Gothic Fiction - The Room
Written some time ago while attempting to write a gothic short story. Interpretations are encouraged, also if you feel the want to critique please do so. I'm quite sure you'll find it easy enough to follow, we'll see what happens.
The Room
The reservoir becomes plugged with black sap.
When the canal is cut, current stops,
and even fingernails cease to grow…
Wednesday, May 27, 1952
Twenty hours after operation
Alone… I awaken from slumber. The room is veiled in a dreadful silence, an unexpected stillness. I lay on my back, and with obscured reasoning, tears begin to flood mournfully over my eyelids. The nurse informs me of the operation, yet further information regarding its basis remains unanswered. Still, I persist questioning, for several hours, until it seems that she does not return.
It is a particularly old building. And with walls of ancient stone, it resembles more so a castle than a hospital. Despite its age, the building remains in a somewhat flawless condition, almost untouched by the grasps of time. Though, the far eastern ward is completely dilapidated, perilously burnt to the ground several decades past. The maternity ward, since then has been moved to the north western side of the hospital.
Wednesday, May 27, 1952
Twenty-Two hours after operation
Dr Faust has given me two squares of white paper, one of which I have been instructed to consume three hours prior to sleep. Upon inquiry, I was informed that that this is ‘imperative to my psychiatric post operational recovery’. I dare say, Mr Faust is a well respected doctor, and of course I do trust him. Yet still, I feel somewhat uneasy about the therapy.
Wednesday, May 27, 1952
Twenty-Four hours after operation
Despite a request to stay, I’ve been moved to the private room by the end of the hall, backing against the walls of the far eastern ward, it is a quaint space shrouded with a most unsettlingly silence. The room itself is bare, furnished only with an iron bed, clothed in rust. And the wallpaper has such a deathly quality about it, as if it had once lived times ago.
Hours being irrelevant, the room is always obscured in dim lighting. Even in darkness, a dull illumination persists. Searching for its source I am able to perceive a candle which stands at the sill of the barred window, yet the wick remains unlit. I vow, there is something most peculiar about this room! Though, I must not tangle myself over it. Dr Faust tells me that I am incredibly fortuitous to have survived the initial operation, that at least one of us survived.
‘Set and setting.’ He tells me, ‘Are perhaps the two most important elements of your psychological recovery. And for this reason, I’ve seen that you are moved into a private room, for the safety of both yourself, and the other patients.’ He takes my arm. ‘Any furnishings have been expelled from the room, excluding your bed of course. Miss Shaffer, you must understand the importance of an untroubled mindset, for as we’ve confirmed an easeful setting.’ And pricks it with a needle. ‘The set is absolutely out of my own control.’
Wednesday, May 27, 1952
Twenty-Six hours after operation
With Dr Faust having retired for the evening, I consume the first of the medication. Laying myself comfortably over the mattress, I count the markings which blemish the ceiling. Time passes as I find myself unable to recall the number which I had accumulated. Four hundred and thirty seven. Three hundred and seventy four, perhaps? I begin counting again…
Wednesday, May 27, 1952
Twenty nine hours after operation
Eight hundred and twelve markings scar the surface of the ceiling. I vow, I must remember this number, I shall tell Dr Faust tomorrow!
Wednesday, May 27, 1952
Thirty hours after operation
Timeless. The night begins to hold dark, broken only by the light of a candle.
A white figurante prances at the wick, casting black hellions across the room. Shadows
leap from the walls, and onto to the ceiling. Twisting and tangling, caressing the surface.
I Allow them to wash over me, eyes bound shut…
Wednesday, May 27, 1952
Thirty hours after operation
Upon awakening, the room is perceivably different. Overgrown with a grotesque beauty. And despite rousing, a peculiar odour desists expiration, pungent and repulsive. The room has transformed. Ravaged in flesh!
Veins sprout upwards, creeping a pass the walls. In a most disturbing fashion, the walls appear to be crawling, gradually dragging themselves towards the ceiling. Quivering, a wall begins to tangle and convulse, choking banefully on its own cadaverous flesh. This exertion induces a fierce spasm to emit from one of its ulcers, erupting in a disgorge of mephitic brown sap, streaming onto the floor. Yet despite the gruesome stature of the room, a certain familiar presence shrouds itself over the surroundings.
Wednesday, May 27, 1952
Thirty one hours after operation
The room is breathing. Each pulsation sends a ripple across the floor. Trembling relentlessly, disallowing sleep! Respiring heavily, a sudden unease creeps deep within me, as a pendulum oscillates wildly inside my chest. Suddenly gruesome mass surrounds me, and I realise that the room’s palpitations are reminiscent to that of my own. Mimicking each shaking beat. With every exhaling breath, the ceiling lingers downwards. Sickeningly!
A contingent biliousness clutches my viscera. Repulsion from within, a foul and indolent regurgitation bleeds from my throat. Eruption. Fetid fluid creeps through my teeth, spilling over cracked lips as it slump hellishly down the surface of my chin. I allow it fall onto the bed sheets, slowly oozing from the depths of my throat, black tar staining the already spotted fabric. Frantically, I wipe myself with the sheets, scouring the sickening fluid from my gown. Yet a repulsive stench still persists, like spoiled meat. Again a spasm erupts, and a surge of begrimed darkness floods viciously from my mouth, streaming through my hands and deep into the innards of the mattress. The bed stained gratuitously with black fluid. Repulsed, I cast the sheets onto the floor, and watch vexatiously as ink slowly weeps from its fibres.
From which hellish underworld does this room belong?
