I was jolted out of sleep when my 5-year-old son, Kevin, jumped on top of me. I let out a little yelp both from the shock of the impact and from being ripped out of a deep sleep. A little disoriented, it took me a few moments to figure out what was going on. Now jumping up and down on the bed, Kevin yelled, “Fuzzy came again! Fuzzy came again!”

I sighed, rubbed my eyes, and checked the clock. It wasn’t even 6 o’clock in the morning yet. Kevin continued to jump ecstatically around the bed. By now, my husband was awake and very cranky. He looked over to the clock, and, seeing the time, released a frustrated moan.
“Jesus, kid, can’t you wait until at least 6?” he murmured sleepily. He too had been sleeping soundly.

“Fuzzy came again! I told you he would!” Kevin was too excited to care what time it was. It could have been one in the morning for all he cared. “He’s back! He’s back!”

“Fuzzy” as he called him, was what we assumed was Kevin’s imaginary friend. He described him as a fuzzy, colorful creature that arrives in magical mist through his window every night, and they play together. Kevin claimed that he could change colors and even shape, but he was always fuzzy. My husband and I both dismissed this as an imaginary friend phase, as we lived in a somewhat rural area outside of a minor city, and there was no one around to play with. Every morning, he would tell us what he did with Fuzzy last night. His stories would include making puzzles, reading books, jumping around, and cuddling. The one thing that was weird, though, was the fact that Kevin had, at first, told us that ‘Fuzzy didn’t want us to know about his nightly visits’. A bit put off at first, I soon disregarded this as merely a child’s need to feel special because he had a secret.

Sometimes I felt the need to check on Kevin at night, just to make sure everything was alright. The main reason I didn’t was because Kevin was a very light sleeper, in contrast to me and my husband who were very heavy sleepers, and I didn’t want to run the risk of waking him up.

Kevin had stopped talking about Fuzzy a couple months back, so we just assumed that he had grown out of it. I didn’t see anything wrong with Kevin bringing Fuzzy back. I was happy as long as he was happy. I was a house wife; my husband worked in the city and was gone pretty much all day, so I cared for Kevin as he wasn’t in school yet. It did get rather annoying after a while, constantly being bombarded with stories of Fuzzy all day. I smiled at Kevin’s enthusiasm, but deep down I felt a sense of dread welling up at the idea of Fuzzy returning.

I got up out of bed and left the room, leaving my husband to deal with Kevin, and went downstairs. While making breakfast, I decided to check the newspaper. A car crashed on the interstate, and no body was found. A rich lady donated some money to the state for park improvements or something, claiming that their current state was “simply unacceptable.” There was a short editorial on why kids are doing poorly in school, and parenting suggestions on the topic. An old man accused of pedophilia and using hallucinogenics and other drugs to lure children, arrested three months ago, was released from jail as there was not enough incriminating evidence. There was some sports stuff too, but I didn’t bother checking that as I was never really into sports.

Later that day, I was in Kevin’s room cleaning up. It smelled funny in his room; in fact, the last time I remembered it smelling this way was the last time Kevin was talking about Fuzzy. I thought about it for a moment, but decided to just dismiss it as just fermented body odor from him jumping around on his bed with his imaginary friend. I decided to open the window, as it was giving me a headache. Looking out, I saw Kevin out in the yard playing with some of his toys. It had rained last night, and the ground was soft and muddy, so I made sure to warn him not to go near the mud. I lowered my head to withdraw back into the room, but noticed something on the ground beneath the window.

Two holes, about a foot or so apart. They weren’t that big, so I wasn’t too concerned; it just bugged me, as I couldn’t think of anything that might have made them. I looked up to ask Kevin if he knew what they were; he might have made them. He had moved somewhere else though, and I didn’t feel like chasing him down to ask about something so menial.

The next day, I was wiping down a window in the dining room, which lied directly below Kevin’s room. The two holes caught my eye again; however, this time they were even bigger than before. At dinner, I decided to ask Kevin if he had been digging in the backyard. He said no, so I figured it must have been animals or something.

