Danger is Not My Middle Name #15

I admit it. The red hand scared the snot out of me. I had visions that there was a demon from the seventh level of hell reaching out to drag me into the flames. Okay…so my imagination got away from me…again.

But something happened at that precise moment. First, the hand vanished in a puff of blackened smoke. But it had been pointing at something. I turned to look and immediately I was swept into a river of uncanny perception. I was taken by the sensation of drifting above myself and in that moment I was completely aware of everything. I knew there was an insect scuttling along the floor, I knew the young man in the corner of the chapel who was playing those fabulous praise choruses was chiding himself for not peeing before his shift started. And I knew that there was a secret passageway somewhere in front of me.

Don’t ask me how I knew. I just did.

It looked to me as though the piano music were something I could see moving in an oddly colored line through the air before me and my eyes (even though they weren’t my eyes…exactly) followed it to a nondescript stone directly below a statue of a worshipping angel. The line forming in the air seemed to make the objects along its trajectory shift like looking down a black highway on a sweltering summer day,

The stone at the end of this etherial line glowed with a sickly yellow light.

I walked across the mostly deserted chapel and pressed my hand to the stone.

Nothing.

I moved it gently from the right to the left.

Nothing.

I rapped against it sharply with my fingers.

Nada.

Finally I raised both hands (and no, I could never tell you why I chose to do this, I just did) and pressed each index finger into an opposite corner of the stone.

There was a growling, grating sound and a three foot section of wall slid open.

I stood there, examining the tips of my fingers for a moment. Then I peered into the small opening at a circular staircase, moving downward into the darkness. No. Not darkness. Somewhere ahead was a flickering light…like a torch.

Whenever I watch horror movies, I am continually amazed by dumbass people who go down into dark places where there are more than likely slavering monsters waiting for them. How dumb can you be? I’d wonder aloud.

My heart was pounding. I could feel it pulse in my ear like a high pressure water hose on a firetruck. I’d already made my decision.

Placing my hand against the wall, I ducked into the opening and made my way into the darkness.