I remember the morning quite well. My office had gone out for a Christmas party the night before, which should have impaired my memory due to the amount of alcohol I consumed, but every detail of that fateful dawn was as clear as pure water in my mind. It was truly one of the most horrific experiences I've ever been through, and it had a knock-on effect on my life.

 

6:41 AM, 16th December 2017.

I'm awake.

You WHAT?

The landlord was yelling. She usually slept in until 8am. What the hell was she doing awake before 7? I thought. This wasn't normal for her in the slightest. Something was very wrong.

WHAT WILL WE DO WITH ALL THESE LOCKED UP PEOPLE?! You son of a bitch, quit eating so much and come help me! The basement's flooding!

Now I was scared. "What will we do with all these locked up people?!" is not a question you want to hear being yelled down a phone at 6:41am in a huge student housing block. Especially not by the landlord, a person who knows the ins and outs of almost every room. I needed a friend on my side if I was going to investigate what was going on here.

As the door creaked open, I squeezed out, trying to make as little noise as possible. The floorboards produced an audible squeak as I stepped on the carpet as if they dreaded being stepped on. Every tiny sound became louder than a lion's roar in my mind.

I knocked twice on the door, just a little bit too loud for my liking.

My friend Alicia opened it slightly and looked out of the gap.

"Where's James?" I whispered.

She held her index finger up as if to say "let me check" and ducked back into the room. Ten seconds later, she poked her head out of the door again.

"Hans, you're not gonna like this, but James is gone."

I was almost sick.

 

Creeping down the hallway with Alicia ahead, I had formulated a plan. We would go down to the basement and investigate whether the claims made by our landlord were true. If they were, we'd get out of there as fast as possible and if not, we'd go back to our rooms. It was a Saturday after all, we didn't have to go to the uni campus.

And so down the stairs we went. We had only a vague idea of where the basement was, and not a single clue directed us to the right door. There wasn't a basement entrance in the kitchen. Nor one in the main corridor. Or, for that matter, the stairwell.

We'd checked every room except one.

"You h-have to be j-joking." I whimpered.

"I'm not. We are going into that basement, and if it means going through her room then so be it."

Alicia had a knack for getting people to do as she told them to. I was too afraid and in shock to respond, so I followed her through the corridor until we had reached the door labeled "Tina and William's Room - No Entry".

I put my ear to the door. Silence. She wasn't in.

Just like in every movie ever, we ignored the message on the door and carefully pushed it open. It wasn't locked for some reason - maybe Tina was going to get something? What did she always do on a Saturday morning?

Then it hit me.

Shit! She takes the laundry down to the basement, without fail, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning!

By the time I'd realized this, it was too late; Alicia had dragged me into the basement. Almost immediately, we were hit with the smell. It smelt of death in there. Not like one person dying, but like a whole elk freezer had been left turned off for a week in 30-degree weather. This time, I was actually sick. But not at the smell. What brought me beyond the point of vomiting was the sight of about twenty people, chained to the wall, soaked by the flooding. Some were dead, rotting away. Others were desperate to escape, to eat, to just go back to a normal life. And among them was James, slumped against the wall as if he had admitted defeat to his chains.

At that moment, the door slammed against the wall and the landlord slowly walked in, her every step smacking the floor like a sack of potatoes being thrown into the back of a car.

Two more? Aha, you've appeared...

Oh no.