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Previously on Listening For That Sweet Tune:
Everything around me grew a certain phase of fuzzy. I was sitting in a small makeshift bed in a room that resembled highly of the lighthouse but it felt different. When I looked more around me everything blended in with another like a painting with soft edges. Everything around me was a strange form of cream as the light flickered on and off. I looked above me to see a lone light bulb hanging above me being held together by a little wire that attached to the socket. I could see directly into the floorboards as wires and boards weaved through each other. As spider webs filled up several holes in the ceiling and dust covered everything else I felt my heart turn with pain like I did something morally wrong.
There was sound to my left and right. To my right was a window in the center of the wall in this small room and while looking out I could easily tell that I was both in a basement and it was sometime in the middle of the night. There was a muddled thump, thump, thump that I could hear which I could figure that someone was doing something to the ground—either digging or driving a stake or something of the sort into the ground. I uncovered myself from the small blanket and got up to approach the window tilting my head sideways looking up to see if I could see anything outside. Behind me—previously my left—I could hear music; it sounded old because of the crackling of the phonograph but it was something I've never heard of before.
There was a singer with a deep and low voice singing with all his soul; I could not make out the words but I could tell that it was something meaningful to the singer. A piano came in periodically making the song a complete whole but like I said before, it was nothing I've ever heard of. Paying my attention back to the window I could hear that the thumping got more aggressive in sound by quickening the pace and making harder hits. I tried to open the window but something made it stick being closed—maybe it was for the best.
The noise from outside had an abrupt stop leaving me with the sound of the music behind me. I paid my absolute attention through the window well blocking out everything else around me just waiting to see something then it happened. I could have imagined anything else other than this but sure enough I was surprised. Bodies. Dead, decomposing, motionless bodies. One by one they were thrown into the window well blocking my view from the outside. I looked closely to one and I could see maggots falling out of ones eye socket. Others had their mouths in a soundless scream as others had their hands petrified over their eyes; their deaths weren't peaceful ones.
Looking back up seeing what's left of the night I could see a black silhouette of a man rolling bodies into the well as another started digging a already deep hole. The loud thumping began to echo through my head. I began to get claustrophobic as my view to the outside grew to a steady halt. I took a few steps backward placing my hands on my head trying to ignore the sound of thumping but it couldn't be drowned out. With every motion with the shovel to the ground the light turned off and flickered back on hesitantly as if the man was digging up the power lines. I turned around and looked out the doorway into the rest of the basement—it was nothing to get exited about. Like the room I was in the rest looked old and the wooden boards surrounding the interior walls looked rotten. I would suspect that the ceiling would collapse any minute if it weren’t for the concrete on the other side of the boards making the foundation of the house.
There were no lights on in this room; in fact, it looks like there aren't even any lights on the ceiling. On the opposite side of the room—roughly fifteen feet—was a stairway that led to the upper floors but what caught my attention was underneath the stairs. A good portion of the hole was covered up with sheetrock but there was a gap big enough for any person to settle under the stairs, in fact, there was someone there. I could see a shadow on the wall from a light behind the person in which the stairs ended above that was constantly moving. It looked as if the person was rocking back and forth knowing the same fate I was facing.
This was where the music was coming from as I listened to hear what was happening the thump continued behind me as the music continued in front of me. I was now hearing a clarinet piercing through the void as a woman was singing periodically. Every once and a while an orchestra would come in making the whole piece feel at home. The lyrics sounded more like poetry as the woman continued to sing and the man under the stairway started to sing along.
'Gloomy Sunday.' The orchestra came back in louder than before. Seconds later the window behind me busted open and bodies came tumbling into the basement. The smell reeked making me to nearly throw up so I left the room and began to head towards the stairs. The thumping of the shovel grew louder and louder through every step towards the stairs and before I knew it, it was as if the sound was right next to me. The constant thumping was no longer behind me but in front of me as well. I examined what I could see from under the stairs and the constant repetitious movement wasn't rocking back and forth but a motion of digging a hole.
As I got closer to the stairs I could see dirt along the entrance of under the stairway. Taking my steps cautiously I grew closer to the point that I was now stepping in dirt. I started to breath heavy then held my breath so I could sneak away from the digging man. I walked up to the beginning of the stairs and looked up hoping that I could get out but as I turned the corner I was faced with stacked bodies that went all the way to the ceiling. I tried to look around to see how deep it was but it seemed to continue all the way up the stairs. I didn't want my presence to be known so I let out a big sigh of disappointment. Before I was able to make another step the man stopped his motions and raised his head. I heard a little ding of the shovel being placed on concrete and the man ran. From how the shadow looked it was as if he ran out to where I was but I never saw him. The record began to skip playing the previous few seconds over and over. I walked up closer now being able to peek inside and I saw the phonograph on a small table just outside a big hole that ran underneath the concrete. It looked as if a big bug burrowed underneath the stairs but this apparently wasn't so.
The hole could have gone down for miles. As I crouched down to look further into the hole I noticed a light shining on the moist dirt. I got up and looked towards the rest of the room to see if I could get out any other way but the men outside hastened their pace and at one point were walking behind me because every corner of the basement had at least a couple feet of bodies. I wondered what could be down there, an oasis in the dark, maybe a mausoleum for the dead? It could have been anything because anything is possible in this world I live in. Maybe I am the one who chooses what I see. Maybe I've been dreaming this whole time and I'm just waiting to wake up beside Serenity when the day comes. I smiled a little bit thinking of what could be but this was far from over.
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