The boy awoke to heavy knocking.

It’s strange, sort of funny how little of the room around him he took in at first—the thing at the forefront of his mind was the knocking.

Loud.

Persistent.

Knock knock knock, it went, knock knock knock.

And then it stopped.

He looked around, frantic, trying to take in his immediate surroundings. There wasn’t much. He, for some reason, sat in the back right corner of a single room. For lack of a better phrase, this room was a basically just a concrete box, four walls and one ceiling of cracked gray bricks, one floor of rugged dirt.

But there was something curious about the walls.

See, on each of them was a line of light bulbs, screwed into the stone so that their tops were facing outward. They were at roughly eye level… if you were an adult.

None were lit—except for three.

These bulbs were in a row to the immediate right of the only door in the room. It was meant to be pushed open from the inside, with a long bar lever much like the doors of school gymnasiums. The only difference was that this door had no window.

The boy’s mouth went dry. He could plainly hear the beat of his own heart. It was silent for a time, the boy’s eyes trained on the door on the opposite end of the room, when he heard a voice beside him.

“I’m so glad you’re awake.”

Startled, the boy turned to see who had spoken. He was relieved to find that it was simply another boy his age, a blonde boy nearing his early teens. It was now that the boy realized they both wore normal street clothes—plain shirt, shoes, shorts of indiscriminate color and design.

“Are you okay?” this blonde boy asked.

The first boy nodded, finding it hard to breathe in such a musky, dark place.

“What’s your name?”

Hearing this question made him uneasy. The boy, who had up until now forgotten his name, remembered it to be one that started with an S… then a T… A…

“S-Stanley,” he said.

“Stanley,” the boy mimed. “Stanley.”

“Y-yours?”

The blonde boy huddled into the corner, arms linked over his legs. “Finn.”

Stanley (a host of memories swimming back to him that the knocking and the darkness had stolen) remembered now that he had a normal family with a normal sister and a normal set of parents. Parents that hated taxes, loved wine, and also loved their children. Stanley himself loved to draw, and his sister was an excellent gymnast. He remembered that he owned an orange tabby cat that could climb virtually anything. He remembered that he was twelve. He remembered that he couldn’t beat that new video game his mother had gotten for him, and that he had fallen asleep on a bench in the park after a rough night on the soccer field.

That was his most recent memory.

Finn’s glare had found a spot of anchor on Stanley. Stanley asked, “Where are we?”

Finn, still glaring, shook his head at the speed of church bell chimes. “I don’t know, Stanley. But I know that I didn’t wake up alone before.”

“Who else was here?”

Finn stammered. “I woke up with another boy. His name was Tim.”

“Where is he now?”

Finn’s gaze slowly turned from Stanley to the locked door before them. “It’s locked from the inside,” he said. “Tim wanted to get out. He got out. And he couldn’t get back in.”

“Well, let’s leave!” Stanley said, heart beating faster each minute he sat there, “let’s leave and go home!”

Finn shook his head again, this time faster. He was still looking at the door. When he spoke, his voice a hoarse drone. “We can’t. It can’t get us in here.”

“…What can't?”

On the wall to Finn’s immediately left, a single bulb winked on. It buzzed in the dark, old and hot.

Stanley stared at it.

“When a light turns on,” Finn croaked, now on the verge of tears, “it’s right outside.”

In hearing this, Stanley’s gaze drifted over to the three bulbs that were still on.

“And those—those weren’t always on,” Finn said. He was shaking now, hiding his head. “Those turned on after Tim left.”

The one bulb that had winked on suddenly shut off, the one beside it lighting in its stead. This happened again, the lit bulb now twice as close to the huddled Finn. Trembling, Finn looked up at it. Tears had started dripping down his face.

“It’s gonna knock again, Stanley,” he said, sniffling. “It’s gonna knock again.”

“What… what is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Given that Finn was in a corner, and the lights ran in a band around the whole room, he sat under a point where two bulbs met. The thing outside was moving toward Finn, though what it was, neither knew.

Both, however, watched as the lit bulb winked off. The one beside it winked on.

It emitted a dull hum, the stem inside burning hot with an ugly yellow. Stanley looked at that light, then at the three near the door. He looked back when the singular one winked off.

For a time, another one didn’t wink back. When one did, Finn buried his head into his arms and knees—now closer, yet four bulbs away from being in Finn’s corner.

