The Spiked Armchair [Horror Writings]

[Rallix]

Write thou here the Fearful, the Thrilling.
 The Cold, the Burning.
 The Disfigured, the Orchestrated.
 Both the Unknown, and that which we know all too much.

Writ One.

 Frequently do men of late find themselves entrenched, indebted to seemingly unassailable and asphyxiating corporate financial groups. You are one such man. Your name is Franz Tanner. You are in your late twenties.
Tomorrow the company, called Harrier Inc. will come for repossession of virtually all your worldly goods, and you must file for bankruptcy.

The whole reason you got in debt in the first place was that you were trying to make money through renovations on a large house which you bought rather quickly, without other options. This combined with poor observation of its problems, because you had a deadline to meet in order to get that career-changing promotion in the area. Most of the floors and walls needed to be stripped out, due to damages caused by the previous owner's dog's bladder problems. As you tore more and more things out, the house seemingly needed more and more work, until the deadlines given by Harrier Inc. started catching up to the amount of actual work you and limited hired help were able to accomplish to keep the loan flowing.

In any case, you simply couldn't do it, and now the bank will make money off of your three-quarters-finished property by taking it(along with your car and personal items) as collateral, finishing the job, and getting the ridiculous amount of profit you would have gotten with a month more of time. There is nothing you can do but say goodbye to any chance of financial success in the future.
You are abandoned not just by the company, but by all your friends. Your family would probably help you, but hell if you even know where they are anymore; you lost touch with them years back.

What do you do Franz? Care & charity are as written off as your credit.
"Maybe some random internet people will have ideas."
You go on a message board, and ask for financial advice. They mostly laugh at you, giving sarcastically grim remarks. After a couple of pages of this, with one or two tantrums written in reply, one poster is positive, and seemingly helpful! He directs you to a debt help company you've never heard of before. He does say that "...everything has a price...", though, which you eye oddly.

The local branch offers to meet you tomorrow for an agreement. Your only glimmer of hope.


_{To Be Continued.}

[Cez Ser Ykoe]

Nice, and i'm going to make a wild guess, the price is your soul, life, or only person close to you? Or an everlasting companion to torture you through your pitiful, lung, and bloody years, or maybe even total destruction after you become horribly rich!

[Rallix]

Nice, and i'm going to make a wild guess, the price is your soul, life, or only person close to you? Or an everlasting companion to torture you through your pitiful, lung, and bloody years, or maybe even total destruction after you become horribly rich!

Your guesses are close, but the cigar is not quite lit, friend.

[Cez Ser Ykoe]

Ok, maybe uhh-      Crud I forgot...  He gets a cigar and he lights it and it explodes in a firey inferno? Just taking from your post.   

Oh and I should have something up here soon.

[Rallix]

Gut, Gut.
Yes, this thread is not only for my own writing, but for any and all who partake. Just avoid cliches! D;

Edit: This chapter will be in third person, rather than second, as the last was. I may even switch to 1st person eventually.

Writ Two.

 Franz sits impatiently at his house's front door. He hopes to make a good impression upon these Leafont & Harry Debt Solicitors representatives. His clothing is clean, and his home is progressively barer, as the Repo men have already come, along with their man representing Harrier Inc. He's a short, bulbous nosed man with a great aptitude for barking orders in a high voice, and sweating in a suit whilst holding a clipboard.

A van pulls up next to the 18-wheeler being filled with Franz's things. Out of the van come two men in black attire.
"No corporate cars available, gentlemen?", asks Franz, hoping to break the ice with a little comedy. "None at all, not a one.", says the first with a small grin. The second man gestures toward the door, and they go inside. Sitting down at one of the few tables left, Franz is getting anxious. "Well, Mr. Tanner, we have here a very long contract detailing what you shall agree to for us to do our job of clearing your debt.", says the first man, with the second yet silently taking the papers out from a binder.
"We'll give you some time to read it over.", Says the first man again.
...
Ten minutes later, Franz has read halfway through the many pages. They are interrupted when the man from Harrier strolls in, asking when they will be done, as the furniture they're sitting on is the last in the house. "Uhh, perhaps you can just show me where to sign, Sirs. I think I have a good idea of the contract's terms." says Franz just a little feverishly. The second Leafont & Harry solicitor hands him a pen, and points to where he must sign.

A brief moment, and it is done. "Congratulations sir. The contract will be finalized, and your goods will be taken back to this house in next couple of days."

Franz stands up to shake the hands of these good men, who have solved his problems. The first man, still smiling amiably, extends his hand. Franz looks down to see it's a taser gun.
"Why do you-?!"
Immediately a bag went over his head.
Electricity courses through his body, and he faints, feeling like losing his lunch.

[Cez Ser Ykoe]

Nice! A kidnapping, is he now to be the company's eternal slave for life?

[Rallix]

Nice! A kidnapping, is he now to be the company's eternal slave for life?

Possibly. His fate shall rest in his own hands now.

Writ Three.

 Glaring brightness wakes Franz from his electrically induced slumber. On the floor of this padded loony-bin like room, the black haired, grey eyed, and lithe young Caucasian man lifts himself up. The entire room is padded, cubed, and pure white. There are only two blemishes; a computer terminal on his right, and a gray door in front of him.
Some words were on top left of the green backgrounded screen. Franz went toward it to read them.

