If Damnation be the Way

There was only one rule: don't open the door.

But rules were made to be broken, weren't they? Especially if it meant your life. And I don't want to die. Not here, not now, and especially not like this. I don't even know what this is.

I look up at the handle, examine it in the dim light. I'm not even sure if it's locked. I reach up towards it, but I stop. What if it isn't? What if it just opens? Then what? I don't know what's out there. Who might be waiting.

Around me is just darkness, barely pierced by a pale glow bleeding from beneath the door. Flickering? The floor is cold and rough, stone maybe. Out past my own hand it's just empty blackness, and cold. It feels so cold.

I hear something from the other side, like shuffling. Pressing my ear against the wood it sounds like banging. Is someone hammering or chopping something? What are they doing? Splinters press into my cheek as I strain to listen. Then they stop.

I have questions. Frantic questions and no answers. Maybe no time either. My mind races and I can feel my heart beating up into my throat. I have to do something. Anything. I reach again for the handle.

Suddenly, from out in the darkness, a noise. Scraping, moving, and the clanking of metal. A chain dragging over stone? I freeze, not breathing, and try to see, but there's only the dark. Then, the darkness speaks in a wheezing breath. "Don't open the door."

Are those...eyes? Who's out there? What's in here? I do what I always do, the only thing that I can do. I grasp one of my fingers and snap it back until it breaks, trying to wake myself up. Again.