Alone in the dark

You're all alone, and every step you take echoes in your head loudly. You're all alone and surrounded by darkness. Your sense of touch is your guide, feeling the wall beside you, taking comfort in its certainty. You walk along it, without a clue as to where it's taking you, yet feeling the urge to keep moving. You stop from time to time to catch your breath, and stand still in the midst of darkness, you shiver as your mind creates terrifying images all around you. And just as you're about to panic, your reflexes kick in and you start moving again.
Soon you begin to stumble, realizing the floor is covered with some sort of bumps, but you keep moving. A horrid stench envelops you, and you hardly keep yourself from stopping. The smell seems familiar, yet extremely unpleasant. And then it hits you. It's the smell of rotting flesh. You stop and barely manage to keep your insides. You decide it's best you go on, no matter what.
After about thirty feet, you stop. Up ahead, in the distance, you see a shimmering light. Filled with hope you take a step and hear a crack. Like wood cracking. And as your mind begins to hypothesize as to what those bumps on the floor are, you start running, heading for the light, heading toward what you already decided that is the way out...

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Archive note: first published August 29, 2007, lightly copyedited for spacing (no wording changed). Horror piece with mild body-horror imagery.

Related reading: Victor: An Early Serial — another piece from the darker side of the early archive.