The Blessed Hollow

A short story I made for English a while back. It's pretty long, but I would value any feedback.

There is many a day where the weather is foul, not just miserable but in fact depressing, travelling as I often did along the moorland back roads I was beginning to get a sense of this, sitting damp and cold; squinting into the impenetrable white wall my headlights cast; fog, for miles around.
This was my usual timetable, wake up, drive to one side of the moor. Spend eight hours contemplating other people’s financial problems. Then return home and try to put numbers out of my head. Now I was returning and at seven pm in mid spring it was nearly total darkness, nevertheless I relaxed and experienced being completely cut off from the rest of the world, listening only to The Archers and the rattling of my car (a Peugeot 206 in grey, I had sprayed a yellow racing stripe on the side to keep it fresh, but it had seen better days) However as was a trend in my life I it was short lived.
Faster than I could think a white van shot past me, I swerved to avoid it and reached for the horn. But in an instant it was once more enveloped by fog. Once again I was thrown into misery, to look at the brighter side I was still moving.
But in the true irony my life supplied endlessly, the radio cut out. Then the car followed suit.

My life seemed to have suddenly come to a standstill; here I was, dolefully hunched in my seat, fighting against the pervading cold. I attempted to start the engine, but it was clearly dead. With this new information I donned my jacket and went to check under the bonnet, it was freezing cold. This was beyond me. I pulled my ancient Motorola from my pocket with the intention of calling the AA. Only to find it too had seized up in the cold. I stared at it with blind rage and threw a wild tantrum, swearing beyond my control. When I recovered I noticed something I never had before.
What I saw before me was a dark shape, roughly the size of a small house; I locked the car and walked slowly towards it in curiosity. If it was a house maybe they’d have a phone or better still someone who could fix my car. But no, the dark shape was a wall, no. It was the front of a house, an old, stone, house.
The wall stood around 12 meters off the ground, a respectable height but nothing to shout home about, and was a two storey judging by the upper windows; Georgian perhaps, although I was never great at history. Yet it was not the windows that intrigued me, it was what I could see through them. Not fog but a starry sky, driven by my thirst for knowledge I edged towards the doorway, and without a second thought. I Walked through.
I looked in shock; it was as if all the fog had lifted. Above me was a perfectly clear night, stars winking at me from all angles. I stood transfixed for a while. Then turned my sights back to the wall. It was smaller, no, further away! I watched as it slowly got smaller, rooted to the spot in fear yet relying on my scepticism to tell me it was just a trick or the light or a dream. I held out like this for about two seconds before breaking into a sprint after it, what was this! Sorcery? Magic? Some cruel nightmare… No it was all too real, and I wasn’t going to give up that easily, I launched after it but it continued to disappear beyond where my vision could comprehend, and then vanished completely.
Despairing, I stopped and caught my breath, and then headed back in what I believed was the vague direction of my car. All the while turning over what had just happened in my head, had I really just walked through a doorway which made the fog completely disappear. Had it really disappeared in the distance?
But more importantly where was I? My prayers were answered almost immediately by a small voice from behind me:
“Welcome, to the Blessed Hollow”

I shot around to see a man, who looked roughly the same age as me at 32, wearing a black suit with black trousers, in contrast to his pale face, standing out in the moonlight.
“The where?” I grumbled.
“The Blessed Hollow” He repeated curtly as he took a few strides towards me. “This, my dear sir” He gestured to the open moorland that surrounded us. “Is the Blessed Hollow”
I was still desperate to get back to my car but I still questioned of him “Ok… WHAT is the Blessed Hollow?”
“It is what can be called the limbo; a station between two worlds, one of the living, one of the dead. The man needed no time to think, like he’d explained this time and time again.
With this new information I stood aghast, something that hadn’t been uncommon in this last thirty minutes. “How do I get back?”
“To the domain of the living?” He finished for me.
“Yes!” As if it was belatedly obvious.
He looked at me quizzically, our eyes, met. This was clearly a test, they stared back at me emptily, I dropped my gaze as he answered: “Through the black door”
“Talk straight damn it!” This gentleman was trying my patience.
“There is only one way to enter this land, to be truly dead” He still answered
“If you can’t help me I’ll have to find someone who can” I shouted, and then stormed off, any direction, away from this man.
He did not make a sound or any reaction; he simply turned his head to face me as I strode away.
I walked for about twenty minutes, quickly with purpose, between dull gorse and hawthorn trees, so flat; such a lack of life. Though during this time my rage subsided and I questioned why I had given up my one chance of getting out of where ever I was. I felt depression grasp me. Could I be dead, was this an afterlife. Had I been confided to this hellish land due to my past misdeeds? No! Darkness belongs to the dead, the ungodly and the souls of those who have lost all hope. I had not lost hope. I tried to prove this to myself and ultimately began whistling ‘three little birds’ and felt like I was in control of my emotions once more.
Another two minutes later I spotted a figure somewhat thirty meters away, I quickened my pace to find the same black suited figure, he turned to face me. One eyebrow raised. I stopped whistling. He spoke but one word.
“Spooky…”

