A young lady wakes up in a hospital room. Drowsy, she puts on her shoes and opens the door. There’s nobody there.
She walks around, her footsteps gently echoing in the empty hospital ward, and slowly realises that the place is deserted. Closed down, like she has been asleep for too long and the hospital was abandoned, leaving her behind.
Then, quietly at first, she starts to hear sounds. Normal hospital sounds; the opening and closing of a door, a laundry trolley wheeled down a corridor. A tap being turned on and off.
In the distance, the sound of rock or stone suddenly crumbling. Has something escaped? Perhaps she is not alone after all. In the darkness.
She starts to feel uneasy. Who, or what, is in the abandoned building with her? At night. Did someone, or something, else awake when she did? Is it following her?
She finds a hiding place and locks herself in as slow, measured footsteps move down the corridor towards her, then fade as a door is opened and closed in the distance.
Then.
Silence. Silence, except for the sound of her own shaking breaths.
She opens the door. Peers as keenly as she can into the darkness left and right.
Then runs….
[The song of IT]
What?
Am I awake?
Ah, I have been trapped so long in the statue, the coldness of stone.
Ah, I feel it. Yes, the echoes of this place. From my time. The time it ended. Faint glimmers of sound, but no light.
What?
Am I alone?
Ah no! I feel it. A presence. It is not empty. There is a trace. And I have been asleep so long, now I am hungry again.
[The song fades]
She walks in the near darkness, as quietly as she can, faint traces of moonlight the only help. Silver-white and cold.
From a doorway, a faint echo of an old tune played on piano. For a few second she listens. Then it stops suddenly, mid phrase. Like someone heard her. Someone is coming.
She panics, she runs, she tries door handles that do not open, a window that slides up, but only a little and gets stuck.
And then the voices. Many whispered voices, too jumbled to pick much out. Loud whispers like she is in a crowd of ghosts.
From outside, you can hear her hammering on a pane of glass. Hear a faint cry for help.
She hears a drumming in her head. Energetic, chaotic, rising as she runs again.
[The song of IT]
Yes!
I feel alive!
And now this place is mine again. And you, you are mine. I’ll take my time, but I am hungry once again.
[The song continues as an instrumental. And now we realise it picks up on the melody from the piano, warped and made loud, powerful. Then the song quietens.]
She tries more doors as she runs. And then, relief! A door that opens.
She runs through, down the concrete and out onto the gravel. The crunch of her steps, the ragged breathing, calm and slow. Quiet enough to hear the faint sounds of ‘outside’; the sigh of wind in grass and trees.
But then, faintly at first, the piano tune again. It rises in volume, then stops, suddenly, mid phrase……..
credits
from Explorers | Session 2 | Vol 2,
released October 30, 2019
Nigel Parry: Voice of ‘IT’
Reece Davies: Guitar
Steve Starke: Guitar
Joe Murphy: Bass
Bruce Wenslick: Drums
Nathan Bregmen: Percussion
Katie Morton: Piano
Additional vocals: Andrew Cocain
Choir and voices: Rose Easter, Steve Starke, Jess, Tasmin, Shaun, Andy Woodd
Written by Nigel Parry
Recorded by Tasmin Pritchard, Andy Woodd, Ricky Hunt, Ian Moir & Felix Nesbitt
Mixed by Ricky Hunt
Mastered by Andy Woodd
Additional post-production by Andy Woodd
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