By Chance & Misadventure

"I'm more interested in going down there." With that Jon set off walking down the staircase kicking up dust that had lain undisturbed for who knew how long.

Matt watched as Pete and Lee followed him down and resigned himself to following. He pulled out his zippo lighter and followed them down into the bowels of the tower.

They walked single file down the stairs, cautiously navigating their way by the lighters that he and Jon had ignited. They provided a minimal illumination to the dark staircase and they were forced to feel the wall to guide their tentative steps. After they had been walking for about two minutes Jon pulled to a stop at the front of their explorers column.

"What's wrong Jon?" Matt asked, from the back of the group he couldn't see what had stopped Jon in his tracks.

"Nothing's wrong" replied Jon "But there is a door here."

"Come on then" said Pete "open it already"

Matt had noticed that the smell, that had been bothering him all the way down the staircase, was now quite powerful, the rest of his friends had even noticed it. In fact he could see Lee trying not to gag at the foetid odour. The four friends huddled together warily watching the door as Jon leaned forward to open it. When he turned the handle and pushed the door open, he revealed a scene out of a medieval nightmare.

Beyond this forgotten portal at the bottom of the tower was a large stone walled room the contents of which were as horrifying as they were surreal. The four friends stood poised at the doorway stunned motionless by the sight inside. The room was filled with historic tools of torture; Matt logged the ones he recognised as his brain struggled to comprehend what he was seeing. In the centre of the room stood a large rack, over in the far left-hand corner an iron maiden, the right hand corner held a rack of pincers, knives and other wicked looking tools of a torturer's trade.

None of this was what made the room horrific, the horror came from fact that all of them had quite recently been used. Everything was coated in a sheen of blood, which was still fresh. The worst of it was the walls of the room however here hung lifeless corpses suspended by hooks impaled through their skulls. The bodies were in various stages of decay; from skeletons barely holding onto the skin which once covered living flesh to the recently deceased whose bodies hung over the contents of their released bowls. It was at this point that Matt remembered where he had come across the nauseating odour before. Many years ago he had visited a slaughterhouse with school, he recalled now the same stench of fresh blood, excrement and dying flesh that had made him vomit as a child. This however was much worse this was human flesh before him.

His three companions and he staggered forwards into the room; none of them wanted to but the repulsive scene before them dragged their stunned bodies closer. As Matt passed through the doorway at the end of the disorientated group, he heard a creaking coming from behind him; he turned slowly in time to see the door slowly swing shut on its ancient and rusted hinges. He attacked the handle with all of his panicked strength, but no matter how much adrenaline fuelled force he brought to bare, the door refused to budge, somehow it had sealed itself to him. He turned his head from his efforts to see the wild look in the faces of his friends as they realised what had happened and knew that it was reflected in his own.