That evening, something else occurred to me. I found Kevin in the living room.
“Hey, Kevin,” I asked. “why does Fuzzy only come at night? You seem bored lately, and you never play with him during daytime.”
He simply shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied. “He just doesn’t.”
This was when things started to feel a bit off. It had never occurred to me before that Kevin didn’t play with Fuzzy during the daytime. It was probably just his way of keeping Fuzzy in a more realistic light. If he brought Fuzzy out to show him to us, he would see that we clearly didn’t believe in the fluffy piece of air next to him.
Yeah. That’s it. That’s why.

Nothing much happened for the next week or so. My husband and I went to bed at 10 o’clock sharp, as usual. We let Kevin stay up later if he wanted to, so he could play with his imaginary friend. We didn’t mind the noise he made; in fact, if we were asleep, we didn’t hear it at all. Hell, a train couldn’t wake us up once we hit deep sleep. Every night Kenny would say something different about Fuzzy. One night, he apparently brought a cookie (which I strongly suspect he stole from the cookie jar), and another night they ‘flew through the clouds’ on Fuzzy’s back. We were happy that our child’s imagination was healthy. But that feeling… that feeling that something was slightly off never went away.

The next week, I had to start putting Kevin to bed at the same time we went to bed, and, later on, earlier than us. School was coming up soon, and I wanted him to be on a normal biorhythm so that he could wake up early. But of course, this disrupted his ‘Fuzzy Schedule,’ and he would not go to bed without a fight. As days passed, it was becoming visibly obvious that he was not going to sleep when he was supposed to, and instead probably getting up after we fell asleep. Dark circles under his eyes formed. He was whinier than ever, and almost impossible to deal with, leaving me utterly exhausted every day.   Needless to say, I had no trouble falling asleep that week.

I was getting sick of my authority being undermined. I decided to stay up late one night in order to catch him in the act. I went to bed as normal, got up and moved to a chair, and after about a 30 minute period of sitting there, I began to dose off. I decided I would need some help in this stake-out; I crept downstairs to make a quick batch of coffee.

The feeling that something was wrong never alleviated itself. It felt like my mother’s instinct was going off, but I didn’t know why. I stood in the kitchen, sipping my coffee, for what seemed to be ages. Frequently glancing at the clock didn’t help. I spent most of the time reading the newspaper, and every time I began to dose off, I got more coffee.

Accustomed to utter silence, I jumped a little when I heard a little ‘thump’ coming from upstairs. The clock read half past twelve. I had no idea Kevin had the capacity to wait for more than 3 hours just for a stupid imaginary friend. I quietly set my stuff down on the kitchen table and tip-toed to the stairs. I made sure to avoid the creaky steps as I slowly ascended into the darkness of the second floor.

Just as I reached the top step, I heard Kevin’s voice from down the hallway.
“Fuzzy!”
It was now blindingly obvious that Kevin was awake. I heard another thump from Kevin’s room as I slowly made my way down the hallway. I thought about calling out his name and scolding him right then, but decided against it as it would only serve to alert him to my presence and allow him to retreat under the covers and pretend he was asleep.

The feeling that something was wrong grew from minor to almost unbearable. A soft hissing noise coming from his room was now within earshot. I reached the door. Gulping, I silently gripped the handle, turned it, and pushed inward. As I was opening the door, Kevin’s bedroom window came into view. It was wide open, and in it, a ladder. I flung the door wide open, and nearly fainted.

There, in the middle of the room, was an incredibly hairy, naked old man, wearing a gas mask.

He was feeding hallucinogenic gas up Kevin’s nose.

Credit To – AMB

“Do you believe in Cartesian duality?”

“Cartesian what?”

“That consciousness is not caused by physical processes but by something else — some sort of soul if you will.”

“I guess not.”

“Well, then I guess I shouldn’t-“

“You promised!”

“Ok, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. There’s a famous thought experiment that goes like this: In the future, a teleportation device has been invented. It works by creating a perfect copy of whatever is put into it at the receiving end and then destroying the original at the sending end. If you use the machine to travel to Hawaii or something, what comes out will have all your memories, behave exactly like you—it would be impossible for anyone to tell the difference. Now the question is whether this is you—in other words, would you be willing to use this machine?”

