Romance of a Nightmare

“…Esther, do you promise?”

A man’s voice echoes through the darkness.

“What?” My voice drifted back into the void.

“Promise me, Esther.” He spoke more insistently this time.

“Who’s Esther?” I asked.

Was he talking to me? Was my name Esther? I waved my hands around. Why is it so dark?

“It’s a promise, then.” The man said, either he had not heard my question or was ignoring it. “I wonder…what path will you choose this time? I know you’ll find me, so I’ll be waiting.”

In the midst of the darkness, a solitary door emerged, strange symbols etched into its weathered wood. I reached for the handle, a strange sense of déjà vu washing over me.

Have I been here before?

Slowly, I turned the knob and pushed the door open.

A blinding flash of light flooded my vision. I stumbled forward, losing my footing as I tumbled through the doorway, turning as I fell.

My back slammed against a cold, hard floor, with the feeling of something heavy pinning me to the ground—crushing the air from my lungs. I struggled for breath, my chest constricted beneath its weight, forcing my eyes open, only to discover a young woman’s body lying across my chest. Her skin was deathly pale, her vacant eyes staring past me into nothing.

The hair on my arms stood up as a chilling realization washed over me. I pushed her unyielding form away and scrambled backward across the floor, the deafening sound of my heart pounding rushing in my ears. I’d never seen a dead person before, let alone one so up close.

My gaze snapped around the place, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings, questions filling my mind one after another.

“Where am I?” My lips quivered with every trembling word.

I lay in the middle of a dome-like room made of stone. Across its surface, the walls bore the etching of the phrase Heaven’s Gates. The place looked abandoned and on the verge of collapse.

How have I gotten here? What was I doing before?

All I remembered was the sound of my mother’s voice before I drifted off to sleep.

A blurry image of her face surfaced in my mind. Through the haze of my memory, I could recall her gentle smile and hazel eyes. My body tensed, my heart pounded louder and faster as a horrific thought came to mind.

She couldn’t be…could she?

Slowly, I turned toward the dead girl. For a moment, I hesitated. Then I reached toward her with trembling hands and gently I turned her over onto her back. The stiffness of her body made my stomach turn. Her empty gaze sent a shiver through me as I stared at her frozen expression.

I let out a shaky breath, relieved it wasn’t her.

Now that I had a better look at the girl’s features, I noticed how young she was. Sixteen, maybe eighteen at most. Yet, despite how familiar the place felt, she remained a complete stranger to me.

“T—Thank God…”

I felt a little guilty saying that, but I couldn’t deny the feeling of relief that washed over me knowing the dead person wasn’t my mother.

It was strange. I couldn’t remember my own name, yet the thought of my mother felt strangely clear. Her face, her presence, even her voice lingered somewhere in the back of my mind, like the fading echo. It was sweet and gentle.

And somehow, the sound of her voice reminded me of the man who had spoken to me only minutes before.

Standing up on shaky legs and observing the ruins led me to the center of the room. I looked around the room. Strange words had been carved into the stone walls.

Heaven’s Gates.

I stared at the words. I didn’t know what they meant, yet something about them felt familiar. Then another sentence came to me.

“The wicked turn from the heavens…”

My voice cracked as a violent headache erupted from the back of my skull, swallowing every coherent thought. I gripped my head desperately while countless unfamiliar voices whispered inside my mind, their questions overlapping into incomprehensible noise.

“We chose—path. Lies. Death is only—hate you. Why, why—thank you.”

I’ll be waiting.

The intense pressure in my head forced me to my knees, and a raw scream tore from my throat.

It hurts! Shut up! It hurts! Shut up! Shut up!

Then, amid the chaos, a faint humming sound reached my ears, and the whispers fell silent at the mysterious sound. The sensation left me breathless and startled. Stumbling to my feet, I quickly searched for its source. My gaze swept across the chamber until I spotted an open doorway leading to a flight of stairs. The humming was coming from above.

I hurried toward the sound. My legs burned with an exhaustion I couldn’t understand, but I forced myself onward until I finally reached the source of the melody.

My breath caught in my throat as I took in the sight of our surroundings. I stood in a world utterly consumed by darkness. A lone shaft of pale light filtered onto the rooftop from the sky, carving out a small sanctuary amid the endless black. It was the only light that reached the stone building.

At the edge of the stone rooftop, beneath the pale light filtering through the clouds, stood a woman dressed in flowing white silk so thin it seemed woven from moonlight itself. Time had left the fabric worn and frayed, yet it only added to her ghostly beauty. Her long dark hair rested in a loose bun, with a few strands stirring softly in the wind.