>Greetings, Mr. Tanner.
>Today the contract you signed takes effect.
>All of your things have been returned to your home, which remains yours, and you are here now.

With little thought needed, Franz typed in reply:
>Where is 'here'?
A long moment passed, and a reply came.

>Our special behavioral testing facility, of course.
>Did you not read the contract? Anyways, we shall have several tests for you today. We took the hit for your mortgage, and we hope that you provide us with excellent results.
>You could even survive.

Immediately the terminal locked up, and nothing could be input. "What the..."
Franz sighed and put himself down next to the terminal, the gray door on the right taunting him.
He tried to collect himself, but he had no idea what was going on. "A testing facility?"

He stood and kicked the door with a curse. It budged.
It wasn't even locked. He turned the nob, and pulled the door open...

[Cez Ser Ykoe]

A NEW PORTAL!!

[Rallix]

A NEW PORTAL!!

I had considered that it was similar in some respects, but I decided to go with it anyways.

Writ 4:

 As Franz opened the door, a hall opened up before him. It was similar to the room he was just in, but the walls were not padded, only white. It was long, over 200 feet to the next door.
He began running towards the end. He ran because the hall didn't feel safe, it didn't feel right. The hall got perceptibly darker as he advanced. Just as it was almost too dark, almost, he saw that there are multiple 'exits.' One on either side of the door, which can't be discerned from afar, are the beginnings of yet more halls.

He stopped where he was, to think while he could still see. But the light grew lesser still.
The next moment, a deep, hollow scream; like a chorus of demons, flowed through the walls.
Then the walls themselves steadily muted, and became more and more see-through.

A moment later were they no longer pure white, but bloody, scorched glass coffins, filled with hundreds of mutilated corpses. Franz dropped to his knees, surrounded by death, and looked at the floor; opaque with postmortem men and women. He looked up at the ceiling to the same.

He realized he was not in a hall, but in a sterile tunnel through a war's worth of dead men. His throat was stinging with bile. He got up and ran towards the end of the hall, trying not to emit sound. He could see very little but red gore covering the outside walls, and nothing within, down any of the hallways. Only the door remained, and It was black.

He pulled the nob, and once again sounded the scream. He shut the door instantly, the sound stopping with a slam. He shook with fearful anxiety...
Slowly Franz turned the door-knob again. The sound didn't come.

The room was an exact copy of the first, a padded loony bin with a monitor. Franz stepped in just to get away from the bodies outside. The monitor screen was empty, but Franz felt like asking questions.

>Do you sick asshats think this omnicide is funny?
>Actually, we do find it funny, Mr. Tanner.
>Those people you saw are previous participants. Unlike you seemingly, they chose to participate, for any number of reasons.
>Some were thrill/glory seekers, some signed the contract for immense sums of money, others to have us fix their problems should they succeed. Society will not remember them.
>What does that make me?
>Unlucky. Probably dead, too.
>By the way, this is the last room like this.

Once more the keys locked up, nothing able to be typed. Franz sat by the door, his face in his hands as he contemplated his next actions.

[Draco Wrath]

Really liking this.  Keep it up!

 

[Rallix]

Remember, I'm not the only one who can write here... Just sayin'.
_{I'm lonely...}

Writ 5.

 "To live is to die, they say. I have not lived enough yet, therefore my goal is to live. I don't even care If I never know who has really done this to me, just as long as I can escape it."
This is the reasoning that Franz makes to himself, as he prepares to set out again into this abysmal place.
The blackened door to the horrible outside looked as foreboding as expected, as though smoke seeped through the cracks, Leviathan waiting on the other side for him.

Franz opened to the door to a less frightening sight, the walls being black as the door. Dim red light filled the halls to his left and right with imaginations of peril. The hall through which he had come disappeared, blending in with the rest of the angular pathway walls.
Making the decision that neither path was inherently worse or better, he went down the way to his right.
Franz vowed not to let anything that may come faze him. What these bastards want are reactions, and he will show nothing to what they throw at him. "Could those bodies have been images displayed by monitors through the walls? Lies?"

He tested by kicking a panel on his lower left, cracking it. He tugged at a larger broken piece, until it came out, some other bits and pieces collapsing with it. Behind the glass was a pale looking... soil? It almost appeared to be ash. Franz dug at it slightly with one of the shards, and pulled it into the hall. The substance definitely wasn't soil, though some seemed mixed in. He rubbed it to feel the texture.
It felt like coarse sand, but gray and black in colour.

Further investigation was pointless, he thought. The stuff smelled of something foul, and it put bad ideas in his mind.
Franz continued towards the next door...

[Rallix]

Writ 6:

 Franz came to the door that was on his right from the padded room exit. He pulled, he pushed, he wiggled, he torqued, but it was locked, and it looked too sturdy to break open. "Shit."
He decided to go back the way he came, towards the other door.