“Um…if the thing that comes out is a perfect replica of me I don’t see why not”

“Really? Doesn’t your body at the sending end get destroyed though?”

“Well, my body gets slowly replaced piece by piece every few years anyways. If what comes out is exactly like me for all practical purposes, then there is no reason to think it isn’t me. This is a cute example and all, but I really don’t see the point.”

“Well, Ok then, let’s try another scenario. You figure out one day that there is a perfect replica of earth in some alternate universe. Of course this other earth has a perfect replica of you, your family, your hometown—everything you care or know about. Unfortunately, someone tells you that it isn’t Ok for these two planets to be exactly the same and that to make them different, either you or your replica has to die. He then surprisingly offers you the choice. Which would you want to survive?”

“Oh, interesting, I guess my copy will probably be getting the same talk and question, but I would clearly want myself to live. Whether this actually effects the outcome is unclear. I understand the other example better now, but even so, there are never going to be two of me after I step into the teleporter.”

“I’m not sure you’re getting the point, doesn’t the example with the alternate universes show that even a perfect copy of you isn’t necessarily the same as you?”

“Hmm, I guess. There’s still no reason to think that what comes out of the receiving end isn’t me though.”

“Well, let’s go back to the point about there being two of you. Imagine if the teleporter sometimes developed problems and destroyed the sending end copy seconds to minutes after the receiving end copy was created. Now which one is you?”

“Ah, so in this situation the sending end copy is me and the machine would basically be killing me. But it seems so artificial for whether the receiving end copy is actually me to depend on the specific timing of things. Therefore I guess I would definitely never want to use such a machine.”

“Right.”

“Wait, the scariest part about this is that if for whatever reason I did teleport, the me that comes out the other end would have all my memories and therefore remember going through the teleportation machine safely. It would actually think that teleportation is a good idea!”

“Yeah, you can imagine some poor sucker who thinks he’s gone through thousands of safe teleportations, not realizing his experience only started at the end of the last one and that he just has a bunch of fake memories of all the previous copies of himself.”

“Wow, that’s sort of terrible.”

“Anyways, so now that we are on the same page about that—“

“Wait a second, suddenly my consciousness is tied up to the fixed physical elements of my current body. Why isn’t that silly for the reasons I was talking about before?”

“Oh, so here it helps to think of your consciousness as some instance of some complicated process run using the bits and pieces that make up your body. While the pieces may switch out over the years the specific instance of the process continues. When your body is completely destroyed by the teleporter, the instance of the process stops and you stop experiencing permanently—in other words, you die.”

“Ok, fine, I guess that makes sense. The only problem is that I know of thousands of times in my life that my instance of this process has shut off.”

“Ah, you seem to have hit the crux of the problem. Every time you sleep, right?”

“Yeah.“

“Are you sure this isn’t a problem with the argument but instead something that the argument is telling you about sleep?”

“Stop trying to scare me, I have personal experience of surviving sleep thank you very much.”

“Um…do you remember the sucker who thought he had been through hundreds of safe teleportations? Another instance of the process drawing on the same intact pool of memories does start when you wake up, after all.”

“…”

“Anyways, good night! I guess since there is a good chance that I won’t ever be seeing you again, I should be saying good bye too.”

Hollis Gommer sat on a bench, one shoelace irreverently untied, the laces brushing against the dusty concrete, the other tied in a pristine double knot, hardly untied for several days now. The evening sun beat upon the back of his head, even filtered through several layers of pink and orange clouds. He wondered somewhere in the back of his mind why his hair felt so warm, like his back was to an oven, he thought. He wondered what was cooking in that oven. It must be cornbread, he could almost smell it, a slightly sweet, slightly pungent aroma wafting lazily up one nostril, down the other and across his tongue. He could taste it, the grainy yellowness, buttered, with jam, blackberry, not the stuff with the little seeds that catch between each and every tooth, but the smooth kind, a little bitter, a little sweet.

