The descent felt easy, effortless and swift. Trance like. The Basilisk’s stare singed the back of her mind, commanding her to descend as she hovered over each step, gliding almost, downwards. She reached the landing of the staircase and turned to face the massive clock that stood in the centre so imposingly before continuing further down. The hands, she saw, were spinning in a silent frenzy, forwards and further forwards in time. She stood in front of it, as if mesmerized by its constant movement. It felt strangely soothing. The Basilisk hissed at her hesitation, as his behest was for her to descend down into the gut of the House on the Hill.
“Non omnis moriar”[1] he lisped, and his dense breath journeyed til it reached the back of her neck, its frozen vapor reverberating between her ears. Forward she went, in a state of urgency to do the Basilisk’s bidding, round the left side of the clock, now facing the other staircase; the one leading down. She jolted at the thought of the unknown, of the strangeness of her actions, of her susceptibility to the wicked coercion that instructed her every step. She dreaded to wonder what lay beyond the stone staircase, further and further down into the blackness. Then again, she could not falter since the Master of Serpents had laid down his decree. A fear took over her as she contemplated the Basilisk’s festering persistence in the task at hand. Yet it was this alarming fear that armed her soul, an avid realization that there was still something left to lose and therefore something worth protecting in facing her demons or whatever lurked in the bowels of this bizarre place. She continued down, step by step, steadily, afraid, but embracing it as she was convinced her fear only meant that there was something worthy of being lost or gained. Or perhaps, she just needed to find out if her fear was justified.
As she descended, as if to maintain contact with this conscious state and in an attempt to maintain her pseudo-sanity, her left hand trailed against the stone wall which encompassed the staircase that lead into the bleakness of the below. This seemed to ground her to this level of consciousness, feeling more secure sensing its rough, coarse surface against her pristine skin. It was comforting. It made her feel in touch with some sort of almost tangible reality. Distant albeit, but it was her way of holding onto this hostile yet harmless realm nonetheless, in the midst of the dark, waning, airless space of the House on the Hill. A thousand thoughts crossed her mind, images of things past, deviant acts, sounds of sorrow, of words spoken and vows broken, obscure whispers, wails of torment caught in a loop between woe and suffering then elated, evil, disturbing laughter.
She paced downwards and each step she took immersed her into an even thicker layer of darkness. And even in this asphyxiating darkness she felt the need to shut her eyes firmly, hoping that this would switch off the incessant murmurs in her head. If anything, this gave them grater potency, escalating, louder and more alive inside her mind as she continued down, down, and further down The torturous memory of the Forest of Forever overwhelmed her; its voices had returned all of a sudden. Yet how she longed to be in those dark woods at this moment. It felt the lesser of two evils, an evil she had grown accustomed to, but she continued to descend, as she knew the only way out was forward. The stairwell seemed endless. Unfathomable. She now felt she had been descending for hours. Drained of all energy, physically and mentally. Suddenly, it was a stale smell of death that was the only thing she could inhale. A stench so acidic, it burned her lungs. She began to choke; to gasp. “Facilis descensus Averno [2]“. Her nails scraped the stone wall; they tore and bled under the self-inflicted injury in her feeble attempt at overcoming the lack of oxygen. “Facilis descensus Averno”. She continued to descend, two steps at a time. Three. In the absolute darkness. Without clean air. Now, no air. She continued to descend with the last of her determination to not suffocate fueling her legs. A little further. “Facilis descensus Averno”. She heard this hiss loud and clear. Dogmatic. Leviathan lisped his bidding into her consciousness and with what felt like her last breath, she uttered the Basilisk’s command.
“Non omnis moriar”.
Out of nowhere, a feeling of cosmic suction permeated the hollow vacuum of her choking surroundings, a sense of synchronizing into a different dimension in a another frame of time took over her as the image of the spinning hands of the clock formed in her mind; she knew the clock that was now way above her somewhere, somehow conscious of the distance between where she was before and where she was now. And it was at that moment, when she realized she was able to breathe again. She inhaled a gush of air to fill her lungs making her feel alive for the first time in eons.
She noticed a deafening silence.
No voices. Only then did she realize she was still keeping her eyes shut. She opened them, and was relieved that she was able to see, although it was still a dusky gloom that prevailed around her. As each moment passed, her sight began to get used to the strange darkness now; either that or the darkness itself waned, and thus she gradually could make out the silhouettes of her newfound surroundings. She could see beyond the darkness now as her foot reached the end of the stone staircase. And instantly, a bizarre clarity reigned at the end of a tunnel that stretched in front of her. She walked towards it with a spring in her step.
