A Survivor’s Accounts of the Depraved Funhouse: The Balloon (Part Three)
Read Part one here Read Part two here As I began to reach for the door, hands shaking uncontrollably; I closed my eyes and began muttering out loud “There’s nothing to be afraid of…” over and over like it was a mantra. My eyes shot open immediately upon grabbing the doorknob, jerking my hand back when I felt something slick and wet. “What the hell?”, I remember thinking as I held my hand up to the dim, dark orange shade illuminating the door overhead. My eyes went wide at seeing the dark red stain covering my hand. At first, I was a bit confused and my mind started running through questions: “What the fuck is this stuff? Is it paint?”. Before long, however, another possibility slipped into the forefront of my mind, a much more sinister possibility: “Is it blood?”. I felt my entire body go limp in utter dread as I looked back at the door, now noticing that not only was the knob stained with red, but the door itself was scattered with dark splotches all across the front haphazardly; “Like the splattering of blood…”. I closed my eyes and tried shaking the thought from my mind. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, stop being a fuckin’ chicken”. Even as I told myself this, however, the image of the creepy clown poster crashed its way back into my mind. I felt those dead, marble eyes boring into me, staring into my very soul; the wide-split grin taunting me. I then envisioned the dark red makeup starting to melt and smear across the rest of the pasty white face, “like blood…”. This introduced a new thought to me: Is that why all the makeup is red, Is it blood?”. Despite the frightening imagery invading my mind, I still felt compelled to open the door. “Nothing behind this door will hu-”, the thought died abruptly when I heard what sounded like someone crying in the distance. It was quiet, and I almost didn’t even notice it; that was until I pressed my ear to the door and heard the crying get louder, sounding tortured. “Is someone hurt in there?”, despite the mounting dread building inside me, I found myself, albeit unconsciously, turning the knob of the door and walking inside. Instantly, I was blinded by the fluorescent lighting of the room, forcing me to squint my eyes nearly completely shut. Next, my sense of smell was assaulted by a foul miasma of rotted meat. My eyes watered and I had to hold my breath to keep from emptying my stomach completely. I kept pressing forward, hearing the crying get louder. As I went, my eyes now able to adjust a bit to the harsh lighting, I saw that the room was a long, white corridor with big, brown wooden crates lined against the walls, one on each wall. One of them was labeled with the classic yellow smiley-face, but the other instead bore the creepy red smile from the poster. Just then, the loud voice boomed over the speaker again, “Welcome to the secret passage!”. I was once again jarred by the sudden boom of the voice, derailing my train of thought. “Two boxes sit in front of you”, a recording of exaggerated gasps- the kind you’d hear on those old-timey game shows from the 50’s- played before the voice continued, “Inside the boxes, you’ll find a secret tunnel. One will lead you to the “Balloon room”…”, this time, it was a recording of children cheering, “the other leads down the “Garbage chute”…”, this was followed by a cartoonish sounding foghorn blaring. “Garbage chute… so that’s where the awful smell is coming from”, I thought to myself as the voice continued to tell me that I had 30 seconds to choose one of the passages. That’s when a new voice came over the speaker, a younger voice. “I… I… I”, the voice was stuttering, quivering like they were going to break into tears any second. There was a loud bang sound, like someone had slammed something down. Then the younger voice came back, his voice shaking and in absolute hysterics, “I-I-I… I h-hear th-the A-A-A-Ama-Amazing Beliar likes t-to hang out in th-the Balloon room…”. “I heard that too! You think our friend will find him?”, the deep, jovial voice said with the obviously fake surprise gasp you hear from all birthday clowns when they try to make something sound exciting. For a second, all I heard was the young voice whimpering “I don’t wanna do this, I wanna go home”, before there was another thud sound. This time, I was sure I could hear a crunch sound too, like crushing bones, which was followed immediately by the younger voice letting out a shrill cry of pain. “What the fuck?”, I muttered aloud, unable to contain the terrified panic building up in me. “I said…”, the jovial voice barked, now sounding far more aggressive, “You think our friend will be able to find him?”. The young voice just kept crying that they wanted to go home. “What the hell is going on?”, I wondered as I looked at my red-stained hand again, color draining from my face as the horrific revelation slowly became more and more clear to me. “It looks like SOMEONE needs a visit to the “Balloon room” themselves. I heard the kid’s voice start bawling, begging and pleading for dear life as it trailed further away from the mic. After that, it was silent again. I just stood there panicking, a million thoughts swarming my head like a horde of pissed off wasps. “What do I do?”, I stood wondering, “Who was that over the speakers? Why did they sound so afraid? What were they doing to him?”