A man walked home from his office late at night after he had been working after hours. His name was Adam Coller, and he was very much unhappy. He had been going through a depressive episode, as he had many issues from his job as a Help Desk Technician such as being verbally harassed by his boss with anger issues on the daily, the low-pay job not giving him enough to buy an own house, and many more. In result, he was slowly having suicidal thoughts, and even though he tried to shun them, the thoughts kept coming back, and had been keeping him up at night. He walked on the street as he glanced at the crescent moon for fifteen minutes, before he finally reached the small apartment he and his wife lived in.

He unlocked the door with his keys and opened it, as his wife called out from their room.

“Is that you, honey?” She asked.

“Who else could’ve it been?” He answered. “But yeah, it’s me.”

Adam groggily walked into his room, as his wife sat on the bed. His wife’s name was Angela, and she was admittedly very beautiful. They thought of having children, but they didn’t have the money and the right environment for their child to have a good life, so they decided to wait until they bought their own house.

“How was your day?” She asked softly.

“Worse than yesterday,” Adam replied, “I accidentally deleted the folder containing all of the important files. I worked after hours to re-do them, but I could only finish nine.”

“Oh . . .”

“It’s fine, though, I can do the remaining thirty-two files over the weekend.”

“Get some sleep, first, it’s late.”

“Alright.” Adam changed his clothes and went straight to sleep.

Adam opened his eyes, expecting the warmth of the sun hitting him, but instead, he felt a sharp, blue-tinted light shining right above him. At first, he felt calm yet confused, but after he fully realised that he had woken up somewhere unknown to him, he started to panic. He tried to get up from his lying position, but he noticed that he was chained to the ground. The chain was heavy yet rusty, and had a weak point in the link. So, he jerked himself as hard as he could, making the weak point break and freeing him.

He noticed that he was wearing completely white pants and a T-Shirt, just like the completely white hallway he was in, with a blue light that was above him when he woke up. He walked down the hallway until he reached the turning point, and found out that there was another hallway. Naturally, he ran through it as well, and unlike the first one, this hallway turned left, and to another hallway leading to a door. Adam opened the door, not knowing what to expect.

The door led to a room, which was completely white, just like the hallways. He stepped fully into it, and looked around. Suddenly, he heard a strange scuttling sound; it was coming from the ceiling, and when he looked up, it was a large spider-like creature, but its body very much resembled a human head. It squealed and jumped down on Adam’s face, as it grasped onto him with great force.

“AAARGH!” Adam exclaimed as he tried to pull it off of his face. It snarled in response. The only thing Adam saw as the creature gripped on his face was its gnarly stomach; as it was soft-looking, with hundreds of small, different body parts on it. Suddenly, he felt a painful choke in his mouth, like someone was shoving something down his throat. It quickly grew in pain, and it felt like he was being viscously poked with a white-hot knife in his throat. “AAARGH!” The pain was so intense, in fact, that he fainted; falling head-first onto the cold, hard, marble floor.

Adam woke up, at least twenty minutes later, and felt a metallic taste in his mouth. He was groaning in pain and confusion, and finally noticed the shallow puddle of blood around him, as his chin busted from the fall. The creature was not there; it had disappeared. Adam rose from his uncomfortable position, and he was shivering. He was very hungry, and could’ve used a nice omelet. Nevertheless, Adam got up and mindlessly wandered around the area.

As he slowly wandered in confusion, he suddenly felt a ringing that filled his ears. The ringing jarred him, so much so that he clamped his hands on his ears and groaned. The ringing started off mostly silent, then, it grew, and it went from a quiet humming like a sound made by glass to a climax; a loud siren-like noise that would’ve made Adam’s ears bleed if they went on for one more second. Before it all stopped. He felt very relieved of the horrible ringing; so much that he let out a deep sigh with a large smile across his face.

But there was a problem. He felt like something was . . . missing . . . like a part of his life just—flew away. He shrugged the strange feeling off and continued walking; as he had found another long hallway, this one longer than usual. He went down the hallway and noticed that a semi-concealed white doorway stood there. He opened it, and heard several gasps.

