THE WALLS ARE SOFT

The walls are soft.

It doesn't seem like a large thing but the walls are soft. The paint has flecked away to reveal something which shouldn't be and the concrete has melted. It feels like velvet under my fingers and the walls are soft.

The floor is soft.

It's not so strange. The carpet has absorbed moisture over the years. It squelches with old life under my bootfall, but it gives more than it should. Spongey. That's the word. It's spongey and wet and soft.

The building is alive.

I don't know when that thought entered my head. The air here is damp and warm like breath and the wall feels like velvet and the building is alive and it races through my head and I panic. I run through the soft halls and reach for the doorknob and feel a pulse run through my hand like a heartbeat. I twist the handle and the creak of the hinge sounds like a scream.

Outside the air is crisp and deathly cold. I gulp it down because in that moment I feel as if I am a dying man.

And then I turn back.

What did I fear? It was only a house. An old house, musty, full of moisture. My hammering heart mocks me as my mind calms, and I realise I have been a fool.

It is onthe walls are softly a house.

What was I sthe floor is softo afraid of?

I step bathe building is aliveck inside.