PART 10

Thomas stood there in the room. The room was dark, damp, and the walls reeked of mold and urine; It smelled like a dead dog's litter box.

He walked to the door and opened it. It was a short hallway, leading to the left and right. There were also stairs that led to a second floor. He walked through the hall and then up the stairs. As he went up the stairs, he noticed something about the hallway; the tiles of the floor were covered with blood. There was a dead man in the hallway. His flesh had been almost completely eaten away, and only bones and gristle were left.

Thomas took a step back, wondering if there was any sort of way out of this situation, but it made little difference; the entire floor was covered with thick, black gore. Thomas started to back up, but something caught his eye. It was a piece of glass in the dead man's chest. It looked like a piece of a broken window. Thomas walked closer to the dead body. There was a window near the man, and its broken glass was still lying on the floor. He picked up the glass piece and walked out of the room. He quickly looked out of the window; It looked out onto a large back garden. The garden was littered with dismembered body parts and charred corpses.

"What is going on here?" Thomas said to himself.

Thomas stepped down from the window and continued up the stairs. He entered the hallway where the dead man had stood. There was a large pile of feces and vomit sitting next to the door leading to the right. He walked over to the door and opened it.

There was a large set of stairs, with an empty landing at the top of the stairs. He walked over to the top of the stairs, looking down at the landing. The floor of the landing was covered in thick, black blood. Thomas took the stairs all the way to the top. The landing on the second floor was much cleaner, but it still reeked of dead body odor. He went up to the hallway, and there were more stairs leading down. There were corpses in the hallways, and one of the corpses had an empty, mangled hole in its head.

Thomas went down the stairs. He saw a large kitchen on the first floor. There was a dead body in the kitchen, lying in a pool of blood. Thomas could tell that there had been a fight in the kitchen, but the body had moved before being completely consumed. There was blood everywhere, and Thomas found a knife lying on the floor. He picked it up and went to the door on the left of the kitchen. He walked over and opened it. It led to a stairwell. Thomas stepped inside and took the stairs down.

There were a few bodies lying in the hallway on the first floor. The hallway reeked of rotting flesh, causing Thomas to gag. The smell was so bad, that Thomas began to feel ill. He could tell that some of the corpses had been dead for a while, while others were only a day or two old.

"Where am I?" Thomas said to himself.

The hallway was fairly dark, and Thomas stood next to the door for a moment. His eyes were burning from the darkness. He was about to ask someone for a light, when he looked down and saw blood on the floor. There was a dead man lying there, his flesh eaten away. Thomas did not realize it at the time, but there was a large hole in the corpse's head. Thomas walked over to the dead man, and looked into the hole. The brain had been completely eaten away. Thomas could smell the man's intestines. They were piled on the floor, mixed in with other parts of the body. Thomas looked at the man's hands; there was something in his right hand. Thomas walked over to the corpse, and picked up the thing. It was a piece of paper. Thomas read the note; it said "Brings back old memories, doesn't it?"

Thomas stood there for a long time, looking at the note in his hand. He thought about his life, about the past, and then a door manifested in front of him. Curious, Thomas opened the door. The next room was dimly lit, and the air was a bit stale, and Thomas immediately felt better. The room was decorated as if it were meant for a halloween party; there were beds with sleeping people in them, and there was a large table. There was a woman sitting at the table. Thomas walked over to her. She looked up at him, and he began to worry that he had not awakened from his nightmare.

"Am I dreaming?" Thomas asked her.

"What do you mean?" Asked the woman, confused.

"I'm dreaming," replied Thomas. "Of course. This is a dream. I'm dreaming! You're not real right now, well, you were, and then..."

"Then what?" Asked the woman.

"You…! My mind's just torturing me now isn't it? Haha!"

"You're in a dream, Thomas, but dreams aren't real, the same as everything else in this place."

"I... I... I don't know."

The woman stood up from her seat. She began to walk toward Thomas. She walked with confidence, as if she had walked in that dream for a long time.

Her clothes were a bit too big for her, and were a little shabby. Her hair was a bit too long. But she had a bright smile. Thomas liked her smile. He liked the woman standing in front of him. She had a strong face, with a face that was full of life. She looked like she hadn't been afraid of anything in her whole life. Thomas didn't feel afraid. He felt something completely different. His heart was filled with happiness and love. Something was wrong. It was not supposed to feel like this.