The woman never turned around even after hearing my approach. She continued staring into the abyss. Her shoulders relaxed, unbothered by how close she stood to the edge. She tilted her head ever so slightly, a gentle smile gracing her rosy lips as her gaze met mine.

“What a sorry ending, isn’t it?” Her voice was soft, as if talking to a child—echoing through the darkness.

Before I could react, she stepped off the edge and vanished into the endless black abyss below. No scream escaped her lips. No sound at all. She simply… fell into the darkness.

I reached toward the space where the woman had stood only moments before, my vision blurring with unshed tears.

Why? What reason would she have to do that?

My mind searched desperately for answers it didn’t have. I stumbled toward the edge of the cliff and looked down. There was nothing; only absolute darkness stretched beneath me. I stared into the endless void when the air suddenly shifted. The ground beneath my feet seemed to ripple, softening like jelly beneath my shoes. I stumbled backward with a gasp, suddenly convinced that the ground itself was going to give way beneath me.

Then I heard them. Once more the voices called out. They echoed faintly in the distance, growing louder with every passing second.

“Esther…Esther…Esther…”

My lungs tightened as the voices grew louder, each whisper crawling beneath my skin. Fearing the pain that would follow from the overwhelming voices, I turned and rushed down the stairs, desperate to push as much distance between myself and those whispers as possible. I burst into the dome-shaped room, only to find something different.

A hallway stretched in its stead. Mosaic windows lined the walls, each depicting strange scenes that seemed to tell a story I couldn’t understand. Under different circumstances, I might have stopped to look. But the voices were getting closer. I had to keep running, and I did. I ran down the hallway, my footsteps pounding against the stone floor. At the far end stood a pair of enormous wooden doors, their dark surface barely visible beneath the dim light.

There.

I pushed myself harder, my lungs burning as the voices echoed behind me. The doors seemed impossibly far away, no matter how fast I ran. My legs began to ache, but I didn’t stop. The whispers grew louder as I reached for the doors, fingers trembling as I stretched toward the iron handle.

I yanked them open and burst through.

My steps faltered before I came to an abrupt stop. I found myself standing outside a massive building, staring at the streets beyond. Bodies lay scattered across the pavement. Men and women lay motionless among the debris, their faces torn and bodies pierced and battered beyond recognition. The sheer number of them made my stomach twist.

I couldn’t look away.

The street was silent. Too silent for a place filled with so many bodies.

“Wh—what?!” I took a step back at the sight before me. “What is going on?! Why are they—?!”

Heavy, slow footsteps that echoed from the darkness ahead cut my words short. From the edge of the abyss, a naked foot stepped forward, making me tense.

A survivor?

The towering figure of a man emerged, his grayish skin marred by dark veins that spread across his body like corruption beneath his flesh. Blood clung to him everywhere, soaking his tattered clothes and glistening wetly against his skin.

Crimson eyes burned beneath long, disheveled black hair, while his fingers twitched as blood dripped from his unnaturally sharp nails.

His expression remained vacant and lost until his glowing gaze fell upon me. His eyes narrowed as a chilling smile slowly spread across his lips, exposing sharp, unnaturally white teeth. A cold shiver crawled down my spine, and I retreated another step, the tension palpable as his smile slipped for a fleeting second.

“Do you fear me?”

His voice was unlike anything I had ever heard. It was deep and rough, almost as if something beneath his words was struggling to speak through him. And yet it carried a strange familiarity, but distorted into something darker.

He took one step towards me, then another, and all I could do was stare.

The intensity in his eyes held me in place. When he was barely a foot away, he extended one hand toward me. His eyes studied my face as though searching for something. The moment he finally seemed to find whatever he was looking for, he tilted his head thoughtfully. Despite his monstrous look, I reluctantly found myself recognising a strangely handsome quality in his face.

What is he?

“Es…Esther…”

His deep, gravelly voice called me by that name.

“That name…” I frowned. I had heard it before waking up.

Was it really my name? His voice sounded familiar too… but less human. Do I know him?

His hand slowly inched toward my face, his movements almost hesitant, as though afraid I might break beneath his touch. But his approach stopped when his eyes fell upon the blood coating his hand. The monstrous man lowered it before he simply continued staring at me. I swallowed nervously and glanced around, wondering if I could even escape him.