A bus went by. He looked at the old digital wristwatch on his right hand—the six-forty two. He needed the seven-something. He thought to himself, which was it, the O-one, the twelve? Damn it all. He looked to his left, north, from where he came, not too long ago, still too recent to know the bus system he reckoned. He looked to his right, south, he thought, home, somewhere.
There was nothing around him. The road was cracked and dry. A slight breeze gave relief to the droplets forming on his forehead, and he let out a sigh. The cold of the night would fall soon. He knew that he needed to be indoors before the sun fell. He looked back behind him towards the sun and squinted, his eyes feeling like they would split in four, roll back and stretch by the very optical nerve down his low cheekbones.

The orange and blue that swirled around the sun quickly faded to the east into a deep velvety purple. Far off into the horizon, specks started appearing, little pricks of light, little pricks Hollis thought, who are they? Burning for thousands of years, sitting in space, spinning around, twirling their celestial dance to no end, to no cadence, to no rhythm, to nothing, no point. He turned his head back to the sun, almost at the horizon and thanked himself for it. He knew as well as anyone only one thing. The buses didn’t run once the sun went down.

He looked to his right and saw something far off in the distance. A cloud of dust, nothing more he thought, but it got closer, a rickety old school bus it looked like, the side panels long since faded from their bold yellow into a grimy filth. He tried to place the color as the bus drew nearer—white maybe? No, eggshell white? He tried to think harder as a slight pain erupted in his left temple—eggshell—he was hungry enough to take even one of those right now, but cornbread would be better.

The sun was almost down and a shiver went through his spine. He crossed the road and waited. The old machine rattled closer and closer. Something about it didn’t sit right in the pit of his bowels. As it came closer and closer, he could tell that it was moving at a speed that no vehicle of that age could handle, it had to have been going ninety down that old desert road. Ninety? Maybe eighty, his eyes were deceiving him, no it had to be going only fifty. He realized then that it was slowing down, forty maybe, thirty. It screeched to a halt in front of him and the door opened. The bus driver sat behind the wheel, crouched down, white wispy hair hanging low below his eyes. Hollis couldn’t see his eyes. They remained trained forward staring at the road. His stomach did something of a somersault as he stared at the steps leading up to the bus. A dried green slime caked the steps, bleeding over like a stagnant waterfall, dripping over, step by step by step.

He looked up at the driver.

Still nothing. He heard no voices coming from the bus, only the low rumble of an engine far past its prime.
He listened still, stillness, Hollis stood still, he looked at his watch on his left wrist now—fifty-seven. Close enough? He thought to himself. A bus is a bus. Even  Hollis couldn’t deny that fact. A bus. Is a bus. Maybe going to way from which he came, but still, he looked to the west at the sun, now half below the horizon, the purple spreading farther and farther to the west as the gold ochre disappeared.

Hollis stepped forward and grabbed the rail, hardly thinking. It felt cold in his hands, ice in his palms, sweaty from the sheer oddness of the vehicle, even Hollis thought it was strange, as if a single snowflake had fallen onto his tongue, melting quickly in a spike of chills. The seats were empty, the old fake leather cracking with no attempt at repairs, no tape or glue, just spiderwebbing fractures in nearly every seat.

“Sun’s almost down,” he said to the driver with a cautious smile as he took the front right seat.

“Hmm.” The driver kept looking forward through his matted and greasy hair. The engine roared as he slammed his right foot down on the accelerator. Hollis could feel himself being pressed back against the back of his seat and his heart leapt, skipping a beat, if he had been keeping track.
Hollis looked out the window at the scenery—nothing, nothing for miles, only dead grass and woody trees, no leaves, no bushes, only the quickly fading light casting long shadows over the land. Every last smudge of light in the east had been replaced with a deep velvety royal purple. The road seemed to go on and on, as the bus seemed to accelerate more and more. An orange moon was peeking out over the horizon.