 As soon as he was within 5 feet of the door, the red lights cut, and nothing was to be seen. He heard a dull thudding sound repeating... repeating... and yet repeating, as he sightlessly pressed his ear to the cold metal of the door, the vibrations stronger when he did this.
The pounding came from behind the door, but this was the only useable exit from the area he had come through, and the darkness he was in did nothing to make him wish to stay there longer.

 Franz opened the door to yet more darkness. The sounds were clearer; like metal crashing into metal, then being retracted to only crash again. He slowly advanced forward, till his next step found empty air and fell six inches below his other.

Stairs.

 There were no rails, of course, or at least none he could feel. He didn't know if there were any deviations in the path as he continued, making his way with any sense but sight, slowly downward. He tried not to bite his lip too hard as the crashes ringed ever closer in his eardrums... he now began to hear a sloshing liquid corresponding with the movements of the steel. The sound of a slick and thick material washing back and forth on smooth metal.

 Franz could already imagine the encrusted iron pushing gallons of filth and blood back and forth in the distance ahead. Suddenly on his left, a cleft in the wall revealed dully glowing letters. They said "1 foot. 50 feet."
He needed time to think and seemed to have it in abundance for the moment. He stopped where he was to ponder the riddle...

[Rallix]

Writ 7:

 A long moment of fear and indecision prevailed, but eventually he couldn't get past the fact that the other way was shut. The only way was forward, through the crashing, and the sloshing, and the thick scent of death. He took a step, but just then he felt something niggle his shoe. Eyes widened to no avail, and panic about to occur, he paused and sensed the object wasn't moving. Franz kneeled down into the liquid, and felt with his hands... The stairs stopped.
He struggled deeply not to illicit a response as he felt an arm. But it was just an arm; detached from its body. "Shhh... fffu..." he mumbled as he dropped the limb and realized what was ahead could, and probably would kill him, his suspicions about the liquid vindicated.
"One foot, fifty feet..."
Distance. Obvious. The second number is definitely the distance to the next clanging object. "But what's the 1 foot?"

 Franz decided to take counted steps forward. He proceeded to count about 20 paces. He stopped when the crushing was a couple meters away. The suddenness and loudness of the crashing made him want to cover his ears, but he was using his left hand to guide himself along the wall. Ignoring the pain in his ears, he tried to understand it by the vibrations. It was the deep, metallic sound of thick steel, colliding.
He then listened to it retract, gears & clockwork making their complaints. Then he heard it. Tick.
The metal crashed again, making Franz flinch.
He rushed forwards, suddenly bumping into more and more gory messes of humanity, floating in their own blood and bodily fluids. He hears the metal straining as it rears into its start positions again. Franz screamed as if mad, and charged forwards, moving as fast as he could, trying not to trip up in the torn, tangled limbs, and ankle-deep mire.

 Just then he heard the crash again, louder than ever. Behind him. That didn't stop him; he kept running scanning the walls manically as he trudged quickly. He spotted new numbers, again on the left; 10 feet, 10 feet. That stopped him in his tracks.
He started sucking in the sour air as he thought it over.

...
CRASH
 The young man was stunned, and fell back at the sheer volume. He tried to calm his breath. It boomed like the Titanic had just been struck with her death-blow, in the confined room.
He immediately understood. "Ten feet from here, begin ten feet of no-man's land." Franz heard the larger gears stop retracting, and the tick again.
Even clogging his ears with bloodied fingers did little to soften the next blow. The gears retract once more, and Franz gets up and rushes forward.

[F.D.R.]

It's like the Twilight Zone except in written form.

Ok so I'm not gone yet, so what.

[Rallix]

Seriously though. Can somebody else have a try too?  I want to read your creepy stories.
Writ 8:

 Franz pumped his legs and tore through the hall as fast as he could. "Don't mind the fact you can't see. Don't mind the filth sloshing on your pant leg. Only ******** run."
He kept moving. It only took a moment to sprint ten feet. Just as he cleared the crushing steel, he heard it begin to retract, and then stop. It didn't make any more sound. It was replaced however, by a similar sound ten times heavier ahead. The coiling gears sounded like an anchor being drawn back into a battleship.

 He looked ahead and to the left again, expecting another set of numbers. They were there, but they were different. They had a third number.
"100 feet. 0 feet. 10 seconds." Then he noticed, over the course of him reading, it had seemingly moved left. It was so hard to tell in the dark.
But then the number disappeared steadily from the left, into the wall. It reappeared instantly, with the characteristic tick, and it collided with the other unseen iron. Sounded like an explosion. It sounded only as loud as the last one though. Maybe it was affecting his hearing. Franz couldn't know if his ears were bleeding; he already rubbed them with his stained hands. The number began moving back.

 Franz began squeezing through the opening at first, but it was widening too quickly, and so he began sprinting again. He counted the seconds. He hated how the dead's remains slowed him up. The seconds were disappearing fast.
Just as he dragged foot past a corpse, the metal pushed together again. The vibration was relatively far behind him.
"How far did I run?"
He looked for more numbers, for no end was in sight. It was lit up in front of him in bold red, like a ******** marquee: 1 Minute. Guess.

 Just then the words split down the middle, and the masses recoil yet once more.
"It's either possible or it isn't." He got moving.