eiahmon | Inheritance Chapter 4

Title: Inheritance
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Amnesia: The Dark Descent and its settings and characters belong to Frictional Games. I’m only borrowing them for a while.
Summary: When Alexander Kesler gets a letter, which claims that she is the only descendant of Alexander of Brennenburg, she is compelled to go investigate. She soon wishes that she hadn't.

4.
An Escape

As I forced myself to walk up the steps, I was glad that the loudness of the storm covered the sounds of my footsteps, even as I knew that it also made it impossible for me to tell if something was waiting for me on the other side of the doors. My hands were shaking like an earthquake as I reached out to push the door open. A brilliant flash of lightning made it impossible to see through the gloom in the entrance hall. Holding my breath, I stepped into the entrance hall and closed the door as quietly as possible behind me. I then ducked over by a bookshelf and pressed myself against the wall, while I waited to see if anything appeared. When nothing did, I cautiously crept down the hall into the main part of the hall proper. I lit my lamp and took out my map, but to my frustration, the map was smeared and smudged from the rain and thus unreadable.

I could remember where a few things were from Walther's tour earlier, so I knew that the wine cellar and a small laboratory was off to my left, and the old archives were off to my right. Upstairs to the right were the main archives that I had read that book in earlier. Upstairs to the left, of course, were the halls that led to the rest of the castle. I really did not want to go back down those corridors, since so many their turns were blind with rooms that things could pop out of me at. The wine cellar and the laboratory were out; they were just large open rooms with no good hiding places. The old archives weren't good for hiding either, but I knew that they led to another hall that led to the center courtyard. The courtyard of course was no good for hiding in this weather, but the hall that led to it had many small rooms, almost all of which had lockable doors. It sounded like to place to be to me, so I headed in that direction.

I went down a short hallway to one of those heavy metal doors that seemed to mark the different areas of the castle, but as soon as I touched the handle, I heard that damned growling from the other side. I began to back away as whatever began to body slam the door; I didn't know if it could get through that metal door, but I had no wish to be anywhere near if it did. The thing slammed against the door a second time, and I heard the distinct sound of metal bending, so I turned and ran back out into the hall. About halfway across, I made a split second decision and ran down the steps across from the front doors and through a heavy oak door. I ran down another short hallway, before I came across another heavy metal door. Without stopping to think, I pulled it open, ran through, and slammed it behind me. I hoped that, since I hadn't heard the monster thing come through the door to the old archives that it hadn't seen me run through to where I was.

I huddled in the corner for a moment to catch my breath and let my heart slow down, and once I was sure that thing wasn't going to come after me, I stood up and used my lamp to look around. I was in a long hallway, which I knew right away hadn‘t been on my map, with timbered walls and ceiling and a dirt covered stone floor. Lamps hung at regular intervals from the timbers that supported the ceiling, but like the rest of the electric lights, they were cold and dark. I walked as quietly as I could down the hall, noting that in places the walls had collapsed, allowing rocks and dirt to pile up along the sides. The hall turned right, and then left, and then left again before opening out into a large, high ceilinged room. Enormous wooden casks sat on racks on the floor, and windows all the way up near the ceiling let in the lightning. As I walked through, listening for anything unfriendly that might have been in there with me, I spotted torches dotting the walls, but no electric lights, so I couldn’t test to see if the power had come back on yet. I doubted that it had - spending my entire life in the country had taught me that rural areas are the last ones to get power restored after an outage - but I still wanted to check. The lamp was nice to have, but if I accidentally dropped it...

I walked through a doorway into another room the same size as the previous one, but this time, I spotted a door on the left wall. I eased it open and used the lamp light to peek around inside. Seeing nothing, but a couple wine racks and a small table with a stub of a candle, I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. I raised my lamp high to look around and spotted a small jar sitting on the lower shelf of one of the wine racks. I picked it up and discovered it was lamp oil. I still had plenty of oil left in the reservoir, but a little extra never hurt, so I slipped the small bottle in a pocket. My pockets were feeling a little crowded with the phone, tinderbox, and now the jar of oil that were occupying them, so I was going to have to find some other way of carrying my things.

