Chapter 7

WARNING: THE NEXT CHAPTER CONTAINS EXTREME VIOLENCE, AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL READERS.

I stood, looking at the television that had somehow managed to appear in my room in the past hour. I was scared to turn it on.

Finally, I realized that I had to. Whatever was on that TV had something to do with Umbra. I picked up the remote and pressed the power button.

Claudia was tied to a table in the middle of a dark room. Next to her was a bunch of tools that you would see in a torture porn movie.

The guy from the school walked into the shot and looked at the camera. He ripped off the tape over her mouth. Then, he turned and picked up a bone saw. I looked at Claudia, and saw that her eyes were open. She was completely conscious.

He walked over to her hand, and grabbed one of her fingers. He bent it back all the way, and Claudia screamed as loud as possible. Then, he pulled it away from the back of her hand, placed the saw against her knuckle, and began cutting. He sawed off her finger, and I could see tears pouring down her face. Blood was coming out of the place where her finger had been, and I could tell she was in pain.

Then, he picked up a knife, placed the tip of the blade against her palm, and pushed. The knife went in up to the handle. Blood began trickling down, and I could see drops falling to the floor. I turned away, beginning to feel sick.

When I looked back, I glanced at the wall in the back. The bookshelves had been moved against the walls, but it was obvious that she was in the library.

I jumped up, moved the chair, and ran out of the room. I had to save Claudia. She was my only friend, and I couldn’t leave her.

#

Claudia was in extreme pain. She was missing a finger, and there was a knife up to the hilt in her hand. She knew that she was going to die, and she began to scream.

He picked up a cigarette lighter, grabbed her arm, and began burning something into her arm. The skin began to blister and blacken, and she screamed in agony. This was the worst pain she had ever felt.

She slowly began to get dizzy from blood loss, but she refused to close her eyes.

She saw him pick up a bottle of what looked like vodka, and poured it on her injured hand. She felt a burning sensation, and screamed again.

She wanted to escape. She couldn’t stay here. Her blood was puddling on the floor, and she had something burned onto her arm. She thought that she was going to die.

But not without a fight.

“What are you?” Claudia said. “Some kind of sadist?”

He looked at her silently, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to reason with him.

The only thing she could do was hope somebody would come and save her.

#

I arrived at the library, and walked around, looking in all the windows to see if they were blocked. They were, but that didn’t stop me; I could push down the bookshelves. The only issue was me then getting in and taking out who I assumed was Dr. V, without dying.

I decided the best thing to do was to hope the element of surprise would work, opened a window, and pushed the bookshelf down.

I pulled myself through the window and grabbed the person. Claudia was screaming. I took grabbed his wrist and twisted it until the bone broke and he dropped the knife he was holding. Then, I picked up the knife and stabbed it through his throat. Blood began pouring out, but he was still fighting, so I grabbed his arm and cut his wrist. Blood was covering everything, and he was dead within half a minute. Then, I dropped the knife and turned to Claudia.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I untethered her from the table.

“What the fuck do you think?” she replied. “There’s vodka somewhere which you can use to sterilize my wounds, and a cigarette lighter to cauterize them.”

I found those things, and poured the entire bottle of vodka on Claudia’s hand.

“I don’t know how to cauterize wounds,” I said.

“Just burn them,” she replied.

I picked up the lighter, and burned the place where her finger had been, then the top of her hand and her palm. Then, I went over to her torturer and ripped a strip of cloth from his costume. I used it as a tourniquet. However, I knew that she would never be able to use her hand again.

“We have to get out of here,” I said.

“But first,” she said, “I want to know who Dr. V was.”

I walked over to the body and pulled off the mask. We had seen his picture, just under an hour ago.

It was Patrick.

“Shit,” I said.

“Come on,” Claudia said. “We have to get off the campus before we turn out like that.”

The two of us got up. I tipped over the bookshelf in front of the door, and the two of us ran out.

We ran straight for the gate. However, it was locked, and the fence around the school was impassable.

“Fuck,” I said. “How are we gonna get out?”

“I think I saw a manhole cover back by the main building,” she said. “We could escape through the sewers.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said.

The two of us ran back to the school. She had been right; between the school and the library, there was a manhole. I picked up the cover and dropped it right next to it. Then, Claudia and I jumped down at the same time.

“Ew,” Claudia said. “What is that smell?”

I could barely breathe. We were somewhere with absolutely no light, and the smell was horrible.

I searched the wall for a light switch. The wall seemed to go on forever, and every once in a while, I would bump into something that was hanging from the ceiling. Finally, I found the switch. I flipped it, and the room was instantly filled with a bright light.

The room was completely white. The walls and floors were some kind of tile. The entire place was extremely clean.

However, it wasn’t empty.

The room went on for a long time, and every few feet, hanging from the ceiling, was a body. A human body, probably Umbra’s victims. I turned to look at Claudia, and saw that she was vomiting. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. They were all at varying stages of decomposition.

We now knew what the smell was.

“Claudia,” I said, barely holding back vomit myself. “We need to go. Now.”

She nodded, and once her stomach was empty, the two of us sprinted towards one end of the room. However, as we got close, we saw that there was no door.

“Other way,” I said, and we turned around.

There was no door there, either.

“The only way out is up,” Claudia said.

The two of us sprinted for the ladder, realizing that we had just wasted a ton of time.

Then, we heard an old womans voice.

“You can never leave. If you do, I will die. I am Umbra, and now, you must die.

An old woman began materializing, but she looked extremely ghostly. Finally, she stopped, but she was still mainly white and transparent.

She charged.