Wednesday, May 27, 1952
Thirty three hours after operation
A large artery runs beneath the bed, beyond the depths of perception. Wailing and moaning, something beneath me. Pungent and repulsive. Quivering and shuddering, the entire room. The artery strangles into the ground, I feel it now, below me, convulsing wildly. Vibrations. The iron bed resonates. Emitting a direful harmonic- Arousing exacerbation. The fiendish artery slams violently, casting a regiment of ripples across the flesh of the room. Breathing with wild hysteria, I grasp the iron, gripping it with tangled talons, in an attempt to choke the vibratious noises.
Wednesday, May 27, 1952
Thirty four hours after operation
A gradual shroud of somnolence demures the room, the veins of the wall retract to their former state, creeping tortuously beneath the plaster. Yet still, a perpetual thumping desists me from sleep, as the artery maintains a restless temper!
Wednesday, May 27, 1952
Thirty four hours after operation
The artery’s persistence beginning to crawl deep within me. I exert myself to find the origin of this fiend, my eyes tracing its trunk unremittingly.
Preposterous!
What feels like days pass. I find myself unable to conclude its inception! Its form vermiculating endlessly around the room, twisting and tangling insidiously! Ripples surge beneath the artery’s flesh. I attempt to follow one, pursuing it frantically, for an hour perhaps. Mazing intricately through the room, sweeping over the obstructing veins which protrude its trunk.
Yet, eventually it becomes lost, vanishing in an indecisive entanglement beneath the bed.
Again and again, I find me eyes tangle over the room, in both amazement and disgust. The artery slithers slowly, and it seems to be growing substantially with time, both in length and diameter. It’s colour is a raw purple, though on rare occasion it may be mistaken for a brown. Sitting upright, I observe the monstrosity stir restlessly, as it caresses itself against the rough walls and rolls lazily, in a hypnotically grotesque manner.
Thursday, May 28, 1952
Thirty eight hours after operation
I retire onto my back. The ceiling breathing down upon me. Its blistered surface slowly sinking and rising in perpetual motion. Subtle darkness is exhuming the room, as my eyelids begin to bind shut. Yet something is wrong, and as I lay sleeplessly, the artery still flails wildly!
With each horrendous pulsation- screaming and howling beneath. Ferocious spasms, writhing with erratic monstrosity, cracking furiously into the floor. With a fury of recklessness, it slams into the underside of the bed, and as a wave of discord tremors through the iron, I vow:
I must silence this horror!
Thursday, May 28, 1952
Thirty nine hours after operation
Seizing myself from darkness, the room begins to emerge into perception. The fiendish artery still wraps infinitely around the walls, throbbing recklessly. I expel myself from the iron bed, it shaking with wild vigour. Though, a certain difficulty to walk, I feel myself falling…
I fall hard, a certain familiar feeling as I land hard onto the hospital floor. I find myself, clambering helplessly to the iron bed post, my legs paralysed. I examine the surroundings. The room as retained its somewhat normal stature, the walls now but dead plaster, the ceiling staunch and stained with its usual markings. Though out of the far notch of my eye, a purple mass is perceived, slithering menacingly.
Thursday, May 28, 1952
Forty hours after operation
The fiend tangles viciously around the walls, screaming and wailing, a vexatious orchestra of ghastly discord, tedious talons clawing at the inside of my skull. Legs still crippled, I writhe myself towards it, screaming in a hellish harmony of discordance. The bare walls echoing a thousand times with each oscillation of the artery. I clamber closer to the walls, towards the throbbing mass of monstrosity, I must silence this horror! I scream:
I must silence this horror!
Thursday, May 28, 1952
Forty one hours after operation
Hands stretched, I grasp the hellish artery! A horrendous pitch emits from around the room, recoiling wildly from the walls! I bury my fingernails deep within its flesh, tearing and incising violently into its trunk. A repulsive tar ruptures from its wounds, curdled fluid spilling onto the floor. A certain agony, bayoneting deep within my stomach. A second shriek erupts from the beast as I wrench a vein from its surface, flailing it across the room!
Suddenly, the room spasms into breath! Tremoring wildly!
The ceiling moves with a horrible vivacity.
Veins emerging, protruding from the walls.
Clotting and convulsing!
My fingernails shatter and split, broken backwards, yet still I persist! Remorseless lacerations! I endure to dig through the beast! Pervading inside of me, a hellish pain tears from within! Flitching its insides onto the floor! The curdled black fluid spattering brilliantly onto the walls!
Thursday, May 28, 1952
Forty three hours after operation
Hours pass! Still goring through the monstrosity before me! Essentially I reach its core, it quivering with trepidation! A dire dread which quakes at my stomach! I grasp it within my stained fingers and with a ferocious might, I string it apart violently, with shredded fingernails!
Emptiness…
A deathly silence veils itself upon the room.
I allow the artery to drop from my hands, black tar spilling from its soundless trunk. A lake of darkness floods around my ankles.
Casting my sight downwards, I am able to comprehend the origin of the fiend…
It runs from between my thigh, obscured by a bloated belly.
I follow it’s path, leading underneath the iron bed.
Upon which, a torturous sorrow exhumes me.
As I realise that the beast is not at all an artery-
But an umbilical cord!
Thursday, May 28, 1952
Forty four hours after operation
A sea of suffering surrounds me. Grievously, I watch the fetus wither slowly, growing cold…
I take the cord, drawing it around my throat.
Black sap begins to trill from fissures above me,
surging down the walls, which gulp carnivorously.
Nine thousand tiny mouths.
Consuming.
The sap seeps through trenches of divaricated teeth.
Spilling down into the viscera of the room’s hollows,
Emerging, the veins of the wall turn a sickly black.
And slowly.
The room absorbed in darkness.
Empty
Thursday, May 29, 1952
Fifty six hours after operation
The Subject was found suspending from the ceiling, throat strung with bed linen which appears stained in an unexplainable black fluid. A precise time of death remains unknown.
She shall be buried with her daughter…
Albert C. Faust
