Exiter Hall

[creativesam]

Exiter Hall:


I had never visited this particular building before as a student. The building's exterior was quite impressive, constructed of gray chiseled stone blocks, which gave the large building a medieval character. It was tucked into an out of the way corner of the expansive campus. The stone structure was surrounded by a huge, dark woodland, remains of the primeval forest that covered the entire area of the campus before civilization had intruded into this part of the country. The overall effect of the building and setting was quite impressive ...

I needed to visit the building as part of an assignment for a class, to document the some of the building's unique architectural features. It was a busy work assignment, with no real practical value, other than to waste paper and consume a student's time.

I approached the buildings front entrance, a large granite front stair case, flanked on both sides by imposing statues of snarling lions. I ascended the steps quickly, but at the top I felt somewhat winded. This was a bit odd, I was in good physical shape, jogging 5K every day and more on weekends. I opened the huge, carved wood paneled doors. These creaked open, making a sound typical of hinges that have gone far too long without lubrication, as would be expected for a structure of this age.

The front entrance and foyer led in three directions. Forward to a large room and two hallways to the right and left, leading to class rooms and office space. I walked forward into the large meeting hall. This was an impressive sight. The ceiling extended several stories above the floor. Hugh carved wood beams held up the roof. ...

There were many hunting trophies lining the oak paneled walls of the room. The preserved heads of a lion, tiger, elk, deer, grisly bear, polar bear, cougar, and other assorted animal heads. The menagerie was certainly impressive, it seemed to belong to another period of time. This seemed odd considering the current rage about political correctness and all. I was surprised that these relics of another era would still be present, given all of the PETA activity on this campus.

I was told to wait for a guide to give a tour of the hall. I took some initial notes and did a rough sketch of the impressive room. I spent nearly a hour drawing the sketch, but in the mean time no tour guide had arrived. I waited a few more minutes, but being somewhat headstrong and impatient, I decided to give myself my own tour. If the tour guide appeared when I was gone, then tough. I had other classes to worry about and I needed to gather some more information for my report. I had already gleaned about as much information that I could from a visual inspection of this room.

There was a door on the right side of the room in front of me. I walked over to this door and opened it. There were a set of stairs leading up to the second floor of the building. I ascended the well worn wooden steps. The stairs emitted a high pitched squeak as I trod on them. This alarmed me at first, but the sound brought no unwanted attention to me. The stairs lead up to a strange looking hallway.

Seemingly more modern then the rest of the building, there were many doors and string of florescent lights, equally spaced, lining the ceiling. I walked down the hallway, which seemed to go forever, even given the massive size of the building. I turned around, not wanting to go too far without some reference point. There were regularly spaced doors to my left, each with a unusual symbol displayed on the front of the door. On the right seemed to be what appeared to be windows with a black felt drapes covering the opening. These structures seemed out of place, so I made a note of it my journal.

Curiosity got the better of me, I needed to see what was behind the curtain. I chuckled to myself, thought of the Wizard of OZ , “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...” I approached the one of the windows in the hallway. As I got closer, I still had difficulty seeing the fabric than composed the curtains. I placed my hands on the curtains to part them, the fabric felt really odd, it seemed to tingle a little and seemed to shimmer a bit in the bright light. When I tried to part the curtains, there seemed to another set blocking the view. I slid these curtains aside, and another set seemed to appear. This frustrated me a bit, so I just plunged my head forward to get a quick view. For what seemed like a eternity, all the light that I could see went out. It was pitch black, dark as moonless night. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. After a while I saw two small round areas of amber light just ahead of me. I needed to lean forward to get a better look at these two small lit areas. I felt some sort of soft resistance and snap, in a flash I could see again.

It took a few moments, but my eyes adjusted to the new brightness. I could tell immediately that I was looking down on the great hall I had sketched earlier. I was perplexed by this, I saw no windows overlooking the large room. The other thing that was odd, was the view was distorted, like looking through the lens of a fish-eye camera, but not nearly as extreme. The only vantage point that would offer a view such as this was the stuffed heads mounted on the wall. I chuckled to myself, was this like the old movie cliché' about mounted heads being hallow and someone peering from the animal heads eyes to spy on others in the room. I got a good laugh out of this. Seemed that the builders of this place where quite the pranksters.

I moved my head around, I was amazed that I could change what I was looking at. I turned to my left and almost let out a scream. A snarling tiger appeared in my vision. I felt really panicked, so I decided to back out of this window. I felt the same strange soft resistance I had felt earlier. When my head appeared back into the hallway, my panicky feeling subsided. I was eager to look through the eyes of a tiger...

I spend quite a while gazing through the eyes of the tiger head, seeing the elk head that I peered trough previously. I looked around the room, someone walked in, the motion of the head immediately froze. I seemed like I could not move a muscle. Even my eyes remained fixed. I started to feel panicked again, but it was different somehow. The person eventually left the room. After a while I started to be able to move again, but I seemed to be a bit stiff. My mouth felt dry, my tongue seemed to be swollen. I used my tongue to feel around my mouth, it was strange sensation, it felt like I had sharp, fang like teeth now. There were other strange sensations too. I felt like I had fur covering my face...

I could swear that I had the head of the tiger!! This thought got me really worried and I decided I had enough of the fun and games for now. I hadn't really paid much attention to the rest of my body, but it seemed different somehow. I felt really tired, like standing in an awkward positions for too long. I decided to remove my head from the window. It didn't budge. I felt a strong resistance, keeping me held in place. I pulled more and more, but I couldn't move. This got me very angry, so I gave it everything I had to pull free from what ever was keeping me stuck in this window with the animal head. I managed to pull free, toppled over backward and landed on my tail.

Yes, that's right my tail. I was back in the well lit hallway, everything seemed the same except myself, or my body that is. I had a new pain in rear end literally. I look behind me and saw a striped, furry tail and set of massive set of tiger legs. This really startled me. Someone has let a live tiger loose in the building and it is right next to me!! I tried to scramble away from the big feline. I managed to trip again and fell down, landed with my arms stretched out in front of me. But when I looked down I could see two large orange paws, and the strong forelimbs of a tiger. But somehow these were my arms! I could feel it! What was happening to me? Somehow I had become a tiger! I must be hallucinating all this, it can't be real!
....

I am glad that you made it, excellent. I see that you chose a tiger form, good choice, a male voice spoke.

I know that you have many questions that you would like answered, all in good time. When you are ready we can start the tour. If you don't mind, I will attach a harness and lead to your body, mainly for your own protection. Besides it helps to keep the number of questions down.

To be continued...

[creativesam]

I would welcome some feedback. The ellipses represent parts of the story that I have left out. I may come back to finish them later. Suggestions are welcome.

[creativesam]

Just some mild competition for recognition to place this thread at the top of the heap. I need to post more often!