Caldessia the Blind
A light rain covered the small city of Sholebrook in a faint mist. The once bustling city was now desolate, the city's populace having turned in for the night. The sound of wet footsteps echoed through the dark empty streets. A young woman was taking a late night stroll through the rain. Her black t-shirt and torn jeans were soaking wet from the rain, droplets of water dripping from her auburn hair. The flickering streetlights cast a shadow of her slender figure against the pavement as she walked. As she passed thought the shopping district, a dress caught her eye. As she was looking at the dress, she was suddenly pulled into a side alleyway.
Her assailant pinned her to the wall, looking into her deep hazel eyes. The man wore a black hooded sweatshirt and a black bandana over his mouth. His baggy jeans barely clung to his hips as he moved.
"Well, aren't you a pretty little thing?" the man said, grinning from behind his bandana.
The woman simply spat in his face.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure you enjoy it too." he said, putting a hand on her thigh.
The woman struggled, pushing at her attacker as he peeled her shirt from her body. The woman screamed for help, but it was of no use. Just as her shirt was at her chest, her assailant was suddenly pulled away from her. A loud crack echoed through the alley as his body fell to the ground. The woman pulled her shirt back down, looking over at the body of her attacker. She cringed, noticing his head had been twisted full circle. In front of her stood a figure donning a white cloak and wearing a pale featureless mask.
"Thank's for saving me." she panted.
"I never said you wrere safe..." the figure replied.
With that, the woman felt a sharp stabbing pain in her neck. Her vision blurred as she lost consciousness.
She awoke chained to the floor of a small dingy room. Still unable to see clearly, she could only make out the blurry shadows standing around her.
"Hello Amy." one of the figures said.
"Who are you? How do you know my name!" she screamed in a panic.
"We know all about you. Caldessia has told us all we need to know." another figure replied.
"What the hell are you talking about? Let me go!" Amy demanded.
"She has chosed you to be her pinnacle, from which our paradise will come forth." The figure in front of her continued.
Just as Amy's vision finally came back into focus, she suddenly felt as though someone were driving a spike through her temple. She fell to her knees, holding her head in pain.
"It worked, Caldessia's powers are growing within you." one of the figures said excitedly.
Tears streamed down Amy's cheeks, the pain too great to bear. The group of cloaked figures left the room, leaving Amy hunched over on the ground in excruciating pain. Her vision suddenly went black, but she was still conscious as the pain endured. With one final scream, the pain suddenly stopped, vanishing as quickly as it came.
As her vision suddenly returned in surprising clarity, Amy found herself in what could only be described as a hellish nightmare. Red pulsing veins clung to the walls of the room, it's floor covered in rust and blood. The chains that once shackled her to the ground had vanished, now only scraps of metal remaining in their stead.
Amy shakily rose to her feet, mind still reeling. She walked over to the cold steel door, which was also covered with the same red veins that clung to the wall. As she pushed against it, even the steel had an almost fleshy quality to it. She walked outside into a long dark hallway. As she walked, the dingy walls seemed to stretch onward forever into the darkness. As she walked down the hall, she cautiously looked around, unable to shake the feeling she was being watched. She turned her head to find that the door was still right behind her, as though she had never moved in the first place.
"This is getting really weird..." she muttered.
A little worried, she picked up her pace. As she ran, she turned to see that the wall was following her, and quickly closing the gap. A massive eye slowly opened in the wall, its red pupil watching her intently as it continued its pursuit. Amy let out a shriek as she ran for her life. The hallway went on forever, repeating the same stretch for eternity. Before long, Amy started running out of breath. The living wall quickly closed in, its eye opening into a massive gaping maw. Amy cringed as the eye swallowed her whole.
Surrounded by darkness, Amy sat alone, curled in a ball as she waited for it all to end.
"This can't be real! It's all got to be some fucked up nightmare!" she whimpered, fearing for her life.
She shot up, heart racing. She wiped the cold sweat from her brow and looked around. She calmed down as she found herself in her bed, surrounded by the familiar lavender walls of her room.
