There was a child running as fast as he could in a place filled with shadows and dust. Sadness covered every corner of that place.
His lungs were burning from the effort, and his heart was full of fear. He only wanted to reach a place where he could feel safe.
He saw a room in front of him with its door open. The rooms closer to him had their doors closed. There were other open rooms as well, but this one was the closest, so he rushed toward it without hesitation.
He entered the room quickly and did not even stop to catch his breath. He pushed the door hard and closed it, then leaned his trembling body against it. His body was shaking violently, but he used all the strength he had left to keep the door from opening.
Then the thing he feared happened.
A violent knock on the door.
Blow after blow, as if someone was trying to break it. The boy felt every hit echo inside his bones, as if his whole body was shaking with the door.
Then he heard the voice he hated more than anything else.
The voice of an adult man, angry, shouting from behind the door:
"Open, you bastard! I know you are behind this door!
I will feed you to the dogs if you do not open!
I swear I will kill you if you do not open right now!"
The hits became stronger.
The boy pushed the door with his body, trying to absorb the force of the blows.
Sweat covered his face, and his heart was beating violently, faster than a car engine about to explode. His mind was drowning in a black chaos of fear, like a deer being chased by a lion.
There was no thought in his head.
Only one idea:
Escape… and survive.
His whole body had goosebumps, and even a few strands of his hair began to turn white from the intensity of his fear.
The hits became even stronger.
Suddenly he heard the sound of a crack in the door.
Then more blows followed.
The time between the blows started to become longer.
Then there was one hit…
Stronger than all the previous ones.
At that moment he felt as if his heart was bleeding. All the nightmares he had feared during his life appeared in front of him at once.
He urinated in his pants.
His whole being shook, and his will to keep the door closed started to weaken. Even his desire to live became faint.
But strangely, the blows stopped after that.
There was no more sound.
Long moments passed.
Even so, his fear did not calm down. His body stayed pressed against the door, preventing anything from entering.
He did not even dare to look inside the room.
But the sounds were there.
In every corner of the darkness.
Things were moving.
Many of them.
Rats filled the room.
They moved in chaos, and their sounds were like a symphony of horror and disgust. Some of them came close to the boy, and one of them slipped inside his clothes.
He did not have the luxury to react.
The rats crawled over his body, in sensitive and painful places, leaving small wounds here and there. One of them even bit him.
And yet…
He did nothing.
Only one thought filled his mind:
"Push the door…
What is behind the door is worse."
The silence continued after the last blow.
One full hour passed.
The boy was still holding the door.
Fear still controlled him.
After some time he started to notice what was happening around him. With one hand and one leg he tried to push some of the rats away in a wild manner, but he still kept the door closed.
As for the rat that entered under his clothes, it had lost its way.
It moved randomly, looking for a way out, but every movement left new wounds on the boy's body.
Suddenly the rat became more disturbed.
Its instincts pushed it to search for a wider space to escape. It slipped once… then again… then a third time.
Its random movement kept tearing the boy's skin more and more.
But in the end…
It failed.
During one of its attempts, the rat became trapped under strong pressure.
From all directions.
It felt the pain increasing, but it still tried to escape.
But the boy had finally grabbed it.
He trapped its body with his clothes, then caught it with his hand using all the strength he had left.
He squeezed.
The pressure increased.
The rat screamed a sharp cry as it faced death, and the other rats in the darkness made sounds as well.
The boy kept squeezing.
Until…
Blood burst out.
The rat's body was crushed inside his grip.
It was completely destroyed.
Its life ended.
The boy could not clean the blood or remove the body from his clothes. He was still holding the door, still afraid, even though hours had passed since the last blow.
During that time he continued to suffer from the attacks of the rats.
But he did not feel boredom.
Fear filled every moment.
He kept standing against the door for almost half a day, but in the end his strength failed him. Illness started to appear.
The room was extremely cold, a cold that pierced the bones. With the wounds, the rats, and the exhaustion, his body could not endure any longer.
Finally he fell to the ground.
But even while falling…
He still tried to keep the door closed with his body.
Time passed slowly.
After more hours his condition became worse.
But finally a new thought appeared in his mind, a thought that slowly began to overcome the fear.
It was a simple desire.
A stubborn desire.
A desire to live.
He whispered with a weak voice:
"I…
I want to live."