I have to admit that I do not write this story by my own intentions, but only because, well, certain people asked me to, for these people think that what happened to me should not be kept secret.
So I will tell you about it. But I have to warn you! In fact, I ask you NOT to read on, for what happened to me I wish nobody else ever has to experience! What I will tell you may be mind-boggingly and I don't want you to blame me for a week's nightmares, so if you are lighthearted, don't read on!

It all began in a summer night, two years ago, October 1572.
It had been a nice day: sunny weather, no wind, nothing special.
At first. In the late afternoon though, I began too feel uncomfortably. I didn't quite know what the reason for the depressive feelings I suddenly experienced was, but when I think about it, the quietness comes to mind. It was unusual, as normally there always blew a slight breeze, and the talking of people in the distance came trough my window. But not this unholy afternoon. The air seemed to stand still, hold by some unknown and dark force. The sun was shining, but the light was somehow different. It seemed thick, coloured like molten gold, almost touchable. And unmoving, yes. I remember that there was something wrong with the shadows too, they too seemed to stand still.
It was like time itself was standing still, but still I could see people moving in the distance, obviously not noticing the strangeness of this afternoon. One strange thought swept trough my mind then, I remember. I aked myself, for an instant of a second, if they were people at all! But soon I had dismissed those thoughts and made myself clear that it was nothing more then my paranoia, which was, unfortunately, nothing new to me.
I tried not to think anymore about it and air and shadows began moving again. But when night was falling I was still feeling uncomfortable, not able to forget this strange feeling I had that afternoon.
Not being able to let my mind rest I decided to drink some warm milk and get early to bed, hoping I would forget my fear when sleep came.
But it didn't come. I was still lying awake when the full moon stood high on it's arc, not able to sleep, unplesant thoughts roaming trough my mind.
At last i coudn't stand the darkness anymore and enlightened the pale candle standing next to my bed.
Without looking on the title I longed for a volume in the pile lying on my desk. An old poem collection it was.
Hoping it would bring my mind to more pleasant thoughts I opened it at random and began reading the poem on that page:

fear

Wandering i was
trough darkest woods
when a sound i heard

Whirling around
my gaze fell on a tree
moving in the wind
and nothing more

Moving on i was
in the same dark wood
when a light i saw

Glancing around
i spotted the moon
reflecting on wet stone
and nothing more

Hurrying on i was
in the same old wood
when an odor i smelled

Bending down
only damp air i smelled
emerging from wet ground
and nothing more

Running i was
trough the dreaded wood
when the ground i felt moving

Lying down
only water rumbling i noticed
running in some distant stream
and nothing more

Running for my life i was
reaching the end of the wood
when a voice i heard calling

Standing still relieved i was
for i knew who it was
calling after me
from the dark wood i left behind

only Fear it was
and nothing more!


I don't know, but it seemed to have some hidden message and somehow it brought my mind on other ways and I felt I would finally be able to get some sleep that night.
Oh how I wish now I had never read it, but rather stayed awake the whole night, for sleep should not bring my mind any rest at all! But you shall see yourself. If you dare reading on.