As if sensing my thoughts, he let out a low chuckle. I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or genuinely amused by my fear.

His gaze drifted towards the darkness at the far end of the street we were on. His head tilted slightly, as though he were listening to something I couldn’t hear. I followed his gaze before looking back at him. I was about to try asking him about what that was when laughter echoed from the far end of the street. The man’s entire demeanor changed. He stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the street. His posture stiffened, every muscle seeming to tense at once.

Its laughter rattled through the street like bones clattering together.

Another figure emerged from the darkness, but unlike the man before me, this creature was truly hideous. Its body looked like a grotesque fusion of man and monster, as though something demonic had forcefully molded itself around human flesh.

The creature’s head was the worst part.

Its face still carried traces of the person it once was, but inhuman features warped it beneath the surface. Flesh stretched unevenly over sharp bone, while a twisted maw split across its face far wider than any human mouth should. Sunken eyes glowed faintly from deep, hollow sockets, and jagged teeth protruded from torn gums in crooked rows. Thick strands of drool spilled endlessly from its enormous maw as its hollow eyes remained fixed on us.

“I…found… you.” The creature spoke with a wet, uneven, hollow rasp, like a corpse’s. Its throat made a sound as though blood filled it.

In one hand, it carried a long staff crowned with a rusted iron ring from which severed heads swayed gently like grisly trophies.

Then it vanished.

One moment, the creature stood at the far end of the street, and the next, the darkness where it had been was empty.

My breath caught in my throat.

Before I could even process what had happened, a violent force yanked me backward.

The world spun.

A deafening crash echoed beside me as the creature’s staff slammed into the ground where I had been standing only a second before.

I choked back a scream as powerful arms lifted me effortlessly from the ground, pulling me against a blood-soaked chest.

The mysterious man now stood between me and the creature, his crimson eyes locked onto the monster with terrifying calm. His body shielded me from the cloud of dust and jagged stones that pelted towards us.

I looked up at the man in terror, uncertain whether I should feel grateful or afraid.

Was he protecting me?

The creature raised its head, a horrifying smile stretching across its twisted face before it vanished once more.

My heart pounded erratically, knowing another attack was coming.

My gaze darted towards the building I had just escaped from, and for a brief moment, I considered running for it. But the man’s grip around me tightened, keeping me firmly against his blood-soaked chest.

Then he moved.

The world blurred around me as he leapt away with impossible speed.

A violent crash exploded behind us as the creature struck the place where we had been standing only moments earlier.

I screamed as more chunks of stone, and debris scattered through the air. My entire body trembled in fear as it finally dawned on me: even if I tried to run, I would never survive. The only thing keeping me alive was this monstrous man. He moved swiftly through the street, holding me tightly against him with one arm. My feet never touched the ground.

The creature continued its relentless assault, appearing again and again as it attacked.

The demon lunged again, and I flinched, expecting the ground to erupt beneath me. But this time, when it struck the ground, nothing happened. My eyes widened when I realized. It was the same attack as before. Except this time, the ground didn’t move.

It was a fake.

In the blink of an eye, my surroundings shifted once more. The man turned, and suddenly he was gripping the demon’s staff, the weapon raised mere inches from my head.

The demon’s mouth stretched once more into a terrifying smile. Its jaw parted, releasing another bone-rattling laugh before it lunged at me with its free hand.

My breath hitched.

The man practically threw me aside. I hit the ground and rolled several times before finally coming to a stop. Groaning, I pushed myself up. Watching in horror as he had the creature pinned in place.

“Go to the gate.”

His deep, rasping voice reached me as he glanced down at me before looking toward the building behind us.

I turned, following the man’s sight. The entrance stood only a short distance away. But I realized it wasn’t the same building. An old library now stood where the entrance had been.

I frowned.

What…? The inside of the building I had escaped looked nothing like this.

I stumbled to my feet and hurried toward the entrance, ignoring the corpses scattered across the street. My hand closed around the handle, but the moment I touched it, something slammed into my back. Strong arms wrapped around me, and the world lurched. We crashed through the door and for a moment, I couldn’t tell which way was up. But the man hauled me to my feet in less than a second after that.

A deafening crash came from behind us.

I turned and felt my stomach drop. This place wasn’t a library. Rows of desks stretched across an office floor. Staring at them, I struggled to understand what I was seeing.

How did I get here?

There hadn’t been an office here.

The demon had broken through the entrance.

I gasped as its massive body managed to wedge through the doorway, scraping against the frame as it squeezed inside.