Owing to these occurrences I decided it was best just to comply with this man, he seemed to know about this place. Even if all he said was in cryptic nonsense.
“You said you perhaps knew a way out of here” I said as politely as I could, begging silently for a second chance.
“I never said anything of the sort” My heart sunk “However if you so wish, I may help you”
He guided me away in one direction, then another in no particular order, never halting but all the while I made conversation, I asked his name, he stalled for a while and gave me the only simple piece of information I’d heard from him. “Phoenix” He spoke about the many souls who passed through this rift. Always in his infuriating riddles, he spoke about the way that people who lived in sin. Who haunt the rift for the half of the day he called ‘deadnight’ I asked him how he came to be here and never got a straight answer. Was it out of reason to question why he was here and couldn’t leave, and if he could why wouldn’t he leave. Nevertheless hope and this man were all I could rely on in situation.
I thought about this as we walked, piecing information together in this cryptic jigsaw (of which only the edges had been filled) he was giving me. There was one thing he said which gave me a possible picture: “The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague” But this scared me beyond anything he had said before, I shuddered and focussed on the path, to realise there was none. I felt I was beginning to comprehend how this territory worked, up until I met Anne.
She was a polite woman, much more polite than I was. Whereas I just blurted out what came to mind first.
“Why are you here?”
“I was about to ask you actually” She replied coolly, “I’m Anne by the way”
“Morgan” I replied to spare her from asking, “and this is-”
“Phoenix” The man cut in. Anne stood uncomfortably between us. Nonetheless she restarted the conversation.
“So… Where am I?”
I opened my mouth to speak but Phoenix cut in again.
“Welcome to the Blessed Hollow” He said; gesturing around us. I used the pause to explain before Phoenix could confuse her.
“It’s a world between life and death like a rift, there is a way out called the black door and…” I trailed off “People come to haunt it at a time called ‘deadnight’”
She looked almost as shocked as I was, but kept calm.
“So I’m not just hallucinating, or dreaming”
Phoenix was the one to answer “Do you want to take that chance” He said almost cheerfully. “Deadnight is close”
“Can you get me out of here?” Anne questioned more firmly.
Phoenix frowned and led off again, leaving me and Anne to follow behind, still weaving between the gorse. I made conversation with her once we were out of earshot of Phoenix:
“He’s very confusing as you might have noticed” I spoke at last.
“I think I can keep up” She mimicked Phoenix’s blank smile, we both laughed. But she came back to her serious face: “Do you think we can trust him”
“We’re in an unfamiliar place and he seems to know his way around, he said something of a ‘black door’ this place is, well… Spooky…”
“He seems rather odd to me” She reasoned.
“Indeed” I agreed.