“Go away…” Finn murmured, “go away…”

Stanley couldn’t seem to feel his own breathing anymore. His tongue was swollen and dry. His nose was cold, he smelled dirt and wet cement, heard nothing but the sound of the bulb and the muffled sobs of Finn beside him.

Then, in the way a snake might stretch, the next three bulbs winked on one after another, with the first still alight. Slowly, the first went out, then the next, until the only bulbs still emitting that horrid hum and dingy yellow glow were the two directly above Finn’s head. Finn shuddered. Above the heavy droning hum, Stanley heard Finn’s teeth chattering amongst the severed intake of his breaths.

“P-please help me, Stanley,” he said. “Make it g-go away.”

But it didn’t. For a portion of time that may have fit a single song, the lights above Finn’s head were aglow. Stanley wanted to run for the door, everything in his mind told him that he could stay no longer—but he feared the lights. He feared the door. And he feared what lay beyond them.

He feared what lurked outside.

The lights changed, now. They started to backtrack, each one winking on and off being ones that had previously done so, the thing behind them making its way toward the door.

The bulb closest to the door winked out, leaving the only light in the room once again the three of them nearest the door.

Tap.

Tap tap.

Something was touching the door. It was light, just gentle patting—and then a knock against it so hard that Stanley nearly relieved himself. Another. Each time, the boys jumped, wanting nothing more than to cry out and scream. The sounds of those knocks echoed through the room.

Knock knock knock, they went, knock knock knock.

Then it stopped.

In not much more than a single heartbeat, the three lights that had been on the entire time went out. One after another.

Wink.

Wink.

Wink.

Now Finn and Stanley were left alone together in complete, engulfing darkness. By now, Finn had stopped crying.

Hours passed. Maybe, Stanley thought, too far into a state of shock to ever fall asleep, it had been days. At one point, because he couldn’t handle the silence, Stanley asked Finn how old he was.

“I-I’m twelve,” Finn said.

“Me too,” said Stan. “Do you… have any pets?”

Finn swallowed. “I have a dog.”

“What’s his name?”

“His name is Buddy.”

Stanley looked down in the dark, resting his head against his own knees. “That’s a nice name.”

“I miss him,” Finn said. “I miss my mom. And my dad.”

Stanley did not move his head.

“I miss my big brother. I miss him. I’m scared, Stan.”

“Me too,” Stanley offered.

It took naught but another ten minutes for a light to flicker on again. It was in the same place it had been the first time—the center of the room, fitted in the center of the wall, and on Finn’s side. Finn looked at it, face twisted in terror.

Everything happened the way it happened last time. Whatever it was that was lurking behind the walls stopped when it had made it to Finn’s corner.

Only this time, the knocks came from there.

Finn spun, looking up at the lights, trembling. The thing bashed itself against the wall, far harder than any man could possibly manage. Its knocks shook the ceiling, sending down sprinkles of dust. Two bulbs, both far from one another, came loose and shattered on the disgusting floor.

Knock knock knock.

Finn was retching, writhing about with each hulking thrash. He said nothing. He was crying, he was moaning, pale as a ghost—but he said nothing.

“Finn,” Stan said. He too, sobbing. “F-Finn, stop… it can’t get us… it can’t get us in here…”

Finn could not hear him. Finn only heard the thumping, the knocking.

Knock knock knock.

Stanley thought it couldn’t get any worse.

That is, until it screamed.

The sound was muffled by the walls, but it was piercing. A scream so inhuman, so uncanny and horrific, that Finn broke down and screamed too.

Stanley clapped his hands over his ears, teeth chattering, watching as Finn’s mind unraveled and the boy pissed himself—a stain appeared in the crotch of his shorts, some of it leaking out onto his leg and soiling the floor—but he wasn’t done. Finn continued to scream long after the thing outside had stopped, convulsing on the floor in a way that was truly indescribable. Fish on dry land didn’t shake like that. Electrified men didn’t even shake like that.

Stan put his head in his knees, wishing this to be over. He wanted it to be a nightmare—and only that. He wanted it desperately.

His wish was crushed by three sounds.

Knock knock knock.

Finn gave one last shout. Then, Stan heard him stand. Not looking up, Stan also heard the sound of a shattering bulb, sprinkles of it hitting the floor. Finn howled, and unable to keep himself from looking, Stan peered at his newfound friend.

Finn, pants soiled, eyes red, had crushed one of the bulbs. His palm was pierced with the white-hot coil, its stem running completely through both sides of his hand. Blood stained his sleeve and dripped from his fingers.

