As Jason walked down the path, he couldn't help but notice the trees around him. They were dead , completely dead. This wasn't the green forest he'd ridden through earlier. Everything looked burned, charred black, branches reaching up like skeletal fingers. The air smelled like ash , he spotted a well up ahead, surrounded by coils of barbed wire. There was a warning sign planted by the entrance it was bright red, practically screaming for attention. A skull had been painted on it with two words underneath: "STAY AWAY."
Obviously, Jason decided to ignore it and check out the well anyway. What's the worst that could happen? Nothing could be worse than what he'd already been through, right?
He stepped closer, boots crunching on the scorched earth. The barbed wire seemed newer than everything else around it, like someone had put it there recently. On purpose. The well itself looked ancient though—stone worn smooth, edges crumbling. He couldn't see the bottom from where he stood. Just darkness going down and down.
But the smell hit him hard. Something dead, rotting. A corpse, maybe. A human one, judging by the sickly sweet stench that made his stomach turn. He'd smelled death before, but this was different more concentrated, like whatever was down there had been decomposing for a very long time.Suddenly the bell rang in the distance loud, insistent. The same bell he'd heard before, calling him forward. It got louder, more urgent, like it was ordering him to keep moving. Staring into the abyss wouldn't help him. He knew that much and Jason pulled himself away from the well and obeyed like a trained soldier, following the sound.
As he approached, the sound got louder and louder. He could sense the moment of truth approaching, and there it was a school. A big religious school, the kind with crosses carved into the stonework and stained glass windows that had seen better days. An old one, paint molded and peeling, windows cracked, walls covered in creeping vines and decay. But Jason still found it strangely beautiful in its ruin. Artistic, almost. Like something that had been abandoned by God himself but refused to completely fall apart and there was a heavy wooden door at the front entrance. As Jason got closer, it creaked open slowly. Nobody pushed it. Nobody stood on the other side. But somehow, Jason felt welcomed.
He walked through the door and was met by multiple things. First, drawings definitely made by children pinned to the walls. Crayon scribbles of stick figures, houses with crooked chimneys, suns with too many rays. Small tables meant for children were scattered around the room, chairs sized for bodies that barely reached three feet tall. There was a board at the front, the kind meant for teaching, and on it were words written in white chalk:
PRAYRIGHTDEFENDLIGHT
And some other words beneath them, smudged and harder to read. Jason squinted, trying to make sense of them, trying every possible combination in his head. But they didn't form sentences. Didn't make any coherent meaning, no matter how he arranged them. It felt like a message written in a language he'd forgotten how to speak.
But what caught his attention were the stairs leading upward, disappearing into shadows. They were blocked by a locked gate, iron bars that looked rusted but solid. The aura coming from up there felt wrong.Sensing the danger, Jason turned back toward the doors to leave. But before he could reach them, they slammed shut with a deafening bang. The sound screamed one message clearly: You're not welcome anymore.
Suddenly it was dark outside the windows. Pitch black, like someone had draped cloth over the glass. The windows themselves were now barred with steel—he was sure they hadn't been before. The fake sun must have set, he thought. But why? Was this place trying to save him from something outside? Or was it locking him in with something inside?
A few candles flickered to life around him, casting trembling shadows across the room.
Jason's breath caught.
Everything had changed. The chairs were destroyed, splintered wood scattered across the floor. The small tables were overturned, legs snapped off. The children's drawings on the walls those innocent crayon scribbles were now distorted, twisted into something grotesque. Happy stick figures had become contorted bodies. Smiling suns were now bleeding eyes. Houses had turned into scenes of violence, crude depictions of blood and monsters and murder.
Numbers were painted on the wall in what looked like dried blood: 666. A painted pentagram surrounded by candles sat in the center of the floor. And carved deep into the wood above the chalkboard were two words: GET OUT.
The bell's ringing changed. Slower now. Heavier. Each toll felt like a countdown
Then a telephone rang.
It kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing.
Jason's head started throbbing, a sharp pain behind his eyes. His hands shook. But he forced himself to move toward the sound, toward the old rotary phone sitting on what was left of a desk. He picked up the receiver, brought it slowly to his ear.
All he kept hearing was a long, drawn-out shhhhhhhhh, like static or white noise. Then came a couple of words distorted, barely audible beneath the interference.
"...wake..."
He pressed the phone harder against his ear, focusing despite the extreme pain drilling through his skull.
"...this..."
More static. Then clearer:
"...not real..."
"...this..."
"...wake..."
"...up..."
"This is not real. Wake up. Wake up."
He didn't need to hear that though. Some part of him already knew. But who was calling? It sounded like a female voice, but he wasn't sure. The distortion made it impossible to tell if it was someone he knew or just another trick.
Jason hung up the phone, his hand trembling. He stood there for a moment, trying to process what he'd just heard, pondering what he should do now that he was stuck in this hellhole.
That's when he noticed it.
The steel gate blocking the stairs had vanished. Just... gone. Like it had never been there at all.
He could walk upstairs now.
The candles flickered. The bell tolled again, slow and deliberate.
He started walking upstairs. Fear was evident in every step and the way his hand gripped the railing too tight, the way his breathing came shallow and quick. But he knew he had to do it. There was no other choice. Never had been, really.
The stairs were dark. Completely dark. He couldn't see anything not his own hands, not the steps beneath his feet, nothing. He just kept climbing, one foot in front of the other, moving toward whatever destiny this place had planned for him.
He just kept climbing.