A Dark Place

A DARK PLACE

A Psychological Horror by Johny Griffith   Architect of Chaos. Builder of Truth.

Chapter One: The Shortcut

Graig was thirty-two. Afro-American. Easygoing. Worked construction by day, played chess in the park by night.

He didn’t chase drama. Didn’t chase women. Just wanted peace.

That Friday, he took the shortcut behind the old library. The alley smelled like rain and rust.

That’s where he saw her.

Lizzy.

Red dress. Bare shoulders. Eyes like broken glass.

“You always take this route?” she asked, voice low, almost bored.

Graig nodded. She smiled. Too easily.

They talked. She laughed. Touched his wrist.

“My father’s a professor,” she said. “He studies the mind. The parts people hide.”

Graig didn’t ask questions. He followed her.

Chapter Two: The Apartment

Her place was dim. Books stacked like tombstones. Candles flickering in corners.

She poured wine. Played jazz. Sat close.

Graig felt warm. Too warm.

She kissed him. He kissed back.

Her hands were everywhere—needy, fast, trembling.

“You smell like truth,” she whispered. “I want to taste it.”

Graig laughed. She didn’t.

She straddled him. Bit his neck. Then injected something into his thigh.

“Sleep now.”

He tried to speak. Then everything went black.

Chapter Three: The Basement

Graig woke strapped to a chair. Concrete walls. No windows. A single bulb swinging above.

His wrists were bleeding. His head was fog.

He screamed.

No one answered.

Then he heard footsteps.

Lizzy appeared. No dress. Just a lab coat. Bare feet.

“You’re awake. Good.”

Graig tried to speak. She injected something into his neck.

“Don’t worry. You’re not the first.”

She walked away.

Chapter Four: The Father

Professor Harlan was a ghost in academia. Brilliant. Unethical. Vanished after a scandal involving live subjects and memory erasure.

He believed trauma could be sculpted. That pain could be harvested. That the mind was clay.

Graig saw him through the glass—white beard, pale eyes, surgical gloves.

“We’re studying thresholds,” he said. “How much the soul can take before it fractures.”

Graig screamed again.

The professor smiled.

“You’ll thank me when you’re reborn.”

Chapter Five: Lizzy’s Hunger

Lizzy wasn’t just an assistant. She was the lure. The seduction. The collector.

She craved control. Craved the moment a man surrendered.

She kept journals—pages filled with names, dates, moans.

Graig read them when she forgot to lock the drawer.

“Graig: strong arms. Quiet eyes. Will break after third injection. Sex was good. He cried after. I liked that.”

She visited him nightly. Touched him. Whispered things.

“You’re mine now. You’ll never leave me. Even when you scream.”

Chapter Six: The Experiments

They didn’t torture him. Not physically.

They showed him images. Played sounds. Made him relive his worst memories.

His mother’s funeral. His father’s fists. His own failures.

They twisted them. Made him doubt what was real.

They erased his name. Gave him a number.

Subject 47.

He stopped sleeping. Started hallucinating.

Started seeing Lizzy’s face in the walls.

Chapter Seven: The Break

One night, Lizzy came in drunk. Sloppy. Laughing.

She kissed him. Then slapped him.

“You think you’re special? You’re just another scream.”

Graig didn’t scream.

He waited.

She forgot to lock the straps.

He waited.

She fell asleep beside him.

He waited.

Then he moved.

Chapter Eight: The First Kill

Graig found the scalpel. Found the professor.

He didn’t hesitate.

He carved silence into his throat.

Lizzy woke to blood.

She screamed.

Graig didn’t.

He smiled.

“You said I’d be reborn.”

Chapter Nine: The Escape

Graig walked out covered in blood. No one stopped him.

The building was hidden. Forgotten.

He walked home. Showered. Ate cereal.

Then he waited.

Chapter Ten: The Others

He found two more.

Men who had laughed at him. Women who had lied.

He didn’t scream. He didn’t rush.

He carved them slowly.

Left notes.

“Threshold reached.”

Chapter Eleven: The Trial

They called him a monster. A killer. A psychopath.

He didn’t flinch.

He told the court everything.

They didn’t believe him.

Lizzy vanished. The building was gone.

Professor Harlan was declared dead years ago.

Graig was sentenced to life.

Chapter Twelve: The Cell

He doesn’t scream anymore.

He draws symbols on the wall. Whispers to the vent.

Sometimes, he hears Lizzy laugh.

Sometimes, he sees her in the mirror.

He smiles.

“You smell like truth,” he whispers to the guards.

They don’t laugh anymore. Author’s Word

By Johny Griffith Architect of Chaos. Builder of Truth.

I don’t write stories. I write autopsies.

Every page is a dissection—of desire, of shame, of the lies we tell ourselves to survive. Graig didn’t fall into darkness. He was led there. By seduction. By betrayal. By the illusion of safety.

Lizzy wasn’t just a woman. She was hunger wrapped in silk. Her father wasn’t just a scientist. He was a surgeon of the soul.

This tale isn’t about monsters. It’s about transformation. What happens when a man is stripped of identity, memory, and choice—until all that’s left is instinct.

Graig became what they made him. And in doing so, he became something worse than broken. He became aware.

This is not fiction. This is a mirror. And if you stare long enough, you’ll see your own reflection twitch.

I am Johny Griffith. Architect of Chaos. Builder of Truth.   And I write to expose the rot beneath the smile.