The Last Writer Adriane Leigh (story reading TXT) 📖

I imagined tiny creepy insects settling into the folds of my clothing.

“Let me out!”

Fresh tears bled down my cheeks as the coppery scent of my own blood filled the air. I knew who did this. I knew this was no trick, pure evil lived and breathed in this house, the evidence of stolen lives lining the dark walls.

I should have run when I had the chance.

Before chance was taken from me.

Soft scudding noises filled my ears then. I quieted, waiting for anything. More rustling from above my grave, and then the murmur of voices, a soft cadence that normally soothed my ears now brought quiet terror to my frontal lobe.

I recognized those voices.

Both of them.

I sucked in another breath, registering the scent of the ocean through the layers of dirt and cement. My earthen bed, draped in salty sea air and blinding despair.

The cliffs.

The garden.

The fountain.

A soft humming started then, a song I couldn’t quite make out but the tone still too familiar.

The same song I’d often heard her humming.

Evil, only a breath away. How could she?

“L-let me out of here!”

The humming halted, rustling came closer before a soft “Hush,” grazed my ears, “it will be over soon.”

Fear clutched at my throat and I began kicking against the door that’d locked me in.

Who was on the other side?

I pushed with all of my might, banging and kicking, praying Yara or Yarrow hadn’t propped something heavy against this door to prevent my exit. Tears coursed down my cheeks as I realized it’d all come true—my fate written under the foundations of Usher.

And then I remembered the letter opener. I fished it out of my back pocket, fumbling for the sharp edge as I tried to line it up with one of the door hinges. It wouldn’t budge, so I moved to the locking mechanism. I found a gap in the wood and began to wedge it as hard as I could.

It moved minutely. I wiggled more, wedging it open slowly as the bottom of the door scraped against the dirt floor. Finally, with one quick breath, I levered with all of my strength.

The door ground open, and a crack large enough to get my fingers through was revealed. I pocketed the letter opener and gripped the door, yanking hard enough to allow my exit. I slipped out along the wall, darkness enveloping me. Who had been here? Had I made up the humming?

I stood motionless, afraid to admit what might actually be on the other side of the tunnel. I thought of the last writer, and wondered if what I’d just seen had been her last moments too—buried alive, locked in a solitary earth and stone prison.

Afraid to move but afraid to stay even more, I walked across the tunnel, shuffling my feet as I went. I feared traps, or worse yet, my own open grave. I reached the opposite stone and dirt wall, moving my hands along the edges until I found what felt like the hinges of another door. I paused, gathering my courage as I searched for the handle. I wasn’t sure if I wanted this door to be open or locked. What if whatever was on the other side pushed me past a point of no return? Or maybe I’d already reached that point.

I waited, allowing my heart to calm before slipping my hand in my back pocket and palming the small, dull blade of the letter opener. Still there, and I’d never been so grateful for Thax’s warning weeks ago.

The room was silent for another long minute before I pressed my palms against the wooden door, sucking in a quiet breath and slipping it open easily. I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the bright white lights.

My eyes scanned the room once, twice, a third time, before I realized I was all alone. The room was round and domed like a cave, but the walls had been spackled in bright white plaster—the very same from the fountain outside. Mounted along almost the entirety of the walls were white shelves, and tiny glass vials mounted and labeled.

I moved to the first case, seeing only names and numbers on the labels. They seemed organized by date, but the vials were clear and looked almost empty. I continued scanning the cabinets and estimating hundreds of vials. I inhaled, recognizing the small printed labels on each of the dimly-lit shelves corresponding with the four quarters of every year, and every shelf a new year.

I came to the end of the first row of shelves, pausing when I recognized dates in the last decade. I dragged a fingertip along the immaculately clean shelf, surprised with the level of cleanliness in this room compared to every other inch of Usher. Whatever was contained within these vials must be valuable. And recently acquired.

I plucked one vial from a shelf labeled last year.

M. A. / Q4. = TypeO+ PLt

The font was small and printed on some sort of medical labeling machine. I wracked the space in my brain, searching for meaning. This looked nothing like the secret codes Nate and Zara had shared, nothing like I’d ever seen before.

I glanced at the next vial, Thax’s voice telling me to think deeper and question everything.

I plucked the vial next to M. A. from the shelf. One that was labeled T. Q. from the same quarter.

And then fiery awareness rushed through me.

The last writers.

All of them.

I continued searching the labels, trying to remember some of the names of the previous writers who’d completed the program.

“#1 bestsellers, #1 bestsellers,” I chanted under my breath, trying to remember the different covers in my mind’s eye.

“Mora Antony.” I looked at the last writer’s vial. “Travis Quinn.” I brought them into the light, noticing for the first time that the vials were not empty like I’d originally thought—there was a tiny amount of clear liquid puddled in the bottom of each vial. My mind flashed back to the woman in the apartment, stabbed with a syringe of mystery medicine as terror