The Portal - II

Part 1

Thomas felt a surge of twitches erupt in his neck as he sat back in the worn out chair. The boarded up shack he sat in barely held back the wind and the howling caused his skin to crawl. The words and pages splayed out before him from the journals unearthed and lost to time cast a dark shadow on his mind and the room he now sat. Each new sound caused him to jump and sent his twitches into a lightning storm. He could barely fathom what he had read. Tales of ghosts, demons, possessions, murder. And the most disconcerting thing of them all is what he now knew. The man he had seen drooling and staring blankly across the common rooms in the sanitarium was the same man who had lived in this little shack months prior. A simple man who gave his life to seal…a demon.

                Each new revelation when compared to what Thomas knew about the world caused a greater twitch in his neck. He was afraid if this kept up he’d snap his own neck from the amount of violent snaps it was enduring as the information embedded itself. He dared not look again at the charcoal portrait he had put aside, the last remnants of a woman long since dead depicting a creature he dared not even attempt to describe. Thomas didn’t want to even try to acknowledge the possible truth of their claims.

                He had to take time to digest this and decide if he wanted to even believe it. But he also had his own strange experience. The mausoleum, the shadows flying about the room, and James. It was all to similar. Remembering the last night he saw the two men caused his stomach to jump. He raced outside to expel what little sat in his gut and saw the sun. The siren was still wailing in the large building to the west. The sanitarium that he called home for the past ten years was now on lockdown. He hoped that the doors would stay closed, there was nothing but death left in there.

                “What do I do now?” Thomas whispered. The life he had, though it wasn’t much of a life at all, was gone now. His room, his bed, his three meals, his seclusion. It was all gone. When he was younger he had wished to return to the outside world but he never expected it would be under such circumstances. He’d never ask to be “free” if this was how it would come about. The lives lost, the things he’s seen. The atrocity.

                He felt the book that was still bulging in his pocket and pulled it free. Crime and Punishment.

                “What must be done to become a great man? Is this the path?” Thomas walked back into the shack to put down the book. A piece of paper on the table flapped as wind returned through the graves. The formula to expel the demonic forces. Thomas scratched the back of his head as the uncertainty took hold.

                “I’m going insane for real now, maybe I should pry open the doors and return to my room where I belong.” Thomas scooped up the papers and the journals and stuffed them into his pockets. He took a deep breath and walked back into the sunlight.

                “Father! Help!”

                “What is it dear? What’s wrong?”

                “I saw something in the corner again. I’m scared.”

                “My dear, I’ve told you that there is nothing to be afraid of. Now go back to sleep.”

                “Stay here until I do?”

                “Of course, my dear.”

                Emily eased herself back to sleep putting her back to the shadows in the corner calming her breath as her father rubbed her back. Once he noticed she was fast asleep, Matthew Darrows retreated out the bedroom back down to his study. The forty year old man rubbed his eyes as he sat down at his desk. Papers and instruments and ancient books pouring over the edges. On the wall covered by a layer of dust was a photograph staring down at him. An old woman, gray and withered with age holding a baby boy. His grandmother holding him after he was born.

                In the back of his mind he could hear her voice whispering to him in sleep as he did for his daughter. Telling him to be afraid of the dark and to never give into what you here. That there are dark things in the world that want to harm you. How they are the architects for man’s destruction.

                A smile crept across his face as he stared into the circles drawn on the pages in front of him. He placed his hands on the table and closed his eyes. A light started to burn over the circles and lines as he began to speak to the room though he knew his voice was travelling over distance.

                “…In London. That is where this will end.”

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