found that he seemed to be suddenly tied up, he kept struggling and moving around until he felt the bonds weaken. He jumped up and banged his head into something. He wondered what he had hit when his eyes started to adjust to the dim light in the hallway, only to find it was not a hallway. He was back in his bedroom at home. He glanced down and saw that a book had fallen off of his shelf onto his bed, and his sheets were all tangled and ripped off.

      Talrun started to laugh at himself for getting so spooked out by a nightmare. He had not actually gone to the Sanitorium after all, he had just dreamed up that horrible event. He fixed the sheets as best he could and crawled back into bed. Maybe now he would have a better dream when he fell back asleep.

      The End.