"A dream?" she panted, catching her breath.
Climbing out of bed, she walked to the bathroom and got undressed. She sighed as she turned on the bathtub. She climbed into the warm bath and let the soothing warm water ease her body. The nightmare was over, she could go back to her normal life, working nine to five at her desk job down the block. She started to doze as she daydreamed. She reluctantly forced herself out of the bath before she could fall asleep again.
"I need to get to work..." she groaned to herself, drying off.
Wrapping a towel around herself, Amy walked back into her bedroom and got dressed. She slipped into an elegant black dress and stepped into a pair of silver heels. Stepping outside her house, she climbed into her blue Chevy coup and drove off.
She thought back on her bizarre nightmare as she drove, trying to piece it all together. Now only remembering fragments of the story, the strange events made even less sense.
Pulling up in front of a small office building, she stepped out of her car. Walking inside, Amy made her way up to the small reception desk at the back of the lobby. Behind the desk was a young man in his late twenties. His brown hair was combed to the side, out of the way of his green eyes. He wore a simple white dress shirt, a name tag pinned to the front of his breast pocket.
"Overdressed for the job, as usual." he teased, greeting Amy with a smile.
"What can I say, Curtis, I'm an overachiever." Amy replied with a laugh.
Curtis punched a few buttons on the keypad behind his desk.
"You're all clocked in. See you later." Curtis said, going back to his work.
"See you." Amy replied as she walked down the hall.
She climbed up the stairs to the second floor and walked into one of the side doors. Walking down the hall full of doors, she got a chill as she remembered the endless hall from her nightmare. Stepping into a small office, she sat down at her desk and turned on her computer.
The screen lit up, the words "Wendel Corp" appearing in the background, along with the company logo, an eye enclosed in a simplistic diamond shaped box. After logging into the system, Amy opened up her inbox to check her mail. She opened the only new message, which was from her boss, Mr. Lansky. She read it aloud to herself, jotting down important information as she went.
Dear Amy,
I've finished my investigation of Mr. Lau's wife. Give him a call to let him know he was worried over nothing. The man he saw his wife meeting with was just the caterer for his surprise party for his new promotion. Don't tell him that though, just say everything checked out, and maybe use his wife's fitness training business as a cover. I've left some case files on your desk. If you could update the database on the computer before you leave tonight that would be great. I'll be out of the office all day, so have my incoming calls forwarded to my voicemail.
-P. Lansky
Amy closed the email and turned to the tower of stacked files on her desk.
"I keep telling him to focus on just a few cases at a time. If Peter keeps this up half these cases are going to fall through, just like last time." Amy sighed as she opened the top file.
Picking up the phone, she dialed the number listed on the file. After a few rings, a gruff sounding man answered.
"Mr. Lau?" Amy asked.
"Speaking. Who's this?" the man replied.
"This is Mr. Lansky's secretary. He wanted me to call you about the case. There's nothing to worry about." Amy said reassuringly as she began updating files on the computer.
"So what was my wide doing with that man?" Mr. Lau asked.
"It was one of her clients trying to find time in his schedule for wight training." Amy replied.
"But he's built like a rock!" Mr. Lau protested.
"And how do you think he stays that way." Amy replied with a smirk.
"I guess so. Thank Mr. Lansky for me me would you? He's... help w... vestigating this..."
The call eventually cut out to static. As she listened, Amy could barely hear someone speaking amidst the static. As she focused on the phone, her computer crashed, the file she was working on suddenly vanishing, the only thing on the screen being the company logo. It was then she could hear the voice clearly, male of female she could not tell, but it was definitely a voice.
"What the hell is going on?" she thought, listening more intently.
The voice became more and more prominant, but she couldn't understand a word it was saying. To her, it sounded like gibberish. Just as she was about to hand up, she recognized words amongst the unintelligable gabber.
"I'm watching you."
Turning her attention to the computer screen, she watched as the eye of the company logo faded into a hollow cavity, dissapearing into darkness. Blood startted running down from the hole, dripping down onto her desk from the computer screen.