Murmurer

The room was lit, but could he make out no light source. On the entire surface of the space were no shadows, to make out some point of origin. In the centre was a table and a chair. Although you could barely call them that. Like everything here, they were made from stone, carved out of the fundament itself. part of the room. Crude, but you could see what they were supposed to be. On the other side of the room, a hatch. or something like it. It was bronze, round and worked into the wall. On it, odd symbols he never saw before.
As Martin walked around the “table” to observe the hatch, he noticed something on the ground. It was a person, and Martin quickly lost interest in the object and went down to help. Just like Gunder, the man was dead, without any signs of injury.
Martin recognised the man. It was Björn. Martin sighed.
“Bad news after all…” He started to rifle through Björn’s pockets. He was wearing his coat, which was still wet. Rained earlier today, Martin thought. He came down here only hours before me!
Martin’s gaze rushed back to the hatch. What’s behind it? Martin jerked back into himself. This sudden thought, coming out of nowhere. It was his thought, but also alien. Strange.
“God, I would never touch that thing!”, he said. He assumed that this is the reason why the men were dead. “What’s behind it?”, he whispered. Slowly he stood up, looking at the chair and table, facing the hatch. Don’t go there! he thought. Stop! What are you doing!
Martin walked up to the chair and sat down into it. Nothing happened. Relieved, he tried to get up, but his own body was fighting him. Sweat ran down his neck and he felt like an animal confronted by a predator. Then he noticed it. Silence.
The mechanical humming was gone. Eerie silence flooded the room. His eyes wandered back to the hatch. With a hissing sound, it slowly opened. He tried to scream, to fight, but his body was frozen, his eyes fixated on “It”, coming out of the hatch.
Then, tears came down his face. “I am sorry”, he whimpered. “I didn’t know” It was quick, painless. Why shouldn’t it be. It was benevolent.
The hatch closed with the same hissing sound and the humming returned. Martin’s body was lying next to Björn on the cold floor. The tears completely gone, the same peaceful face of someone sleeping, just like the other two.