Marcus Holloway's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Marcus Holloway walked these dark halls for one reason. Somewhere ahead was a room where the whispers stopped. He had heard them since the moment the doors locked behind him. They came from the walls, low and wet, like voices trying to learn his name. Every hour they grew louder. He had no map. He had no idea which way led out. He pressed one hand against the wall and moved. His black shirt stuck to his back. His white collar had gone gray with dust. He counted his steps to keep his mind busy. Forty. Sixty. The whispers rose with each one. At a hundred, he stopped. The hall split into three dark mouths. He had passed this fork before. He was walking in circles. The whispers swelled into a hiss. Marcus pressed his palms to his ears. It did not help. The sound lived inside his skull now. He realized the halls wanted him to wander. Movement fed them. So he did the one thing that scared him most. He stopped moving. He sat on the cold floor and went still. The silence lasted three seconds. Then the whispers screamed. The floor shook. Dust fell from the ceiling in long gray threads. A crack of light opened at the far end of the center hall. It had not been there before. Marcus stared at it. The light was warm and yellow, the color of a lamp in a window. He understood then. The whispers were not leading him away from the light. They were hiding it. Stillness had let him see. He stood and ran toward the glow. The hissing chased him. The walls seemed to lean in. He did not count steps now. He only ran. The hall ended at a door. Beyond it stood an old house, half-swallowed by the dark. Its wood was split and streaked with rust. The porch sagged. Two windows glowed with that warm yellow light, and one held the shadow of a shape inside. A person. Someone was in there. Marcus hit the door and shoved. It did not open. He beat his fists on the wood. "Please," he said. "Let me in. Please." Behind him the whispers gathered into a wall of sound. He felt them close on his neck like cold breath. The lock turned from the inside. The door cracked open. The whispers cut off all at once, as if a hand had clamped a mouth shut. Marcus fell forward onto a dusty wooden floor. His chest heaved in the sudden quiet. He had found a quiet place. But he had not found it alone. The shadow from the window stood over him now, backlit by the lamp. It did not speak. It only watched him breathe. Marcus looked up into a face he could not yet see, and knew the house had already belonged to someone else.