“Moon’s coming up,” Hollis said, never breaking his gaze at the orb. He would swear that he could actually see it rising, making its nightly debut in the eastern sky.
“It’ll start soon,” said the driver, his eyes fixated on the road.
“What’s that?” It only then occurred to Hollis to wonder where he was going exactly. He only cared that he was on the bus going somewhere, maybe not the seven-something, but the late sixes is close enough to the early sevens, he supposed, six-forty five may have been better, safer he thought, what was this? The six-fifty two? Fifty seven? He wondered again what he should have taken. But, then again, a bus is a bus he thought, a bus is a bus is a bus, the wheels, the steering wheel, the engine, it goes, he thought and he stays still, he thought. His feet worked, but not well. He looked back out the window, the moon now in full view. He remembered a long time ago, sitting on a tire swing, hanging low from an old oak tree in someone’s yard, his papa’s, he thought, maybe, or maybe a neighbors, looking up at the moon, in the years before the grass died, before the sun had baked the dirt into a dusty cake.

“Where’s that?” He repeated.
“You got on the bus.” The driver replied nonchalantly, eyes still pasted to the road.
Hollis was confused.
“You got on the bus and the bus only goes one place.”
“Where’s that?” Hollis said once again.
“I only go one place.”
“Where’s that?” he said once again, starting to get aggravated, something that didn’t happen very often. He remembered the last time he had gotten aggravated; or rather he recalled what little he could of it, a red flash followed by running, lots of running, his feet hurting, his hands stained with something warm and squishy, he wasn’t sure why he was running, but his ankles buckled and he fell, fell hard onto the gritty ground, scraping his knees through his faded jeans, raw, a searing blinding heat shooting up his thighs into his stomach and he vomited—hard, expelling nothing.
“Only one place I go; you got on the bus, I thought you knew.”
He paused.
“I don’t turn around.” The driver said.
“Should I ask you to?” Hollis’ stomach fell several inches, into his colon it felt like and he felt like he was going to vomit nothing again.
The driver let out a low chuckle and offered no answer.

Hollis felt the bus slow down, he was pushed forward by the force of the rapid deceleration. His face squished against the cold textured barrier in front of him and the bus was stopped. He stood up and ran down the grimy steps. He found himself amidst crowds, crowds of a magnitude he had never seen before. It was a metropolis without the buildings. There were no buildings anymore, not like there used to be, not like the monolithic testaments to the empirical imperialism of mankind that used to dot the landscape like a rash on the earth.

No one was dressed well. Rags at best. Trench coats to keep warm against the night. Every single person seemed to be going in the same direction—towards a collection of bright fluorescent lights on the horizon, just over a hill.

Hollis lightly grabbed the arm of a passing stranger, “where is everyone going?”

The stranger looked at him, eyes glazed over, pupils dilated, and shied away as quickly as he could. Hollis resigned himself to simply follow the crowd. They were a motley crowd, clothed in everything from rags to the finest coats. Nobody seemed to speak a word, it struck him as odd. The silence to him seemed loud, his own thoughts seemed to grow louder, persistently begging him to neither turn back nor keep going, or to stay put. He would do no good here or there, there or here, hither, thither, point A or point Q, F, Y, or V, he thought, no points mattered anymore. He walked up the hill with the crowd and just as the hill came to a peak, he could see a massive behemoth of a structure, at least ten stories high, at least, perhaps even more, he couldn’t tell. Hollis stopped where he stood and looked, and stared, he could do no more, he had not seen such a structure since, since—he thought harder, since the hospital, he thought, but maybe that was smaller, it sure seemed big, but his cold white room was small and sterile, two beds and a roommate rocking back and forth in the fetal position murmuring to himself, the queen, she stole it, she stole my heart, the damned queen, stole my spade, how can I dig now, I have to dig my own grave, gravity is lying, if you’re not dying you’re lying, if you’re lying you’re still dying every day, they sun passes, bakes the earth, the earth roasts, roasts in a pan, panning back and forth, of course, of course, of course—Hollis would cover his ears—of course, courtly fanatics fantasize over the strangest thing, don’t you think Hollis? Hollis? He pressed his hands over his ears even tighter—Hollis? He grew louder. Can’t you see it’s all a lie? If you’re dying you’re lying if you’re lying you’re still dying just putting on a store front, window shopping through life, I forgot, I should call my wife, she doesn’t know I took a vacation—you’re not married, Hollis thought, his hands over his ears as tight as they could possibly be.