“Everyone hide!” He heard someone whisper. As he fully opened the door, though, he realised that the room was full of people; people who were trying to hide, except for a man holding a long kitchen knife. “Who are you?!” He exclaimed. “What do you want?!”

“Nothing! I’m just a man who is lost and confused!” Adam said.

“Are you sure? How should we trust you? How did you get here?”

“I don’t know . . . I woke up here . . . what is this place?”

“We don’t know . . . but we know that there’s something dangerous lurking around.”

“What is it?”

“We don’t know that either—and that’s the reason we’re so cautious. Anyways, as I was saying, how can we trust you?”

“I just told you, I woke up here—”

“How do we not know you aren’t lying? How do we not know you may be the threat? Are you going to answer me?!”

“Jack!” Exclaimed the voice of a woman. “Stop it, Jack. This man’s not dangerous.”

“How do you know?”

“I can tell by the look on his face.” The girl was at least twenty years old, and had light scratches on her face.

“What?”

“Just trust me, Jack!”

“Fine. But I’m keeping an eye on him!”

“Whatever.” The girl looked over at Adam. “Sorry about that, sir.”

“It’s fine.” Adam looked around. “So you people are a group?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see . . . well, there’s one thing I wanted to warn you about; there’s a creature going around here. It looks like a head with bug-legs.”

“We’ll try to watch out for that, sir.” Adam noticed everyone standing up, and there were six people in total, all wearing the same clothing as him.

“So, what’re you guys even doing in here?”

“Nothing. We’ve just been sitting around, our only protection is this knife.” The kitchen knife was ten inches long and one and a half inches wide.

“Do you have anything to eat?”

“N–no . . .”

“Neither do I. I’ll still join you guys, though, it’ll be safer to be in a group.”

Three hours had passed, and Adam and the others were starving. Adam’s chest was fully showing his ribs, and his stomach was six inches wide. He groaned at the thought of food and drink as his mouth watered . . . juicy steak . . . a fresh lemonade . . . and of course, omelet. So, he curled up into a ball and laid down to fall asleep. But, just as he had lowered himself to the ground, he heard the ringing again, and it started off with the low hum, but escalated into the dreadful siren. This time, though, the climax was dreadfully more painful.

“Ah . . .” he groaned. “Ah . . . Argh . . .”

“Er—are you alright, sir?” One of the people asked him, though he couldn’t hear them through the ringing.

“Ow . . . ahh . . .” Suddenly, the ringing stopped. Adam was now much, much more famished, and had the urge to eat. Not just eat anything; he had the urge to put anything edible in his stomach right there and then, whether it be cooked or not. The urge grew, just like the ringing in his ears, and he was quickly losing control. “Hey, er . . .” he told the woman.

“Yeah?”

“We need food right now.”

“But there is none.”

“Let’s try to find some outside . . .”

“Sure. Get the knife.”

“Krista, no,” Jack (the man who Adam first encountered) said sternly.

“What do you want, Jack?”

“Don’t go with him!”

“Not this again . . .”

“I’m telling you, Krista, this man is a stranger, and he could probably hurt you!”

“Jack, you know he can hear you, right?”

“Fine! But don’t come crying to me if anything happens, you understand?!” Krista ignored Jack as she and Adam exited the room and to the hallway. Adam was holding the knife, and he suddenly had a thought . . .

Krista and Adam walked down the white hallways, and found nothing, so in fear of being attacked by the head-spider, they headed back to the room. But as they were making their way towards it, Adam felt a lurch. A lurch that made his arm swing around, and the other arm (the one with the knife) swing as well, but much more violently, making him grab Krista by the shoulder and stab her on the other.

“AAARGH!” She screamed. “WHAT’RE YOU DOING?!” Suddenly, the ringing flooded his ears once more, drowning out Krista’s screams and making Adam’s drive to consume grow. He stabbed her repeatedly on her right shoulder, before slamming her against the wall and viciously slicing up pieces of the flesh on her arm, as she writhed around in agony. So, he held his forearm against her chin to detain her, making it easier to cut her up. Blood flowed out everywhere from Krista’s arms, until Adam finally stopped chopping pieces of meat from her.