“F-Finn—”

Finn bolted to the door, stopping not to push it open, but to launch himself directly at it. He hopped up at a forward slant, opening the door with a slam, and falling on the ground outside. Stan moved to stand, but found he had not the energy. Instead, he looked over to the still alight bulb right above Finn’s corner.

He watched as the lights snaked on and off, moving toward the door much faster than Finn had.

And then, came the last scream.

Although many might have agreed, had they heard it, that this sound needed a whole new word. This shriek was prolonged, and pitched in a tone that was barely human. Stan knew, however, that it was human. He knew whose scream it was.

You know whose scream it was.

…

Then it ended. The three lights by the door winked on again.

Stanley thought—no, he knew that he heard something else—something like a thud. Light, dainty even… but it was definitely a thud.

He was left with silence and the present hum of those three bulbs for days. He didn’t move from the spot in all that time. He slept there. He sat there. He would have also done his business there, but he didn’t have to.

But he was hungry. So horribly hungry.

There was a point in time (Stanley had not been able to keep track of time in any way other than sleep sessions) where he was bobbing his head, clinging to consciousness. He could barely think.

A light flickered on.

The light was on his wall this time. Same position—dead center. And, when it flicked off, the one that took its place was one step closer to Stanley’s corner. It was strange how that one little light could jolt him back to wakefulness, a super-awareness borne of complete and utter terror.

He, too, sat under a point where two bulbs met.

The lit bulb winked out, and one even closer winked on. Its hum was eternal. Its light was cosmic. The thing was moving faster—two lights winked on at once, and winked off—then a third, and all too soon, the ones alight were the two above Stanley’s head.

He expected to hear a knock.

He had wanted to hear a knock.

Had he a choice, he’d have picked the knock. If he had known what he was about to hear, he’d have plugged his ears and screamed.

Directly outside the corner, there was breathing.

Garbled. Contorted. This was breathing—but it was injured breathing, or something close. Like there were holes in its lungs. Like there were nails in its throat. Like, instead of a mouth, the thing outside breathed through a sponge of flesh, it’s head covered in thick skin and pierced with orifices that opened and closed like heart valves, sucking air into tubes of pink tissue, torn and porous.

Stanley’s thoughts of sanity were instantly torn away, his mind melting and psyche crumbling. He had vague thoughts and desires—impulses to GET OUT, to RUN, to HIDE—but he could not hide. He could not run. There would be no telling what would happen should he leave.

What the thing outside may do.

What it is that Stanley may see.

Of course, he thought virtually none of this—he could only think of what he was hearing.

The breathing. And then…

Knock knock knock.

It held its breath.

Knock knock knock.

Stanley couldn’t take it. He mustered his strength, a dwindling commodity in the presence of what lurked outside the wall, and crawled away from the corner. His elbows scraped the dirt; pebbles and shards of glass stabbed at his palms, his knees, yet he pushed on until he made it to Finn’s corner.

But the lights were following.

One after another, they winked on and off, trailing him.

Wink.

Wink.

Wink.

“Go—go away!” he wailed, grasping handfuls of his hair. “Go away! Go away! Go away!”

Tap tap tap.

“Go away! Go away! Go away!”

Knock knock knock.

“GO AWAY! GO AWAY!”

Knock knock knock.

Stan tore out his hair.

Stan trembled, but did not scream. He could not feel his scalp—although he saw the stream of blood run down his forehead, onto his nose, and drip away. He could not hear his breath. The only thing he heard was the rampant beat of his heart.

The lights above him winked out.

He swore his eyes were open, but somehow he still fell asleep, looking at the closed door, and drifting away when he heard it again.

Knock knock knock.

...

The girl awoke to the sound of knocking.

She noticed the door, and the lights—she also noticed that the only lights that were on were the three just to the right of the door.

Knock knock knock.

Loud.

Persistent.

She did not know where she was, or how she got there—only that her name was Carly. She was twelve, and had three little brothers. They were triplets. She had parents that hated politicians, and loved football, as well as their children. She owned two fish that swam together in the same tank. She loved to read, and her most recent memory was falling asleep at the bus stop after spending too much time at the bookstore, and trying to get home after dark.

When the knocking stopped, she was startled by the voice of a boy—a boy in the corner to her left. When she looked, she felt her heart hop into her throat, blood going cold.

This boy had patches of hair missing.

This boy had patches of scalp missing.

“I’m so glad you’re awake,” he said.