The biggest thing since the hospital, but monumentally larger, it was round, shaped like a pie tin with an open roof, all stark and bare concrete, a gray slate colored smooth surface from what he could tell. The walls of the structure angled out slightly, supported by immense columns of the same makeup, cold grey, smooth, industrial. The whole thing looked like it was barely finished.

He ventured down the hill, still following the crowd, growing louder and louder with each passing step, a general hum in his ears, and he was glad, his thoughts were covered, gently muffled like a pillow over his cognitive ears, no more former roommate babbling on. He recalled further what he could, a red flash, no running this time, just a red flash across his eyes and an burst of motion across the room. Not until he could feel the warm throbbing of his throat in between his hands was his roommate quiet, but still his words echoed after attendants rushed in and restrained him, if you’re not lying you’re dying if you’re lying you’re still dying slowly, painfully, more painfully than any pins forced beneath your fingernails, slowly, hear them squish as they force the flesh out…

Hollis felt no anger towards his old roommate. It only was. And was it was, he thought, thinking, was, he thought, wondering again what this building was. He could hear noise from it, a dull roar, a hissing, like white noise from a television set, like the slow trickle of a whispering stream intensified, over a waterfall, tumbling down with the television set, the glass tubes and bowed out screen cracking and splitting as they chased the water down the rocks.

He thought he could hear the glass breaking as he drew nearer and nearer to the building. He could tell now that it was a kind of stadium. He tried to fight his way out of the crowd, but it was too dense, people were packed shoulder to shoulder as they filed into an entrance, a door at least twenty feet high, twenty? He thought, maybe thirty? Before he could determine the exact height of the entrance, it was too late, he was already in.
As soon as he entered the monstrosity of a structure, the high density of the crowd immediately slackened, no longer shoulder to shoulder, Hollis finally felt like he could breathe again. He let each breath slowly enter his lungs, and exit his lungs, enter, exit, in, out, inhale exhale, he thought as the violet blue electricity running through his nerves subsided into a dull hum. It seemed to be the same kind of crowd as outside, eclectic in their mix, electric in their energy, all abuzz about something, something was happening, something was transpiring. Hollis realized that he was in a smaller hall, even though the ceiling was about three stories high. Vendors stood alongside the walls shouting out words that Hollis couldn’t recognize at the top of their lungs, an attempt to draw in customers. The walls were just as bare as the outside of the structure, flat matte concrete, a dull bluish grey. It seemed fresh almost, like it had been built less than a few hours ago, but he knew that it had to have been longer than that, at the same time, it seemed as though it had sat there for a millennia, untouched by the years, unscarred by the rain, unscathed by the thunder and passing wind, blowing over the desert plains in furious gusts on almost a nightly basis, kicking up dust in giant cyclones of litter and dirt, floating across the flatlands.
The smaller hall seemed to be adjacent to a much larger room, from which emanated a sound, a dull roar, what had to have been the voices of twenty-thousand people or more, all attempting to talk over one another, not shouting, but cumulatively an aural force to be reckoned with. He stepped into the main room in what was clearly now a stadium. A sea of faces seemed to all stare at him as he walked into one of the upper levels.

He was tired. He felt like he had been on his feet for hours. He looked at his watch, approaching midnight it looked like, perhaps he had, but he couldn’t recall exactly. It didn’t matter. There were places to sit, benches, made out of that same concrete, that same blue-gray cement. He squeezed into one of the rows, already packed with people and managed to find a seat between two larger men, both seeming to look down at him as he took his seat.

The lights changed. They went from a neutral white light to a deep soft amber, and changed again to a heavy scarlet. The crowd went silent.
Down in the middle of the stadium was a stage, a small platform, no more than maybe ten feet high, with a staircase leading up to it. A man climbed the staircase as the lights changed again, this time to turquoise, a color that seemed to hurt Hollis’ eyes. He squinted and he could see a small man walk up onto the stage as the crowd’s noise fell down from its dull roar. The man had no microphone, no amplification, but his deep voice carried to each and every set of ears in the massive stadium.