It felt good to talk, like I had had a large weight taken off my chest, we talked about where we lived, our families, music, forgetting about how terribly lost we were. Still we walked on and on through the desert-like terrain, so flat. I was wondering if he was taking us anywhere. At last my patience ran dry. I called out to him.
“Hello?” I chose my next words carefully after getting his attention; I tried a language he’d understand: “Tell me kind sir, wherefore art thou black door”
He looked at me briskly; this must be a game to him. “To seek such door of yonder and woe, to find the gateway, fashioned by sweat and stone so many sullen years ago!” He spoke as if to the stars, I hurried to catch him, Anne followed. “Whether it be upon this sorry land or su-” I knew it was a bad idea, for I understood none of what he said.
“Where-is-the door” Did I have to spell it out. This man had been of no help to us at all. Phoenix looked at me with cold malice.
“They say seeing is believing, tell me… Morgan, what can we see without belief…?”
Then I saw it, not a door, but a slab of marble, beautifully made with encryptions etched in it. “CUM VITA VIXIT IMPLERE FATA, AUT FACIEM IGNIS AD INFERNA PORTA” Latin, all I knew was that ‘ignis’ meant fire, not good. I turned around to see Anne standing petrified. I looked back at Phoenix and shot him my dirtiest look, but he wasn’t looking, he was thoroughly preoccupied in some kind of preparation. I expected the worst.
“Phoenix! Is this the gate you speak of?” I called to him in fear.
“Indeed, but not the one YOU speak of” His face twisted with laughter. He lurched at me, wielding a small dagger. Anne screamed and I stumbled backwards. He was advancing now, dagger poised loosely in his right hand.
“What the bloody hell are you doing” I shouted desperately; grabbing a sturdy looking branch from an old tree. He said nothing but continued to advance, staring deep into my soul with his merciless eyes. I swung at him, deterring him as I edged backwards.
“There is no way out, without a living body to harbour the soul” He said in a demented cackle. I lived once, but my body was not killed, I was locked in a coma, stuck between the worlds. But I swore to escape - one way or another!”
He wildly struck out, I dived to safety. But he kept coming. Just then I got a glimpse of Anne, running to take him from behind, but Phoenix must have sensed it because he turned and struck blindly at her, I heard a piercing scream.
Phoenix withdrew the dagger from Anne’s shoulder, she was writhing in pain sobbing and screaming. I took my chance. Throwing myself at him with all my strength, I tried to wrestle the knife off him but he cut a deep gash in my arm with another wild strike. I howled in pain and knocked the knife from his cold fingers. I held it to my throat.
“You need me alive, tell me how to escape or suffer a life of lone misery” I shouted trying to sound confident.
“The altar” He coughed as he recovered. “Its power is what brought you here, through an entrance such as a cave”
“Or door…” I finished, surprised to see him comply with my hollow threat. I could use this to my advantage. But before I could do anything a howling wind drew forth.
“At last, DEADNIGHT!” Phoenix, embracing the wind “Let the spirits of the damned rise once more, SEIZE HIM!”
As he spoke figures began to spawn from the darkness, pale spectres. Some were sailors, some were soldiers, men women and children; all of their dilated, crazed eyes on me.
“Help me!” Anne screamed in desperation.
“Anne” I replied weakly.
I tried to move but realised that a spindly man and ragged woman had grasped my arms. I kicked and struggled but they overwhelmed me, they took the dagger and pinned me to the altar. I tried to move but felt cold metal against my neck. Phoenix was loomed over me, he dismissed the ghosts. Then began to read from the encryptions on the altar: “When life is lived fulfil your fate, or face the fire at hells gate” Suddenly the encryptions began to glow, and the altar’s surface with it. I saw doors and arches, windows and tunnels come into view, my spirits rose as I saw the old wall of the house not far away.
“There must be another way” I pleaded. “Please Phoenix” But he wasn’t listening, he was chanting under his breath, but still held the knife firmly to my neck.
There was still a spark of hope; Phoenix seemed to have completely forgotten about Anne, out of the corner of my eye she was on her feet. The anger in her eyes could kill, and I wouldn’t put it past her. But then he finished.
“Prepare to experience eternity in limbo, for today marks your death, and my re-birth, Morgan” Phoenix whispered calmly in my ear. Blood pounded through my body as Phoenix took one more deep breath, but before he could finish Anne appeared out of nowhere, grabbed Phoenix by his hair and pulled him to the ground, he howled in pain and wrestled with Anne. I rolled off the table and stood, poised and ready, then lunged at him, taking from him the dagger, I never will forget my next act. Grabbing Him by the neck I drove the dagger deep in to his heart, he immediately withheld his grip on Anne, I forced him down. His blank face stared up at me. His eyes dull and lifeless.
“Damn you, damn you to hell” He managed to rasp as he coughed up blood. He then relaxed and lay there, unmoving. Dead.
I stood up, shaking, and then lifted Anne to sit on the altar, The wound was still bleeding, but not too serious.
“I killed a man” I said in disbelief.
“He was never really alive” Said Anne solemnly.
“Are you-?”
“I’m fine” She said, composing herself.
There was an awkward tension between us, but we both knew. Time to leave.
We said a sad goodbye. Likely never to see each other again, this very encounter. Probably nothing but a legend in years to come. Then we both took our separate ways, me: Back through the same door; Anne through a small stone archway. I waved a tearful goodbye and once more embraced my fog-filled world. Then began the walk back to my car. What a night, a night to remember.

«Alex»