She came to a vault of some sort, a marble, underground maze full of passageways. A viscous brightness bounced off all the ancient stone that encompassed this place; the below. She trusted her sense of orientation in the labyrinth of hallways that revealed themselves before her. It was cold here. It was cold and it exuded a disturbing sense of beckoning. She walked around as if she had been here before. She took turns leading in and out of vacant rooms with no second thought until she entered a circular chamber made of illustrious Gray marble, staggeringly brilliant in its glorious macabre stillness. A series of sealed tombs were horizontally aligned along the wall perimeter of the mausoleum, like a formation of the integers of a clock; she remembered Leviathan’s Clock upstairs and the thought of his magnet like, red slit eyes made her shudder. And just then, a series of torches lit the place up. It looked like this chamber of perennial slumber was tended to on a regular basis, by some pilgrim on a mission, or more likely a minion or servant of Leviathan. His wicked presence filled the space around but she was not threatened by his stinging aura. Not this time. She felt as if she somehow had a purpose for being there.
The tomb that was precisely opposite her, where “12” would be in this clock-shaped prison of death, that tomb stood out from the rest that were plain and commonplace compared to it. The wall was adorned by a prevalent marble mural, full of inscriptions carved into the slab. She went closer to scrutinize them. Although the writing seemed centuries old, one sentence appeared as clear as day in a language that she did not own in her conscious mind, Latin presumably. It read: “Requies Aeterna” [3]. She searched for some congruence in the phrase as she read it out loud, quietly at first as she tried to pronounce the words correctly, then louder, more confident than before. Again, “Requies Aeterna”. There was a loud crack, and the slab that covered the tomb directly below the inscribed marble mural opened up wide to reveal an alabaster coffin. She bent down to get a better look at its timeless resident and she gasped in surprise seeing the spitting image of herself laying there, utterly still, yet vivacious and beautifully youthful with long black curls running down her chest to her waist, in an ivory lace dress and a wreath of dried blood-red roses. Her alter ego looked as though at perfect ease a facial expression so calm, collected and serene. Completely motionless, yes, but not dead; asleep rather. “Eternal Rest” she said, realizing the meaning of the Latin phrase that dominated the wall above this special tomb. She reached out to touch the rose wreath instinctively, and as her finger came into contact with the dried rose petals, they became, crimson, then bright red, and started to bleed down onto the dark, ebony curls, staining the pristine gown the beauty wore.
As the wreath of blood-red roses began to glow with alarming vitality, the ground slowly began to vibrate as the walls started to rumble, and every single slate of marble quaked vigorously. The entire mausoleum shook to its core and started to tumble down on her, drowning everything in ancient, marble dust. She crouched at the foot of the special grave she had disturbed, trying to figure out her escape in a state of panic. But she had to make her move or else it would be too late. She stood up as the ceiling closed in on her, bracing her head with her hands. She must find her way out. The flames of the torches went out one by one as a strong wind entered the room with irrevocable force, mighty and ferocious, tearing the marble tiles that remained on the floor and walls in its wake. She had not managed to move an inch. So she acted rashly, and pushed the inscribed wall in front of her, with great trepidation but it seemed the only sane option; and it opened as if by sorcery, sideways and into the rest of the wall revealing a tunnel that felt like the only safe exit. Without a second thought, she trekked her way out of the imploding mausoleum through this haven of a passage way that appeared as if out of nowhere.
She ran, with what felt like supernatural speed, further into the tunnel; further into the unknown, past the point of no return, leaving the disastrous setting farther behind. She was almost, finally, outside again, relieved and fueled with adrenalin as she kept running fast ahead, without thinking. There was, after all, only one direction now. She ran as far as her legs could carry her… Into the light of the day and into yet another peculiar landscape, a strange, verdant terrain that she couldn’t yet observe in detail very well. The shudder of ruin still echoed behind her. And then, in a few more paces, she finally felt like she had made it. An overwhelming sense of safety took over her, and so, trusting that warm feeling in her gut, she stopped. Panting heavily, she turned around to face the calamity she had so marginally escaped from. It was then when she realized that she was actually on the western, lower side of the House and looking up at it. Bizarrely, it appeared as if nothing had happened. The hill looked quite regular and there was no sign of any upheaval and no sign of the tunnel; just a peaceful pile of earth and moss. She paused, pulsating, taking all this in before collapsing onto the ground, pleased to feel the warm moistness of the soil beneath her.
She lay on the ground for a while, embracing its sanctity, catching her breath and reclaiming her thoughts for her own. How different she felt the atmosphere here; now. She had entered a place that was touched by evil; it was undeniable. She gained clarity now, in the open air that was no longer stale or poisoned by Leviathan’s hissing. She turned her head to look at the House again. Not a sign of damage in sight. How could this be? she asked herself, questioning her experience, for a second also her existence. Had this really happened, or had she imagined it? She could not answer the question. And besides, it was not the right question. She knew she was not ready to discern between the physical world and the mental one; the latter exists without limits, without boundaries and gives life to your inner most secret fears. And just like that, she stopped wondering if what she had experienced had really happened, or whether it was a projection of her mental world. She knew that it was of no consequence.
[1] Not all of me shall die
[2] The descent to Hell is easy
[3] Eternal rest
Helen Marie Joyce 
Super vivid. Want to know what happens next! ❤