The man didn’t give me time to think. He shoved me forward while keeping his gaze on the demon while giving me one single instruction.

“Run.”

I ran.

I crossed the office floor as quickly as I could, my eyes searching for somewhere, anywhere to escape. Ahead, I spotted the entrance to the emergency stairs.

I was almost there when I looked back.

The man was fighting the demon. Every time he struck it, tearing into its twisted body, the wounds closed almost instantly. Whatever damage he inflicted seemed meaningless. The creature simply regenerated and attacked again.

I was about to turn back toward the stairs when a sudden, violent impact echoed behind me. My eyes widened as I saw the moment the man got hit. The demon’s staff drove into his shoulder; the force sent him staggering backward several steps before steadying himself.

The demon laughed.

It slowly advanced toward him, reaching for the skull necklace hanging from its grotesque neck. With a harsh pull, it ripped the necklace free. The skulls scattered across the floor. One of them twitched before it moved. The skull began to twist and reshape itself, its form stretching until it became a smaller replica of the demon.

I stood staring in horror.

Another skull began to move. Then another. My breath caught as the scattered skulls transformed one after another, each becoming another copy of the creature. They laughed, the sound rattling through the office..

Then, within moments, as if swallowed by the air itself, they vanished completely.

I looked around in a panic. The man spun around and darted forward with alarming speed with the demon’s staff in hand, yet the copies surged ahead even quicker.

A movement caught my eye.

One appeared beside a desk. Then another near the emergency stairs, while another appeared behind me.

I was completely surrounded.

They weren’t staying in one place. They were appearing and disappearing, each time closer than before.

My heart pounded as I took a step backward.

The man moved between me and the approaching creatures. He kicked one of the desks toward the two demons closing in from the left, forcing them to recoil.

“Go!”

Turning toward the emergency stairs, I sprinted with the pounding of my heart in my ears. However, my progress was interrupted.

I felt it before I saw it.

A sudden gust of air rushed toward me.

It all happened so fast.

Before I could react, the real one emerged, its clawed hand lunging forward to seize me, its grip crushing as I cried out in pain. Before it could squeeze tighter, the blood-stained man stabbed the demon’s staff through its arm, making it release its hold slightly so I could breathe.

But in the chaos, the three of us crashed through the door we had been running toward. Only we didn’t emerge inside the emergency stairwell.

We crossed through a broken gate and plunged into an abyss.

Different structures of jagged buildings surrounded us, clattered against one another as if someone had torn apart and forcibly reassembled an entire city.

I screamed as I flailed helplessly, having slipped from the demon’s grasp and now falling toward what I was certain would be my doom.

The demon, roaring angrily, reached out in an attempt to regain his hold on me once more. But thankfully the man reached me first. He extended a hand, and I didn’t hesitate to take it. With a forceful kick to the demon’s head, he moved himself forward and propelled us toward a small entrance carved into the distorted buildings.

We fell through.

Cold, frigid water swallowed us.

We plunged directly into violent currents that pulled us under the water. I instinctively tried to gasp for air, but the man clamped a hand over my mouth.

Thanks to him and his quick thinking, I didn’t inhale the frigid water. Still, I could barely make out what was happening around me. The currents twisted in every direction, spinning me endlessly as they trapped me in a whirlpool.

Please…God…make it stop.

As though answering my prayer, the thrashing suddenly ceased. Still water suspended me in place. Above me stretched nothing but endless darkness. I floated there alone, staring into the depths below.

Then I saw something moving.

A colossal shape slowly emerged from the darkness.

At first, it looked like a statue. But then it moved. Its enormous arms slowly extended toward me, and the closer it came, the more impossible its size became. Its mouth opened, yet there was no tongue. The eyes opened too, but they were just hollow voids.

It could not see.

It could not speak.

Yet it continued its ascent toward me.

I froze as its enormous form filled my vision. Just as it prepared to consume me, a hand grabbed the collar of my dress and yanked me backward. The darkness disappeared in an instant. I tumbled through the air before crashing onto a cold marble floor, coughing violently, desperately sucking in huge gulps of air. When I finally calmed down and regained my breath, a frown creased over my brows, feeling something…amiss.

Looking down at myself, I noticed my clothes and body were completely dry, and the man…the man was nowhere to be seen. I found myself alone in what appeared to be a department store beside an open door, and beyond it, I could see only darkness. The image of the monster following us through each door sent a fresh wave of fear over me; I quickly got up and closed the door.