. This line of questioning continued as I thought about the kid’s begs and pleas when the other voice mentioned him going to the “Balloon room”. That was when a new, far more sinister question rammed to the forefront of my thoughts, forcing my blood to freeze over: “what’s in the “Balloon room?” Before, I was able to further consider the possible horrors that were in the “Balloon room”, however, I heard what sounded like sandpaper being dragged across metal. The eardrum-shattering screech forced me to cover my ears as tightly as humanly possible, wincing in pain reflexively. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the long alabaster corridor looked smaller than before, more compacted. The screech continued and I watched the wall at the far end of the corridor push forward towards me. I began to step back as I watched the two walls begin to push towards each other, when I felt the wall behind me begin to push against me, forcing me forward. I began to panic, the true terror of the situation sinking further in with every inch the walls of the white corridor shifted towards the center; “the walls are closing in!”. In my immediate panic, I grabbed the knob of the door behind me. I jerked with all of my strength, to no avail; the door wouldn’t budge. I was pushed back towards the center of the room as the entrance wall continued its advance. That’s when I began to make out the sound of a faint, tinkling tune. The more I listened, I realized that it was “Pop goes the weasel”. I stood in the center, scrambling in a petrified frenzy to think of a way out of the corridor. I looked to the two crates at my right and left. “One leads to the “Balloon room”, and the other leads down the “Garbage chute” the jovial voice mentally reminded me as I began exchanging glances between the two crates. “Which one am I supposed to go through?”, I frantically asked myself. The walls to my left and right were now only about three feet apart from each other. I looked at the one with the red smile and began to attempt opening it. The next few moments felt like time had slowed down, every second feeling drawn out just to tease me. I started prying at the crate with all of my strength, made even more arduous because of the wall’s advancement pushing me away from the crate. Each time I was pushed away from the approaching wall in front of me, I’d stumble back only to basically ricochet off of the wall behind me continuing to close in for the kill. I felt my arms begin to get weak after about the fifth unsuccessful attempt of prying the crate open; my fingertips feeling like they were seconds away from being ripped off the ends of my fingers. By then, there was only about a foot and a half between each wall. As I kept feebly trying to pry the crate open, tears filled my eyes with the thoughts of being crushed and compacted into a human garbage cube. I began to feel the crate from the wall behind me press against my back. I looked up again and saw that both the entrance wall and the rear wall now only had barely a foot of clearance between each other. I felt the crate continue to push me forward from the advancing wall behind me into the approaching wall in front of me, now only about five inches apart from each other. That was when, amidst the panic-induced terror consuming my thoughts, an idea quickly molded itself into my head. I knew that, before too much longer, the walls would eventually bring the two crates together; crushing them both. I thought of the way that the top of a drink can would burst open if enough force was applied to the rest of the can. “If I can just get the lid off…”, I told myself as I climbed on top of the crate behind me, now with no available clearance left in any direction. I knew I’d have to be careful to only let it compress the crate enough to pop the top loose; just enough to reveal the supposed passageway inside for me to slip through before I’m crushed. When the two crates finally met, I heard a loud whir as the walls attempted to continue their menacing advancement, now temporarily stalled by the two wooden crates. The corridor was now only barely a fraction of its original length and width. I couldn’t even extend my arms in either direction without feeling one of the four walls around me. I could actually feel the extra effort it took for me to even properly breathe. “Come on… just a little bit more…”, I muttered as I watched the two crates press further and further into each other, my face drenched in sweat and tears and my heart thundering in my chest. I found my lucky break when I heard the distinct sound of the wood crunching and the pop of the nails being forced loose. Immediately, I reached over and forced off the lid of the crate in front of me to reveal a round hole in the center of it that had one of those dark tube-slides, like what you’d find in a jungle-gym, attached to it. As the walls began to regain their former speed, I all but hurled myself head-first into the tube-slide. I had to hold my breath as I went down the tube-slide, as the horrid stench from before returned with even more potency. “This must be the one for the “Garbage chute”, I realized as I tried once again to empty my stomach as I went down the tube. I continued to slide down the darkened tube until I was eventually ejected out and into what I presumed to be the “Garbage chute”. I fell out of the slide, bracing for impact against a cold, hard floor. I was slightly surprised, however, when I landed on something soft. Credit : Corpse Child Reddit Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.