The Sealed Room

Restricted areas give off a special feeling. When you were younger, I'm sure you pondered what could be behind those "Employees Only" doors. It is a curious, near universal thought. Now, I investigate abandoned areas for a living. I record them, I post them, and I share them with sites for money, rinse and repeat. However, I chose to be anonymous here for, as you'll come to see, obvious reasons. I will not specify exact locations, dates, or names for the privacy of those around me. 
It was dusk. The area surrounding the building was very quiet, it being part of a fairly large strip mall. The parking lot was already empty, small puddles of rain dotted across it like a dress pattern. I felt interest in a specific building: an old advertisement center. The outside still looked relatively new, at least for an abandoned building. Upon approaching, I noticed the cracked glass windows. Why would anybody attempt a break-in at a place like this? I didn't know. Especially since the front door was unlocked, which I found was a rarity when exploring these places. 
Camera in-hand, I turned on a flashlight as I entered. It was spacious. The floor was hard concrete, though it had evidence of previously being covered by a rug. Any useful or valuable equipment that would be there was gone for obvious reasons. The paint was deteriorated and a counter was cracked, with the top missing. I took a couple pictures and continued on. Next, I opened the door behind the counter to what was at some point a storage unit. The imprints of shelves were stuck on the floor and walls. There was also a stairway down to a sort of basement. As I'm sure anybody else in my profession could tell you, finding out your building is larger than previously thought is great, as you can make more money selling pictures in the same trip. So, obviously I intended to go down.
The safety rail was rusted and in some places jagged, so I let it go. This was a big mistake though, as I fell through the stairs and landed on my back. I picked myself up, winded but not hurt, and noticed my camera had fallen down the stairs but not gone through the hole with me. I would've climbed out and retrieved it, but I instead took the opportunity to scout the area out so I didn't make the same mistake again. Luckily for me, I still had my flashlight, so I flicked it on again and looked around. I was in a small room underneath the stairs. It stunk like a pig farm and was rotten like a sunken ship, with drainage stains on the floor.
There were two doors. One was a sealed metal door on the side meant to be accessed from the basement, and the other was a smaller metal door across from me. The one across was accessible from beneath the stairs where I was, and had a sign on it. The sign read: "RESTRICTED AREA. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED." I was not worried, as the company was defunct and nobody really owned the property anymore. It had a small twist handle with a key already inside it. I grabbed it, twisted, and opened to look inside.
It was beyond disturbing. There was a modified barber chair in the center with dried blood stains all around it. In front of it was a workbench with tools all over it, mainly drills and hammers. Behind the chair, though, were what was most disturbing. Bodies. Small, rotting bodies. Victims of whoever used this room. The remains were mutilated, with fingers, toes, and sometimes full limbs missing. Their eye sockets were empty and their teeth had small holes drilled through them. I became sick upon the sight of it, vomiting profusely onto the ground. Was this real? Was I seeing correctly? Unfortunately, I was.
Obviously, I wasn't going to stick around. Instead, I ran back to the gap in the stairs, climbed through, and got out, not even remembering to grab my camera. I looked outside through the windows. It was already late, possibly midnight. Was that how much time had passed? I tried to open the door, but it was locked from the outside. The cracks in the glass were not from somebody trying to break in, but from somebody trying to break out. I went to the stairway, grabbed a loose plank I fell through, stuck a nail through it, and used it to break the window. Once I was free, I sprinted through the lot. I was free of the horror.
I called the police on the location for them to investigate and got home. Once home, I took a sleeping pill or two and went to bed to try and forget it all. The next morning, I was woken up by the police knocking at my door. They handed me my broken camera. "We investigated the place, but found nothing you claimed was there other than your camera, the gap through the stairs, and the room. The room, however, was empty." I was hit with a huge wave of anxiety. It couldn't have been a dream because they retrieved my camera and found where I fell through, but the bodies and tools and stains were all gone. It was too much for me and I must've passed out.
To this day I live in fear. Fear that whoever did this is still out there. Fear that this monster knows I was there or even more so, who I am. I've moved far away since then. I've continued my profession, but I never travel alone. I still think about it all the time. It was by far the most disturbing thing I've ever seen, without question. I don't ever have the same intrigue with restricted areas as I did before, not after that. I'm confessing it now because I need help. I need advice to help me overcome this. I've tried everything I can think of, but I can't ever shake the thought of the sealed room.
Category:Disappearances
Category:Places