The woman put her hand on Thomas's arm.

"It's you," she said. "You're the one who gave me that dream."

Thomas felt his heart start to beat wildly in his chest. He remembered this woman, he failed and she died, so seeing her be happy to see him was off-putting, "I'm sorry," Thomas said, ``I'm so sorry..."

Thomas wanted to ask questions. He felt like he wanted to ask her many questions, but the woman seemed to know all the answers, so she gave Thomas a knowing look. He couldn't say anything though. He felt embarrassed to ask them questions. His head was filled with many questions, but no words came out. The woman held Thomas' arm and looked him in the eyes, "I want to know why you are so sad, I want to know why you can't smile." The woman's eyes burned with a deep-rooted fire. The fire was love. Love was powerful. Thomas felt it. He felt it in his heart, "It's not that I'm sad, I'm just not used to being happy." Thomas began to laugh. It was a laugh that wasn't sad. It was a laugh that sounded crazy. Thomas's laugh was like a baby laugh, or like a laugh that he had done a lot of laughing in his life.

Thomas could feel the tears building in his eyes, he tried to stop them from coming. He needed to smile. He needed to smile for the woman standing in front of him. He needed to make her happy, "Why don't you stop crying?" The woman said to Thomas. She said it as if she were trying to startle Thomas into feeling something, "You need to smile." The woman walked Thomas to the bed. "Sit there and look at me," the woman told Thomas. Thomas was about to stand up but the woman placed her hand on his arm and forced him to stay seated. Thomas did what the woman asked. He sat down on the bed, looked at the woman, and looked at the floor. The woman told Thomas not to cry, she told Thomas that he would smile.

"I will become happy when I see your smile," the woman told Thomas, "I will live when I see your smile. That's all I want," The woman's eyes shone with tears, Thomas could tell that she was not crying. She was laughing. Thomas felt his heart beat wildly in his chest. He felt like he was getting ready to be very happy. He felt like he was about to love.

"I'll smile when your heart is happy." The woman told Thomas, she smiled. Her eyes were filled with love, with happiness. Her eyes were not cold. She was like someone that Thomas had loved. The woman's eyes seemed to see Thomas with a strange clarity. Her eyes seemed to see him in a way that was like he was seeing the world from a new perspective. Thomas laughed again. His laugh was different. It was like his laugh was trying to say, he was ready to be happy. The woman sat next to Thomas on the bed and held Thomas' hand in her hand. She watched him closely, she looked at Thomas' face. She could feel his face. The woman had a powerful ability to read his face. She had no need for anything else to know that Thomas' face was happy, it was like a voice in her head told her this. She had no need to hear the words that were coming out of Thomas' mouth. She looked at Thomas' face and she could see the happiness on his face. She looked at Thomas' eyes and she could feel the love. She could feel Thomas' love. The woman felt the love inside Thomas. The woman saw it.

The woman looked at Thomas and she smiled. She felt his love for her, her heart started to ache, her heart started to beat fast. She thought she was dying. The woman was dying. She was dying because Thomas was here. Slowly the woman began to rot, her smile revealing she was nothing but a corpse.

Her life came to an end. Her smile grew smaller and smaller. He began to feel sad, he felt sad for the woman. He felt for her. He felt like he failed to protect her. The woman did not belong in that world. The woman was dead and she was trying to tell Thomas something. The woman wanted Thomas to become happy.

Thomas began to tear up, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Winslow. I should have been there sooner." Thomas said.

The woman smiled at Thomas and said, "It's alright, Thomas," She paused and smiled a little, "Don't be sorry. I was just going to die anyway." The woman said this in a sad voice, "but now I know what it's like to be happy. I got to be happy just once. I didn't want to die. I don't know if I was happy or not, but I was able to live just once." The woman's eyes were filled with the brightest, darkest blue eyes that Thomas had ever seen. The woman told Thomas, "I have to leave you now. I have to go home."

The woman began to fade. Thomas could feel his body getting lighter and lighter. His whole body was floating on the bed. Thomas was floating on the bed, his head was a little more heavy than the rest of his body. Thomas was floating. He was floating. He was floating on a blue river. He was floating on a blue sea. He was floating, he was happy.