Seeing another door on the right, I went through it. That led to a small series of little rooms, which eventually ended in two places. One door took me back out into the large room that I had come from. A second one led me into a room with a trapdoor on the floor by the far wall and shelves of boxes and crates. I also found an ancient looking oil can, sitting on its stand in one corner, but it was heavily corroded and whatever oil it had once held was long gone. I wandered through the room for a few minutes before I planted myself at a long table that was in one of them. I used the lamp's wick to light a couple of candles that were on the table and then blew the lamp out.

I hoped I was safe for the night, as this place had not been on my map, nor had it been part of the tour that Walther had taken me on. I did not want to wander around with no idea of where I was going. It could have led to that torture chamber that I had jokingly threatened Jason with back home. I put my head down on the table. Damn, I wish I had just stayed home! Instead of being at work, joking with my coworkers, or at home curled up with a good book in front of the fireplace, I was stuck here with something out to get me. If that thing I had encountered was capable of damaging a metal door, then it could easily tear me to pieces. I wanted to go back to sleep, and hopefully, when I woke up, the entire night would have turned out to be a nightmare, but I didn't dare. I was in an unsecured location where someone or something could stumble upon me at any moment. I had to stay awake.

According to my cell phone, I had sat and waited at the table for just over an hour when I heard shuffling footsteps in the previous room. I had closed the door to that room, but I knew it was time to move anyway. I quietly stood up from the chair, picked up my lamp, and blew out the candles. I then walked through the door at the opposite end of the room and shut it behind me as well. A lone candle supplied just enough light for me to see by, which was a good thing, because when I shut the door, it latched with a loud clack! that echoed in the small room. Immediately a growl sounded two rooms back, and I heard whatever busting down the door. Going back to the entrance hall was not an option - I didn't know if the thing behind me was the same one that had tried to come through from the old archives or a different one, so instead I ran into the room with the trap door and piled crates and everything else I could find in front of the door. I even dragged an empty shelf over for good measure. I then frantically, with my heart pounding in my chest and my breath gasping, turned the wooden crank to raise the trapdoor as the thing pounded against the barricade I had made from the other side. I ran across the room just as the door splintered apart. I heard it growl as it spotted me, and I spared a glance over my shoulder to see what was chasing me. All I caught of a glimpse of was a misshapen head with a gaping maw for a mouth before it swung one arm and casually knocked my barricade away. I shrieked in terror and dove through the trap door as I heard its feet slapping against the floor as it ran after me. Torches on the wall allowed me to see where I was going as I ran down a corridor and through another metal door.

This time, I didn't stop running. I sprinted down a hallway, barely noticing the doorway that led into a room full of what looked like bookshelves. As the thing began to break down the door behind me, I ran through another doorway, past several bookshelves, and ran into a dead end. I frantically tried to find a door or something when I heard the screeching of tearing metal followed by the crash of the door as it fell to the floor. I turned around for a moment and heard it coming after me, so going back out into the hall was most definitely not an option. Instead I went to the left and dove in the narrow space between two bookshelves where they met in the corner. I carefully pulled a box over in front of me and huddled down.

I tried to slow my gasping breath as I heard its feet slapping against the floor, and then I heard it slow to a walk. A hissing growl echoed off the walls, and I realized that it was in the room with me. I had to grab the lamp with both hands and shove it down between my folded legs when I started to shake so hard that the chimney started to rattle ever so slightly. It seemed to me that the thing’s hearing was fairly sensitive, and I did not want to give away any clue as to where I was. I looked up at the wall that I had just been standing in front of, and could see its shadow, especially that of its deformed left hand with a set of lethal looking Freddy Kruger claws. The shadow grew in size as it moved closer, and I forced my eyes closed when it was standing right next to the bookshelf that I was crouched by.

Please let it walk away! Please don’t let it turn this way! If it sees me, I’m dead! Please, please, please.....!

I heard it make another hissing growl, and after an endless moment, I heard it begin to walk away. I kept my eyes screwed shut and kept a tight grip on my lamp, and shortly thereafter I heard the welcome sound of the metal pieces of the door to the area being walked over as the thing left the area. I allowed myself a quiet sigh of relief, but like before, I did not move from my hiding spot for the next several minutes.

When I finally felt safe enough to venture out, I walked back out into the hallway and got my first look at the destroyed door. It lay as a twisted piece of unrecognizable wreckage of the floor. The remains of the hinges had been torn clear out of the wall. I didn’t get any closer. Instead I relit my lamp using the tinderbox, and proceeded left, down the hallway. It turned left again and through a doorway that had the rusted remains of a metal gate lying nearby. The corridor widened into a large room with large columns supporting the ceiling, and it was then that I noticed signs of old water damage along the walls. I was far enough underground that I could no longer hear the storm, so I simply figured that the place had flooded like any other basement and moved on.

