The Old Relay Station
Click. A switch, faulty but working. The light pressed against the dark, sinking into the flesh. Each step carried Elias deeper into the relay station’s groaning stomach.
To distract his mind, Elias took notes and muttered to himself. He spoke of voltage readings and overall hazards.
For a moment, he saw a yawning rusted metal staircase, and a battered and cracked hallway leading towards the control corridor. The next, consumed entirely by darkness. The emergency lights pulsed on defiantly, a blood-red glow that took a long breath before it failed.
For a moment, the dark felt total–thick enough to press against his skin. Then he heard it, the wet drag of something shifting across the concrete behind him. The station creaked. Something malfunctioned. It was the wind.
Elias fumbled for his flashlight. Click. Like a single needle, it threaded through the teeth. The dark opened like a maw, revealing nothing. But the sound didn’t stop. It only paused, as if waiting for the mouth to close again. It was the wind.
He felt a breath on the back of his head, cold and long. He spun. The corridor bent where a wall once stood. The hallway distorted into a face looking back at him. His flashlight cried as it flickered. The battery. He had forgotten to check the battery before he had left. He ran. The dark followed.
With every sad sigh of the flashlight, it fought against the open maw ready to swallow him. The corridor twisted pipes into teeth, and smiled at him. The once short corridor turned into the tongue of a hungry beast. With each step he swore he heard the metal grate thud like wet flesh. The flashlight cried a final tear, before it died.
The wet drag resumed. Inching toward him. He listened. He stepped back. He hit a wall. It laughed at him. With every second passed the station groaned his name. It spoke to him in tongues. It whispered secrets he could not unhear—and in the silence between them, the dark learned his name.