So as I told you I blew out the candle and went to bed again, the full moon still shining trough my window on his climax.
Finally I could close my eyes and was able to find relief from my restless spirit in the embracing dark.
Enyoing the quietness I became suddenly aware of some sound interfering with it. I tried to ignore it, but it became ever louder and clearer until I thought it was someone crying, perhaps a child, for the sound was light and faint despite it's clearness.
But it's very clearness was intriguing me, as I could have sworn it came from just outside my open window. I stood up and looked out of the same but could see nothing, so I closed the window and went back to bed, only to disover that the sound had not become fainter in any way though my window was closed now, and it was impossible for it to emerge in my very room!
I tried to sleep, tried not to hear it, but I couldn't.
It grew more urgent every second, echoing in my head, intriguing my feelings, until I could stand it no longer. I couldn't help but leaving my bed again this horrible night.
When the door of my house I had opened, a shadow crossed my path, blacker then night and running like the wind.
Almost falling down I rushed back in my home, before I realized that it had only been a black cat, on it's late night hunt, with yellow eyes, that had terrified me so easily.
And again the crying sound rushed in my head, producing goosepickles on my cold skin.
I wandered around my house, two times, in the middle of the night, only to find nothing.
But the crying was so near! It could have been right around the corner, but when I came there, only the moonlit ground I found.
But the crying never ceased.
I can't really understand it, now that years have passed since that dreaded night, but something drove me to search on for it.
My heart was still beating fast after the incident with the black cat, and I would have gone in my home and locked the door, but not this night. I felt bewitched, felt strange, as if my thoughts were not my own.
And so I went inside, only to wrap me in my cloak and slip my bare feet in my leather boots. And left.
The cloak protected me from the cold wind that had grown unnoticed by me to quite some intense, but I could still feel the cold invading me, stiffening me.
But the strangeness of the crying did not cease, for though the wind was loudly blowing, it was as clear as it had been before.
I don't know by which unholy force I was driven, but I began moving intuitively down the street, and the sound seemed to grow even more intense, although I can't really say if it wasn't just my own subjective impression that made it sound louder.
I walked down the street, drawing my cloak tightly around me, for the wind whirled leafs from the trees around me, dancing to some magic rhythm.
But I wandered on, not being entirely myself, walking trough my little village until alas, I reached the place I feared most. I had not known where I was walking, just moving on, picking streets by chance. Or at least I thought so. But now I stood before the place I never had visited even in the sunlit daytime. The graveyard.
I had never believed the stories about zombies and ghosts haunting graveyards at night, especially in a night like this, with the full moon shining at it's brightest.
But still I feared it. Not ghosts, but the spirits of the dead, some unholy forces, something dark I was never able to put in words, but which I feared for my life.
Never would I have gone to the graveyard in the dark, but as before this dreadful night had not let me my own will, for despite all terror rushing in my mind I kept on walking, following the slight crying sound.
Never before had I crossed this creaking old gate that led me in the sanctuary of the dead.
But I couldn't stop moving, as if I had known my exact destination subconciously all the time.
My fearful eyes fell on old rotting gravestones, overgrown with strange half brown plants, bearing names of long dead people.
My gaze wandered over pallid moonlit vaults, inhabited by corpses that had been rich at lifetime, or whole families long forgotten. But those too seemed centuries old, with cracks on the surface and cross lying doors.
Frightened to death on this drear place my attention was again captured by the crying sound, clear now as if it would come from someone right next to me, but also fainter then it was before.
I began searching behind tombs and stones for the source of this dreaded sound that had brought me to the haunted graveyard in the middle of a night with full moon.
After some minutes I spotted something whinig white behind a stone about fifty feet away.
Slowly and as quiet as possible I crept towards it.
When I was almost there I was sure it was the source of the strange crying, for it had changed now, not being everywhere, echoing in my mind as it had before, but emerging from this white figure, and then I reckognized this figure for what it was. Or for what I thought it was.
A little girl. Clothed all in white, a white I had never seen before, shining like I imagined an angel would shine. And she sat there, behind a gravestone, crying, not noticing me, with white hair curling around her shoulders.
I took a step forward, intrigued by this unusual view, wanting to soothe the crying child, forgetting all the terror that had been spooking trough my mind.
"My dear, what's--", but I was cut short when she (or it??) whirled around her head and as my gaze fell on her face that she had hidden in her hands before, utter terror overwhelmed me, smashing me on the ground, threatening me, for the face of what I thought to be a little girl was white as the moon with eyes like black balls, blacker then night had ever been, blacker then anything man had ever seen. But the most dreadful was the wicked grin that distorted her face, grinning like the Father of Lies before he takes a poor innocent soul in the eternity of hell, grinning so evil that the blood froze in my veins and I couldn't move, only stare on that demon of hell that had trapped me so easily in the disguise of a crying child.
And before I could react it was over me, slashed it's hand across my pale face, leaving five deep red trails on my cheek.
Unpleasantly freed from my paralysation trough the burning pain in my face I regained my ability to move, sprang up and began running, running as ever man had been, running from the thing that thirsted for my very life.
Whirling my head around I could see it coming after me, grinning wickedly, knowing that I could not escape.
Despair flooded trough me, almost letting me stumble over a root in my hasty attempt to escape.
But soon I relized that my energy had left me, and I couldn't run on for more then a mere few feet.
My gaze fell upon a vault that seemed to have an intact door, standing open, but perhaps it could be closed somehow from inside.
But I had no time to consider, for already I heard footsteps close behind.
It was my last chance to escape whatever it was that followed me, my last chance to save my life. I had no other options left, but running in the vault, smashing the door shut behind me, and pushing the big stone coffin standing in the middle of the room forward to block the door with the last energy I had left, before my power left me and I sunk into oblivion.

