The House of Eternal Death

The House of Eternal Death

by Ernest Hadinoto

Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark

                             And shares the nature of infinity

                                    - William Wordsworth

A man was hanging from a tree close to the edge of the forest. The wanderer saw the figure from afar as he worked his way through the field straining to see through the blowing snow. It was barely visible. Upon reaching the edge of the forest, the body was no longer there. My vision must have wronged me, the wanderer thought, or my mind is playing tricks on me. It was the tiredness perhaps, walking for hours in the freezing cold, numb face chilled by the wind, hands cringed.

It was a cold and dark winter. Wind was hauling across a snow covered ground. Everything looked black and white with no single soul around. The wanderer was weak from the long arduous journey. Now that the night was almost near, the wanderer was desperate. He needed to find a place to rest quickly, before the winter froze him to death. He gathered all his strength and entered the thick dark forest.

There was small wooden house that stood in the clearing, withered and run down so badly even the shutters hung at an angle.Behind the house, the giant oak trees bending over almost took over the house. To all appearances, it had been abandoned by the look of half opened door. The wanderer opened the door and went in. Dust lay over every surface and there was a strong bad odor. There was a rotting chair and table stained with lichen, an old rustic wooden bed, a cracked mirror on the wall and fireplace. This would be sufficient for the night he thought. The snowing has stopped and the wind has calmed as he went out to gather some dry wood for the fireplace.

While gathering the branches of an old dead tree, he saw a girl on a swing not too far from where he was standing. What is she doing at this time alone in the woods he thought. Probably she lives nearby. When he finished gathering the sticks, he saw that the girl had disappeared along with the swing, how strange he thought. The atmosphere in the woods was filled with eerie stillness now that the hauling wind had stopped. He shook off that feeling and went back inside, closed the door, put on a fire and cooked some soup in a bowl.

He noticed some carvings on the door, of which at first, because of the dirt on it, he was able only to distinguish the letter "E". He swept the dirt with his sleeve away and succeeded to decipher the inscription. It said "Evil".

As the night fell, and the fireplace did not bring enough light inside, he tried to get some sleep. He suddenly felt that the air was heavy and tense with pressure, something was present in this place and it was evil, it felt like something wanted him out in that very moment. 

But what choice did he have, it was too dark and too cold to go outside and yet this feeling was so strong. What I am to do he thought. Staying here is my only option. Again, he tried to sleep, as he turned to the side, right there in the cracked mirror, he caught the glimpse of himself and just when he was about to close his eyes, suddenly he saw that the reflection of his was looking at him with a diabolical sneer. Dire consternation overtook him.  

On the spur of the moment, his chest felt hard, something was on top of him. His vision became indistinct, his heart was throbbing hard and he was fighting to catch his breath. He was not able to move his body as the evil was pulling his soul from his body. He struggled so hard that all his energy left in his body. Finally he screamed and abruptly ran out of the house as the evil let go of him.

He ran to the woods, in sheer terror he saw people hanging from trees everywhere he looked. They were looking at him and laughing, the entire forest was filled with sinister laughter. He ran and ran until he came a upon field, where hundreds of men were hanging alive by the ribs to gallows, crying, howling and writhing in pain. There was nowhere to go, no place to hide. Paniced and terrified, he ran back to the house, away from all the monstrosities, back into the mouth of evil.   

He fell to the floor as he ran into the house, his head slapping on the dirt, bleeding a little and shivering, he heard the door slammed behind him. He was in the dark momentarily until the entire room was covered in light. It was a different place now. It was a house with a long hallway and to the left and the right were chambers. Right then, two men dressed in black hoods wearing plague doctor masks picked him up and dragged him forward. He tried to lose himself but to no avail. He cried and screamed uncontrollably. His words "Let me go" barely made any sense. The men ignored him. 

They took him to the first chamber, he saw a man roped to a rack with two men wearing black hood turning the handle and the ropes pulling the man's arms until he heard a loud crack of bones with the man screaming in anguish and the tortures laughing. Behind the tortured man, three heads were displayed on a spikes, with maggots crawling out of the face's skin.

They dragged him to the next chamber where a woman's limbs were stretched out along the spokes and the wheel was slowly revolving. The woman was beaten with iron hammer through the openings between the spokes. She was in such pain that her mouth was wide open trying hard to let the pain out, but no words came out.

Then they took him to adjacent chamber in which two women were spread-eagled to a tabletop, their hands chained around the wrists and the bare feet chained around the ankles. The two torturers slowly drove skewers of wood into the flesh under one woman's toenails. The other woman nails were extracted by the torturer slowly. The wanderer could see the agonizing pain these women were in.

In the next chamber, a man's arms were tied to a pole above his head while his feet were tied below. The torturer was using small knife peeling off the man's skin slowly. In the left chamber, three men was suspended from poles, the torturers were lashing their backs. In the same room, there were another three men hanging from the ceiling with forks placed between the breast and throat just under the chin and secured with a strap around the neck. The orgies of bestiality and the monstrosities of suffering was too terrible for the wanderer to contemplate. There was no hope for salvation. He almost fainted.   

Finally, the wanderer was taken into a chamber where three iron cabinets were standing upright. There were two men in brown hoods wearing goat masks. One of them was sitting behind a bench and the other was shouting and pointing at the wanderer from his desk, but he could not hear his voice. After all the shouting, the man behind the bench, pointed to a roof, where a rope was hanging.

In that instant, he was transported back to the room of the cottage, but it was a different place now. There was a light right in the center of the room, where stood a chair and directly above was a rope hanging from a tie-beam. He felt enormous pressure in his chest, something was inside him, a vicious energy that overtook his mind, it was taking him towards the chair, he felt hopelessness, despair, tremendous pain and sadness. Unrelenting darkness was within him while he ascended the chair. He heard whispers in his mind telling him to tie the noose around his neck. He followed the whispers and the evil pushed him off the chair. As he drifted into unconsciousness, he saw the whole terror and suffering of tortures flashing before him once again. Death had come to him with chains of infinity. He died a grisly death.

A year passed by, seasons changed, another poor soul entered the house of eternal death. 

Note: My first attempt at writing. Some grammatical errors may be there. Comments are welcomed.