Hammer and Nails

August 21, 2012 at 12:00 PM
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Rating: 6.4/10 (196 votes cast)

You are standing at the top of the ancient wooden staircase, looking down at the darkness beneath. Shelf after shelf of dusty supplies and stacks of books line the basement walls. You remember your mother’s words, “Could you please go get me a hammer and some nails?”

This is nothing but a storage room, nothing to be afraid of, but it’s so dark! You hesitantly take a step downwards, down the creepy old staircase, and the stair creaks loud enough to wake the dead. You continue down the stairs to the basement. One filthy window guards the wall past the staircase, and it attempts to illuminate the room, but the darkness in this basement is so thick, light can’t seem to permeate. You search for a switch, and you eventually find a string connected to the ceiling light so you pull it and…nothing happens, and the room remains obscured by artificial night.

You walk around in darkness for a few minutes and eventually, when your eyes have adjusted, you find an antique dollhouse resting on a table. You open it, and you see that it is frighteningly realistic: there is flowered wallpaper on the walls in the master bedroom, an opening refrigerator in the kitchen containing miniature food, and tiny cloth blankets on all the beds. There are even porcelain dolls with realistic faces. You soon realize that the dolls are you and your mother, and that the dollhouse is an exact replica of your house. You see a tiny, hairy spider scuttling along the edges of the house, and you squish it with your hand, but then, there are more spiders. You grab a can of bug poison from a shelf nearby and spray until all the spiders wither and die.

Suddenly, the dolls fall over and their porcelain faces crack. And suddenly, the air in the basement becomes much thicker, and you can’t breathe. You run back to the top of the stairs, gasping for breath, but the door has mysteriously locked. You bang on the door as hard as you can, repeatedly, but it is no use. You wipe the sweat off your face, which happened to be mixed with blood. You feel yourself becoming tired, and then numb. Finally, a shock runs through your body and you succumb to paralysis, falling down the stairs like a limp rag doll.

You slowly open your eyes to find the lights on. You blink a few times, and yes, the lights are still on, shining brightly and intensely. You move your aching limbs and try to stand. It takes effort, but you manage. You stare at the table which once supported the dollhouse; the dollhouse has vanished. Huh? But even more intriguing is the long wooden box propped up against the wall to the far left. You tentatively walk closer, shivering with each cold breath you take, and you realize what the box is: a coffin. A large wooden coffin, engraved in gold letters, your mother’s last name. Curiosity gets the better of you, and you move your fingers to the coffin, pushing the lid slightly to find the coffin empty. Suddenly, you hear a female voice behind you: “It’s ok, I found the hammer and nails.”

You turn around to see your mother, with pale white skin and blue lips, but that’s not what you notice first. A series of cracks run through her face, with blood dripping from the crack lines. Her grey eyes flash for a split second, and she opens the coffin and pushes you inside it, shutting the door behind her. You are trapped.

The last thing you hear is the sound of a hammer, pounding the nails into your coffin.

Credit To: Shaianne

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rate This Pasta
Rating: 6.4/10 (196 votes cast)
Hammer and Nails, 6.4 out of 10 based on 196 ratings