But I regained consciousness soon, and when I opened my eyes I could see the moon shining trough cracks in the ceiling, standing only a bit lower as I remembered it. It seemed I had only lost conciousness for one or two hours, and feared the thing still waiting outside for me, waiting to kill me.
I did not dare going out now and decided to wait for dawn, hoping that the sun would dispel any dark beings.
So I laid down on the hard ground, but sleep came almost immediately, for my desperate escape had tired me down.

When I awoke golden sunlight came trough the roofgaps, and I thought it secure to go out now, relieved that this painful night was finally over.
But when I removed the coffin from the door now I found myself in utter despair, overwhelmed by fear and hopelessness, for the stone door would not open.
It must have been blocked from outside, and any attempt from me to open it failed helplessly.
I was trapped.
My mind began raging, for the terror of dying of thirst came to me, dying in a vault!
Should that really by my end? Dying on a graveyard, trapped by some dark creature?
Almost panicking I forced my mind to clear, and tried to think clearly. For perhaps it was possible to escape from this stony grave. Afer all it was old and had cracks everywhere, perhaps I would be able to break a wall in.
So I began searching the walls for irregularities and cracks, and hammered with a stone that had been lying on the ground against it, but to no success.
The walls were old, but massive and it was impossible to tear them down single-handedly.
Again a wave of despair flooded trough me, when I threw the stone down in my rage.
And this is what helped me now, for the sound when the stone reched the ground was not the sound of stone crashing against stone, but that of stone falling on metal.
Immediately I bent down and began to whisk the two inch thick dust away, and to my astonishment I discovered a small iron trapdoor, big enough for a human to pass.
I tried opening it, only to find it closed by some ugly lock, that seemed to connect it directly with the stone.
I hammered against the lock with my stone, but the trapdoor would not open.
I sat back and began to cry in my rage, for why could fate be so unfair and present me with a possibility to escape, only to refuse me to use that possibility.
But then a thought rushed in my mind.
Standing up I went to the coffin. It too beared the dust of decades, but when I pushed hard against it's cover, it moved slightly.
Taking new courage I began pushing it farther, and slowly the coffin slid open.
But when my gaze fell on the interior I almost fell over, for the view of a half-rotten skeleton made my empty stomach turn.
But on a second look I found what I was looking for: a big key, hanging around the neck of the skeleton.
I removed it with closed eyes, for I could not stand the sight of the corpse any longer, but when I held it in my hands and put it in the trapdoor lock it turned!
Relieved I opened the door, intrigued to see light flickering!
Not seeing any other way out of my trap I slid down the trapdoor and landed on hard dusty ground.
Some feet before me a torch was flickering in the darkness of this hollow underground passage. But the decades old dust lying under it was as thick as everywhere I could see on the ground, not disturbed by any footprints. But the torch was burning.
I was wondering how this was possible, for nothing gave any evidence of someone having been here to enflame it.
But the urge of leaving all this and getting back to the surface soon dispelled my wondrous thoughts, and as the tunnel was dark in front of me, I took the torch from the wall and began walking.
The ground seemed always flat, and the tunnel had to run directly under the surface of the graveyard it seemed, but it went on and on, and, having lost my sense for direction, I had the feeling it was leading downwards.
Also the air grew warmer and warmer, until I stripped my cloak away, for I was sweating already.
I wandered on and on, having no reason to go back to the dead-end vault.
I must have lost my timefeeling, for I had no idea of how long I had been walking when the torch ceased burning.
In this drear place my thoughts had been floating around and I had not paid any attention to my surroundings, but now that my vision was so suddenly gone in the lack of light I became aware of how hot it had became and how dense the air was.
My breathing grew almost desperate for a moment, when not as much air as needed would enter my lungs. But sitting down on the hard ground I was able to lower my breathing until it went normal again, but I felt utterly lost now, without any light in a tunnel somehwere far beneath the sunlit surface.
And then they came.
First it were only a few, but as the time went and my fear grew there came ever more of them.
They haunted me, not letting me rest, driving my walking on with the terror they invoked in me.
Eyes flashing in the darkness. Evil laughter sounding in the distance of the tunnel. Sudden clouds of sulphuric smell surrounding me.
And then screams. Evil screams, forcing their way trough my head, my mind exploding in fear and terror.
I was running, trying to escape them, but everytime I looked behind me I could see their eyes.
Every time i toppled on the ground or ran against a wall their evil laughter echoed trough the darkness.

