MOTHER OF CHEESE!

Monochrome Nightmare – Home

And so I came back here, to write the whole thing out.

Monochrome Nightmare – Last Door

I stood alone, not even the bird was around anymore. I looked at my empty hand, wondering if she had ever been there in the first place. One last doorway, and I would be on my way home.

Monochrome Nightmare – Escape!

They were on us, as the first fist was about to hit me, there was a great whooshing sound. We both stood and looked up as the sky exploded in fire. I saw something like a wave ripple across the stars, the sound began to fade and we heard them retreating away from us. I reached for her, but her hand seemed to wither in mine. She began to be unmade as I touched her. Her skin became transparent as glass, showing he veins and muscles beneath, until these also lost their opacity. She became completely invisible a few moments later and was entirely gone a second after that.

Monochrome Nightmare – Flakes Falling

I couldn’t tell if it was snow or ash, but it was everywhere and it both froze and burned at the same time. Something had happened though, some sort of threshold had been crossed, we had done something. The feet were rushing towards us and she crouched down, ready to defend herself from the blows she thought coming, but I hoped they wouldn’t get to us in time. Either way, it was almost over.

Monochrome Nightmare – I Can No Longer See

My eyes glazed over, I could no longer see clearly. She began to cry again, just soft sobs of desperation. I could hear the bird though, and that was a realer sound that I had heard this whole time. There was nothing manufactured about that noise, it was simply an animal calling out that something was about to begin. The feet were coming though, and there was no where left to hide. They were running now, they were almost upon us.

Monochrome Nightmare – Bird

That tiny bird, it had been the first thing I had actually seen alive besides her, since I could remember. It sat hunched and ready for the next phase, which I was sure was about to begin. I clutched her hand, and told her to think about what might come next. It was entirely possible that things were going to be all right.

Monochrome Nightmare – The Hands

They were a signal, and one that I could read on my own by now. She was growing calmer as I grew more confident, but the feet were closer, and there were a great deal more of them now. We had walked through the shadows, but they had somehow become solid and joined with our pursuers.

Monochrome Nightmare – Shadows

Something was wrong, these were shadows and memories. Smears of nothing. No more than the punchline of a joke we had been told all this time. She said we hadn’t escaped, we had worked ourselves in deeper. I wasn’t sure, something felt like this was actually the right path, we were about to find our way.

Monochrome Nightmare – Are Those People?

They looked like normal people. If we followed them, we could find the way home. We might get lost in the crowd, our follower would latch on to some other poor soul. We could be part of this movement and escape.

Monochrome Nightmare – Wires

I cannot say that these were the most reassuring things I had ever seen, but the power lines at the very least gave some kind of path we could follow. If I went in that direction, surely I would find someone, or something. The sounds of the feet were still behind us though, and she was already starting to run in their direction.

Monochrome Nightmare – Light

After what felt like hours, I could see the end of the stairs, and thought we were almost out. The footfalls echoed behind us, the hoobnail boots making a distinct sound on the metal steps of the stairs. She didn’t look back at me, simply began to run up the spiral. After what felt like an eternity on the stairs, we finally came out into the open.

Monochrome Nightmare – Climb

And so we began up the stairs, long, strait and then coiling spirals of stairwells. Our feet were loud on the steel and we had to stop every few hundred steps to see if we heard the feet of our follower on the stairs behind us. They were still there, still following and still moving at the same pace. If we just kept going faster than that, we could outrun them. But to what end? We didn’t even know if there would be anything at the top.

Monochrome Nightmare – The Only Way Out Is Up

She said we could get up there, we could probably find the way out. It looked like we were simply running a maze to me and I was dubious about the expectation of cheese at the end. The sound of the boots were growing louder behind us though and I had no intention of waiting around for them to catch up with us again.

Monochrome Nightmare – Workshop

We had come out into a workshop of some kind. All the machinery had ceased working long ago though, and none of it looked as though it could have been the source of the sounds we had heard before. It didn’t look like there was much of anything really. We moved through the workshop and found ourselves before another stairwell.

Monochrome Nightmare – Door

The door in the wall seemed to be the only escape available.

Monochrome Nightmare – PLAY!

The voice demanded we play the organ, but she began to run instead. I watched as the sudden cast of colors burst in my eyes. I felt a hand on my shoulder, pressing me forward to play. She hadn’t let go though, and was tugging me back towards the stairs. When I broke eye contact, the spell was also broken and I followed here away. The foot falls behind us had grown closer, we had to keep moving.

Monochrome Nightmare – Netting

There was something behind the nets, but I couldn’t quite see what. She was crying by now, and her skin had grown cold and waxen. She seemed to understand something terrible would happen when I looked on the object behind the nets.

Monochrome Nightmare – Depth

I could still hear the boots behind us. I began to concentrate on the noise and found a metallic element in the sound. Hobnails. Someone out there had hobnail boots and was slowly, but inexorably, pursuing us. She was short of breath, and was unable to speak. She looked pale and her lip kept quivering no matter what I would do. There was nothing else to do but to descend, and so we did.

Monochrome Nightmare – The Pit

If we were going to get away, we would have to go down further to find the way out. She was reluctant, but I had to keep her moving and as such yanked her along. As we went down, we began to hear the sounds of boots on the stairs above us. They walked deliberately, neither rushing nor halting, but moving at the same steady rate no matter what we did.