“If you aren’t lying you’re dying.” Hollis’ ears perked up and his eyes narrowed; the lights shifted back to red. “And if you’re lying, still, still as the night in rebound flight, you’re dying,” he knew this man, he remembered again back at the hospital, his hands around his neck, a rush of attendants and a quick shot to the rear then silence and restraint. “Still-hearted over cold hands with the one, tick, two, tock, three across an ivory face, to wherever mice may flee and men will flock,” the crowd cheered, “when they see and hear the hands and bells at ten just to pretend no ringing touched them, even then, only a small heart and smaller mind to defend,” a sense of rage began to build in Hollis, “they’re lying, but no, it’s only pretend, no mice of men the truth, failed to defend, only a deaf ear, of fear, of pain of washed out chalk in the summer rain, defend the one ear, but the rat of mice defends both, no pretend there, a blind ear to fear, no way to see scared.” The crowd erupted in applause and cheering. “Enjoy the spectacle,” he ended.

Hollis’ neighbor looked at him, “You look tense.”
Hollis said nothing.
“Here,” he said handing Hollis a green metallic bottle “drink this.” Hollis thought nothing of it, he was, after all, quite thirsty. He downed the entire bottle in a few swigs, it felt strange in his throat, bubbly, but not carbonated, lightly fluffy, he thought, and it was sweet, oh was it sweet, it made his teeth hurt for some reason, not a sharp pain, but a dull ache, somewhere in the back of his mind it registered that he perhaps shouldn’t drink something of this nature, but he was too enthralled with what was going on down on the floor.

Two of the largest doors Hollis had ever seen opened up on opposite ends of the stadium and two beasts emerged, one feline looking, blue with white stripes, the other bright orange, reptilian in nature. They stood at the opposite ends and seemed to stare down each other, both with hands at holsters. The crowd was silent and Hollis could hear the swift breeze outside echoing through the many doors and openings of the arena.
“You feel it yet?” whispered his neighbor.
Hollis wasn’t sure what he meant. What was he supposed to feel, he wondered as he often did.
“You all right buddy?” Hollis wasn’t sure again but something seemed off. His nerves were buzzing again, a violet-purple wave of electricity seemed to run through his body, from the tips of his toes to the top of his skull, buzzing, vibrating violently in an array of some bizarre sensation he had never felt before.

He pulled back from his neighbor as the man’s right eye slowly lowered itself onto his high cheekbone. The man’s eyebrows furrowed and they didn’t stop rising, they raised up into a perfect bushy point, far above his hairline. Hollis took deep breaths, in, out, inhale, exhale, he thought, just keep breathing, he thought, but no amount of breathing seemed to bring him enough oxygen. His chest expanded and contracted, painfully almost.

His heart leapt as the crowd erupted; he looked down below him and all he could see was a violent torrent of red and orange, blue and white. He looked back at his neighbor. His eye seemed to be back closer to his socket, and he let out a sigh of relief, only to be jolted back again when his neighbor almost aggressively nudged him and gave him a sadistic smile, “I knew you’d like it.”

The crowd continued cheering as the colors went back and forth, occasionally backing off from each other long enough for Hollis to see the two beasts, their sides moving up and down in labored breath, clearly torn from the relatively serious altercation. A wave of energy ran through his spine once again, making him feel nauseous, he bent forward and heaved but nothing came out, after all, he had a difficult time recalling the last thing he had eaten.