And then they were gone. From one second to the next all laughter was gone, no footsteps I could hear anymore, and no eyes flashed in the darkness. It was to me as if I had entered a place so dreaded that those dark beings themselves did not dare entering it.
The air had grown immensely hot, and I was wet, sweating all over my energy-drained body.
I was frightened to death to enter the place even those things feared so obviously, but at least there was nothing here, or it seemed to me that I was alone, and I did not dare going back to those spirits.
So I moved on in the darkness surrounding me, finding my way with outstrechted hands along the tunnel walls.
Despite the absence of any light I could feel that I was walking downwards, which filled me with despair, for how could I ever hope to see daylight again when I kept walking downwards?
But it was the only way and so I kept on walking.

My hands wet with sweat they slipped along the walls that gave me guidance, and again it was a sound that captured my attention in this dreaded nightmare that was my live.
It was only a distant rumbling, but it grew more intense as I walked on. After some time it became obvious to me that it was a bubbling sound, like that of cooking water, only much deeper, but somehow familiar.
Then suddenly I became aware of a slight red shimmer in the distance of the dark passage.
Finally light! Only now I became aware of how frightening the unhealthy darkness around me was. I took my last power to escape the blackness, running toward the light, ignoring the terrible heat that was sweeping in the tunnel.
But when I had finally reached the last corner, awaiting to be in the light again, I was thrown back by a blazing flame, that seemed to emerge from the ground.
But this dreadful flame, and it's heat, didn't feel like the ordinary flame of a fire, but it seemed so much hotter, it was so much hotter! For the skin on my left arm I had thrown up to hold the fire away from my face, was smoking, only the sweat saving me from getting seriously burned.
When I had found my courage again I observed it, and the flame seemed to emerge in a linear pattern from the ground, and behind it i could see the end of the tunnel!
So I waited until the right moment, and began running then, just reaching the tunnel's end before the flame rushed again to burn me!
But now my gaze fell on my surroundings.
And utter terror hit me like a hammer and I coud not help but falling down and crying, for what I had seen was more terrible then anything man had ever seen, more then man could ever bear!
Everything was burning, flames everywhere, never ceasing. The sound I had heard before was the bubbling of molten stone that crept over the red hot ground!
And there were figures! Figures burning in the flames, screaming in agony, black and red forms that could not be living anymore but kept screaming in their awful suffering!
My stomach turned and twisted at this atrocious view, but was so empty that only hot and dry air came out of my throat.
And then, when I opened my eyes again, he stood before me.
High as a house, bloody rotten red skin, black eyes, and horns on head and body!
It was so awful and terrible that my mind was screaming in pain and terror, but my body was congealed to stone. I could not move, only stare at this thing with unbelieving eyes, for such thing could not exist! All this just could not be!!!
But then the Father of Lies swung his deadly terror's blade and unescapable utter blackness filled me.


And then I awoke, sitting up in my bed, screaming in terror, sweating all over my body.
It was a dream! It had just been a dreaded nightmare! It was over! Just a dream! Nothing to fear anymore. It was over. I was still living.

Relief and joy filled my heart, for all this had never happened I was sure.
I embraced the morning light coming trough the shut window, and was happy that it was day again!
I went to the water can to wash the nightly sweat from my face with the cold liquid, and then picked my small mirror up to righten my hair.

But when I saw my face in it, the mirror fell down from my stiff hand and shattered to onethousand pieces on the ground, for the face in the mirror beared five red scars on the cheek.


©2001, Andreas Hartl