Valcon Alley Pt. I

When you listen so silently, you can hear mourning in the cellar below to Valcon Alley; Its neighbors are daring to reside as they do this closely. The ruins are built on brick pavings and has become the chapter of the city only the poor couldn't be too bold to go, though they do and live fearfully. There is no crime, and the dead found in rooms lay cold months before recovering.

Disturbance began six years ago when a small girl fell into a sewage line along Valcon Alley, where she hadn't been retrieved before something monstrous crept and dragged her all the way down. The adults that lept for rescue became fear struck and in a moment of paralysis, lost the grip of her small hands that plead for a saving. The sight and stench that came with it; Baffled at its utter existence and so much as her parents decided it was death that took her.

Water that floods the drains are memorized to the sounds of her shrieking and nails that broke to their scratching. They say when the rain falls, they hear her weeping, still. Parents left haunted in their home that sat close by, corner proportion to the entry of Valcon Alley, visions of their daughter caught on the occasion with messages sigiled onto mirrors and tables; Photographs taken and gone. The grieving mother that refutes the removal of her black veil, to smother the appearance of darkly bagged eyes and sensory deprivation in sickness - a father with attempted strength to aid his wife back to health again, for another daughter too young to know the horror that swept the family in the palm of death's hand.

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My mother has never recovered, and father works until the sun begins to fall. It hadn't always been this way, for the sight of the poverty stricken man had been scarce until Mother had an episode revealing she loathed his being gone to work, leaving her and I vulnerable prey. The other children act in knowing a secret I am forbidden to be told; They glare each time in disbelief that I live outside of the ruins I was birthed in.

I've watched the crease of her lips moisten to drool, and the matting of hair that lies beneath the veil, ripped and torn for the aging she's worn it. The depth of scarring upon her neck, that lightness of skin in between like tissue so easy to tear, to bleed from again. Father says he has loved her for her illness and will love her for her health; though secrets tell me, fill me with thought she hadn't been sick forever. There hides in the attic a box of damaged images, where one side had been mutilated and the other side of a beautiful woman with fair skin and toning hair to match the academic scholar that held genius rank previously. She hallucinates to monsters in our home; asking forgiveness, as if a monster would. She casts her voice so loudly and declares it flees in fear of her when we arrive to her aiding.

I caught their whispering today, on the school grounds at my backside; The children as they spoke of Valcon Alley and a story of a girl who vanished. I've decided when Mother sleeps, molded and stiffened to her chair, I will take their dare and find my way to the sewage lines that seeps the death they have talked of.

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The alley rests cold and moist to the liquors of air, the darkness that is thick with only few lights to occasionally gleam the streets so dim. I can feel each curve to the bricks through thin shoes that give a slip and near slide to the rain fall the night before. The fluid that isn't absorbed and an accidental step into a dent where they never fix this alley way.

I stopped to the sound of pattering feet close before me and stare to the crossing of a shadow, quickly passing into an abandoned entry. I do not recognize the silhouette, though I know its feel, its familiar essence that tells me I should follow. Hesitant, I move to observe, swiftly and silently.

Beneath the light pole that stands with the decrepancy of nails to bulge and wood to falter, I hear the water pour to the drains below and straight across view the pale of feet up to shin standing in the entry I saw the silhouette move to. I am froze to the awareness this person returns the sight of me, though the darkness of the desolated building leaves their face sheltered solidly. For this second, I hear a distraughting moan, one so familiar to Mother's and in belief, watch as this person turns almost to run, where I follow as closely behind as my legs allow.

There is much darkness in here and I take the briefness to view the rain that drips outside yet again. This doorway is ancient, with a curved column that rounds its top; stone. Though it is not curved and this shapely from its outside. I grip a railing that is near by and choose to direct with the tapping of toe tips before stepping entirely, leading to a stair case downward. I think to holler for Mother, though the voice will shake and I've become too fearful to scream. To turn around, I can not, for the idea that it may be Mother lurking here, as I can not leave her.

I step the bottom stair to an enlightened hall that is dim, though not, in the same. Its oddness of a dwelling as if someone resides here. Torches that line its stoning for this hall that leads only to one ending door; A cellar.

I can hear the sounds of screaming and howling through the thickness of its door. The build of wood and metal for its heaviness. I care nothing, for my Mother may be hurt, and with a harsh of tug, I grip the handle to pull and become struck with a strong of wind that consists the stench of things deadened. The sounds I heard, cease; Isolation has become too intolerable. I feel the whirlwind of the abyss lying here and venture to see nothing lingers where I have found.

It reeks to rot and filth; old blood that has not dried and has become painted to the walls, to the flooring. There glides a light from above, though no sources for it to come from. No furniture to be found, though a balcony with no entrance. I step further inside and become frightened at the sound of movement, a glimpse in the corner of the eye to something black lurking. I look forward view and there lurks nothing; though to look away again - there it paces manically on the balcony.

I've stiffened my neck, and leave the face drawn at a side to see this monstrous thing that paces frantically back and again. It speaks to itself and whispers chaotically; It shrieks loudly and I glare impulsively to the full sight of it.

The matting of hair like Mothers, though far longer and blackened, the ashened of skin that remains on the face of it, where its thousands of pin needle teeth have torn the flesh from around the mouth, so painfully. Its grotesqueness of bodily build, for a slight hunch carried about its back and the lower of waist trailing into black smoke where feet are not walked on, but smoke to carry and glide it. It brushes past something carried on the wall, as if harshly nailed in its placement.

It's moan so despairing, this monster does not hate, it cries.