The Shadow...

I ignored the return of the voice and moved to the left wall, where there was another gate. It was down, and when I tried the rusted crank nearby, it wouldn’t budge; corrosion had frozen it. I stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what to do, before I remembered the lamp oil in my pocket. I sat the lamp down on a nearby crate and fished the small jar of oil out of my pocket. I knew that it was likely kerosene instead of true oil, since that is what most so called oil lamps actually burn, but it was worth a shot. Going back the way I came was not going to happen any time soon if I had my way. Carefully unscrewing the cap, I poured a bit of the oil - and it was real oil, not kerosene - onto the frozen crank. Putting the lid back on the jar and stuffing it back in my pocket, I grabbed the crank with both hands and gave it a yank. It didn’t want to turn at first, but I kept trying and after a few minutes, I felt it give ever so slightly.

Bolstered by this small success, I kept trying, and eventually with a grating screech, the crank began to turn. I winced at the sound but otherwise paid it no mind as the gate slowly began to rise. Grinning like an idiot, I had the gate raised about halfway when I heard the dreaded growl back where I had come from. The noise had attracted my little friend. Deciding that the gate was high enough, I snatched up the lamp and dropped to my stomach. I shimmied under the partially raised gate just as I heard the running footsteps on the floor behind me. Once on the other side, I stood up just as the thing rushed the gate. I backed away in horror as I watched it slam at the gate. It was like something about of a horror game; a terrifying cross between demon and human. I continued to stare even as the gate began to buckle under the assault.

Run foolish child! Run!

I turned and fled through another doorway just as the gate crashed down behind me, followed by the sound of it running towards me. Screaming in terror, I reached yet another metal door, pulled it open, and ran through it, feeling the swipe of that thing’s claws only inches from my back. I yanked the door shut and found myself in yet another short L shaped hallway. As the creature began to break the door down behind me, I ran down this hall and through the door at the end. This only led me to yet another hallway, which I ran for my life down just as I heard the metal door burst open. A second later, I heard it pounding on the wooden door that I had just closed, and I knew that it wouldn’t last near as long as the metal one had. That was proven correct when I heard the wooden door fall apart barely a few seconds later.

I didn’t know how fast the thing could run, and I hoped that it was slower than me as I ran down the corridor and through another door. The door again led to a corridor that was empty of anything but a pile of debris in the middle of it, which I had to climb over. This slowed me down and allowed the thing behind me to catch up. I heard it break down the door I had just come through as I jumped over the last of the debris and took off running again. Behind me, it snarled and knocked the debris out of it’s path. I reached a door that was in the middle of a wall and went through it and slammed it behind me as the thing rammed into it from the other side. I couldn’t help the shriek that escaped my lips as I continued to run. By then, my lungs and legs were on fire, and I could feel a painful stitch in my side. I couldn’t keep running for much longer, but then hope arrived in the form of another metal door. It would buy me enough time to hopefully find a place to hide and catch my breath. I reached out for it and freaked out when it refused to budge. I heard the thing gaining on me as I frantically tugged at the handle.

It opens the other way, child!

Heeding the voice that hadn’t steered me wrong yet, I pushed against the door, and grinned in triumph, despite my circumstances, as it swung open. The grin abruptly turned into an anguished howl when I felt fire erupt across my back as the thing nailed me with its claws. Adrenaline allowed me to get through the door, but the monster came through before I could shut it. I staggered just ahead of it and managed to make it up the first few steps of a staircase before I collapsed, too exhausted to keep going. I closed my eyes and waited for the end.

Behind me, I heard an angry buzzing, like an entire hive of angry bees were congregating behind me, followed by a -

You shall not harm my child!

- bright flash of light that was even brighter than the lightning that I had seen earlier. I turned around just in time to see the creature blow apart, like someone had stuck a few dozen M80s in its body. Pieces of it flew everywhere, though, strangely, none landed on me.

It’s safe now.

That rich baritone was the last thing I heard as I passed out cold on the steps.

Chapter 3 -- Chapter 5
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Inheritance Chapter 4

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