Although the daunting pool of iridescent liquid was enough to elicit a feeling of internal dread alone, something seems to strain against your throat, rocking you to your very core. It wasn’t a beastly creature from the depths of hell, or a gangly slender figure standing off in the forest. It was a Harbinger.

You aren’t sure how you ended up here. The night shift had always been tedious, but you weren’t looking for trouble. It was only your third day working for the museum. Paying off student debt was difficult, and you would take anything you could get. You sat alone, staring down the hallway as you flicked your pencil off the desk, exhaling heavily. You couldn’t help but feel like you were wasting your life scavenging for scraps, working for the ultimate prize of moving out of your parent’s basement just to lay on a couch of your own in some furnished apartment off the edge of the city. But you preferred not to dwell on things that brought you sadness. What was the point? Some people didn’t even have a house to go home to. A loving family. Food, water, health. You felt spoiled alone for receiving a proper education, no matter the debt. You were a simple person. And there was nothing you would change.
But you’ve known since you were a child that you were different. In your sleep, you dreamt of the most horrible things. You would awake in the night, screaming and thrashing as you wildly glanced around your room, fearing the worst. You dreamt of pustules growing along your arms, popping and sizzling with a most painful burn as a shadow stood over your bed. You were convinced the shadow was some sort of creature bearing a syringe, holding it close to your arm with a shiny scalpel to your neck. Its face was long and foreboding, comparable to the color of tar and licorice. You felt as if you could reach out, anticipating cold leather to your touch. But when the light was switched on, it was just your mother, her face contorted into a guilty frown. Maybe she knew something you didn’t. But you were only six. You couldn’t have known. The memories of your night terrors were distant, settling in the back of your mind. You hadn’t dreamt anything for quite some time.
Yawning, you rubbed your weary eyes, looking back at that hallway. It was ironic this had been the place that offered you a job. You were often compared to that of a time traveler, aware of terrors that have long since passed. This was a museum of Spain, leading guests through dark events in history. But you knew in your heart that the majority of the plaques were false information. Perhaps it was only a feeling. You certainly didn’t consider your intrusive thoughts factual. You leaned down to grab the fallen pencil, the fluorescent lights turned down low as the keys clipped onto your belt clattered on the side of the metal desk. The sound echoed through the museum, reminding you of the eerie silence. You stood, looking around with slight unease. The room was large, a marble statue of a broad shouldered man standing in the center, standing over a fallen foe. He wielded a sword, a smug prideful expression on his face. It was a valuable artifact, but part of you wondered if he truly deserved to be on display. You gazed at it boredly, scoffing quietly. You weren’t sure why, but every time you looked at him, you felt annoyed. It was just another flex of conquest and abusive power, immortalized into rock. Perhaps it was a reminder of your insignificance standing beneath such a powerful figure. You glanced down the hallway once more, scrunching your nose. Grabbing your dim flashlight, you decided to go for a short walk to clear your head.
You stepped down that corridor, your eyelids heavy as you strained to keep them open. Your phone buzzed in your pocket, perhaps a message from your mother telling you that everything was going to be okay. She tried her best to provide you with kind affirmations whenever she got the chance, and although the gesture was thoughtful, you weren’t sure how much they really helped. Everything lately has been such a blur. Your mother was a kind and loving woman, and no matter how much you asked her to leave you to figure things out on your own, she followed closely in your footsteps. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, her hands constantly clasped as if anticipating something like a worried dog, its tail between its legs.
The display cases to the right housed worn prehistoric weaponry, spears and armor pieces lit up by your flashlight. You weren’t allowed to turn on any lights aside from the main lobby, probably due to the preservation of power. The museum was in decline financially. Nobody truly knew why the people stopped coming. To your left, there were 13th century gowns and jewelry, held up by mannequins. They looked almost lifelike, as if they could walk out of their case at any moment. One of them held an old rusted handheld candlestick, their dress made of the most expensive red velvet and lynx fur on the market for its time. But your eye was quickly drawn away from such things as you reached the end of this part of the exhibit.
You shone your flashlight ahead, revealing what appeared to be a plague doctor mask. It was weathered, its poor shape signifying both the passage of time, and some sort of strain. One of its glass eyes was shattered, leaving a hollow dark empty socket. It seemed to stare daggers into you. You swallowed hard, taking a tentative step back. You could hear the sound of your own heartbeat pounding in your chest, your stomach dropping slowly as the world around you swayed and faltered. Maybe you knew this day was coming. You fell onto your side, squinting hard as your body twitched and tensed. You felt like a child all over again, writhing on the cold wooden floor as pain shot from your center and all throughout your limbs. You opened your mouth and let out a shrill scream, tears flooding from your eyes. In an instance, you were now standing in front of that case, staring down at the mask. You had no control over yourself, the glass barrier between you and the mask withering away. All sense of security was gone. Everything else had faded to black, your flashlight nowhere to be found. As you reached out to touch the mask, thoughts stirred through your mind. You added up to nothing in the end. You were a pawn, a pathetic waste of precious breath. Perhaps now, finally, you would have a purpose. A reason for existence. By the time your phone’s new notification caught your attention, it was too late. You found yourself suffocating, falling backwards and straight through the ground. The void around you swallowed you whole, the phone right out of your reach as you desperately struggled to stay alive. The screen of the device glitched and lit up, shining a light down on your miserable end. Hands of the fallen dragged you down, murky muddy liquid enclosing your gasps and chokes. You caught a glimpse of the last message your mother had sent, and your strife finally came to a close, your eyebrows furrowed. As everything collapsed into the empty abyss, you knew in your heart that it wasn’t your fault, and it never was. The path the Harbinger sets for his victims are merciless and cruel. Perhaps he just wanted you to feel the same pain he felt all those centuries ago. Revenge, an eternal grudge you had no control over. Now, there was all but silence. Drowning had always sounded like an ideal way to go, drifting into the vast below. Of course… You knew you would wake up soon. Isn’t that right, Phoebe?