After all of the desired pieces were sliced off of her body, he pushed Krista, making her fall to the ground with a thud. He then frantically collected the pieces, before running away, not giving a single glance at the incredibly large puddle of blood around Krista’s body, with her arms mutilated like incredibly bloody nearly-cut ropes made of meat. He ran through three different hallways, before stopping to rest; and eat. It was the first thing that had dawned over him even before he murdered Krista, to finally end the starvation. So, he grabbed one of the pieces of meat that he cut off from her body and bit into it, blood juicing out of the flesh and skin like how juice comes out of a fruit when squeezed. It was refreshing.

Finally, he had at least something to eat. Something to survive off of, and it was done out of pure desperation. Or was it? Adam started to doubt himself; did he kill Krista to eat her because he was on the brink of starvation? Or, did the ringing force him to do it? He suddenly started to question his actions, and after a few minutes, it was then when he realised that he had done something terrible. He looked down on the floor on the chops of meat, still with the skin on and covered in blood, and thought to himself, Why did I do this? There was no answer to this; he was either desperate, or losing his mind.

It didn’t even feel real by that point. It didn’t even feel like a dream by that point. It just felt like he was imagining everything . . . like Krista isn’t even real . . . like the other people aren’t real . . . like the sensory-deprived labyrinth he’s in isn’t real . . . like he isn’t real. Adam looked back at the pieces of meat once again, and he immediately looked away, not wanting to lay his eyes on the violently disturbing pile of freshly chopped up human meat. This was not what he was feeling when he heard the ringing. All he felt was the urge, the desire, the temptation . . . to kill.

Suddenly, Adam heard voices. Voices screaming and cursing, though he couldn’t tell what they were saying. But, there was one voice he heard, and it was this sentence,

“Where is he?!”

And he recognised it. It was Jack’s voice. Adam immediately got up, grabbed the knife, and sprinted to the other hallway, leaving the human meat chops. He then heard loud and fast-paced footsteps approaching him, and he assumed that he was being chased. Adam didn’t look back; he just kept running, running to nowhere. He continued until he reached a dead end, something he had never expected in that area. So, he quickly turned back to find another way, but the people caught up to him.

“There he is!” Someone exclaimed. Adam drew the knife in front of him threateningly.

“Did you kill Krista?!” Jack shouted. “DID YOU?!” Adam stayed silent for five seconds.

“I–I–I did.”

“You bastard, I’LL KILL YOU!”

“STOP! Don’t move . . . or I’ll kill you as well!”

“Oh, yeah? Try it, then. Try killing me, you scumbag!”

“I don’t want to!”

“Why? Are you scared?”

“Because I don’t want any more lives to be wasted!”

“Lives to be wasted? You’re thinking about that now?! WHY DIDN’T YOU THINK ABOUT THAT WHEN YOU WERE KILLING KRISTA, HUH?!” Jack aggressively stepped forward, standing half a foot away from Adam. He raised his fist and prepared to land a blow, but Adam grabbed his hand and stabbed Jack in the stomach. “AAARGH!” Jack’s eyes were now bloodshot; and he was starting to spit out blood from his mouth. “Argh . . . !” Right before Adam pulled the knife out, making blood spew out of the stomach wound like a fountain, and let go, sending Jack falling to the ground.

“You killed him as well!” A woman from the crowd of people exclaimed.

“Yes, yes I did! And I’m not afraid to do it again! So stay away!” Then, Adam heard footsteps again, this time, coming from a different hallway. It was much louder and heavier—before it sped up and came towards them. The footsteps were coming from a man. A tall, scratched up man, charging right at Adam. Adam tried to escape, but he stumbled and fell on the floor. The man jumped on top of him, before wrestling with Adam to steal the knife from him. “WHO ARE YOU?!” The man didn’t respond, and instead, he head-butted Adam, before grabbing the knife from him and running away, leaving Adam lying on the floor, unconscious.