He looked back at his neighbor and tried to ask what he had given him, but no words came out, his tongue seemed to be frozen in between his cheeks. He looked at his watch to see how much time had passed—three-forty two. A jolt ran through his body once again as he wondered how much time could have possible passed. Had he really just watched the swirling spectacle for over two hours, or three hours? Was it four? How long had he been in that seat? His mind turned back to his ex-roommate from the hospital and Hollis wondered where he was now. He was obviously still somewhere in the arena. He looked back at his watch and he realized he could no longer make any sense of the numbers, they were all just points of light on his wrist, emanating a strange neon glow onto his arm, stretching and swirling around his arm-hair, twisting and contorting in shapes he had never seen or even contemplated before.
The crowd cheered again and it was over. The dull roar of a thousand intoxicated conversations resumed as people started to file out of the place. Hollis tried to slip through the crowd as quickly as he could to get back out into the open air. He went through and between, maybe even over, he couldn’t tell and he didn’t care, he just wanted to be back. Back where? He thought. Back where, back where, not the hospital, not the bus stop, he tried to remember where he had been before, before, before the bus stop, before the hospital, before the road…

He found his neighbor again and he grabbed his arm, “how do I get out of here?”
“What do you mean, you follow the crowd and leave.”
“Is there a bus?”
“Take the four-thirty six.” He said.
Four-thirty six, thirty six, thirty six, he repeated in his head, he couldn’t forget, he needed to be out, to be away to be back to be somewhere once again.

He was out. The wind had picked up and was fiercely howling from the west. It kicked up the dirt and stung his face and the grit got into his eyes. The crowd seemed to melt into one entity, uniformly swaying back and forth, walking back up the hill towards nothing.

Or maybe something. He could hear the rumble of an engine, maybe two or three. As he walked up the hill, they sound became louder, much stronger, and he knew that there was a possible way out, a way back, back somewhere, a somewhere he didn’t know but a somewhere nonetheless—a somewhere is a somewhere.
He looked at his watch, the numbers making something of sense once again—four-twenty two. He breathed a sigh of relief, he still had time.

Hollis was on the tail end of the crowd and his legs were hurting again, they burned like they had never burned before, he kept stopping to look at the path he was on as it twisted and contorted like everything else around him, marveling at how he was able to keep a straight line in walking. The bland colors that he had seen before were now all shades of green and brown, blue, and an occasional red in the dirt. He finally came to the peak of the hill and saw buses of all shapes and colors leaving. His heart sank as his possibility for a ride diminished. But there was one left, the same one, it seemed, that had taken him there to begin with, the same eggshell-white rickety old schoolbus. He quickly got on the bus and the driver gave him no regards yet again, he just stared through his white and gray greasy cheek-length hair.

The engines rumble grew as he shifted out of neutral and into gear, the vibrations shaking Hollis’ body and making him want to vomit again, his stomach twisting and turning, not unlike his surroundings, still at times an amorphous blob of all sorts of colors and shapes, things he could not reckon with, things he could not make sense of.

The bus started down the road, slow at first. Hollis looked out the window and saw that they were on a bridge over some large body of water, the moon, now high in the sky, reflecting boldly over the water shone brightly into his dilated pupils. He looked down at his seat, trying to escape the inundation of discernment, something he had long since lost, he thought to himself as best he could, is this the world? Where have I been? He looked back out of the window and saw that they were no longer on the bridge but in a forest, a dark dense blend of dark evergreens and woody browns, and even though it was dark, he could see yellow ochre, bright crimson and the deepest orange he had ever seen, realizing then that it was fall. His stomach twisted in his gut and he wanted to vomit again but he knew nothing would come out, he knew that nothing good would come from trying.

It went faster and faster as the driver kept his glare at the road and shifted into higher and higher gears, more gears, it seemed, than a bus ought to have. Hollis was spinning in his seat, his eyes going from the forest outside to the floor of the bus, to the driver, to the floor, to the road outside through the front window, to the forest again, in all its vivid colors and he still wanted to vomit, his whole body spinning on its cosmic axis, its own entity hurtling through space at speeds unknown.

The bus stopped and Hollis got off as quickly as he could.

The sun was close to rising. Hollis could see the distant pink on the eastern horizon. He looked around and he was back in the deserted nothing.

Credit To – c

Dear Survivor-
If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead. It’s for the best.

You see, about four or five days ago, a storm rolled in. Now, this in and of itself isn’t anything strange. The clouds and the rain though, they had a yellow tint to them. It smelled weird and tasted funny too, none of us could really nail down what it tasted like, and all we knew is that it was some sort of chemical or other.

Now, the important thing to know is that we’re a small Hoosier farming community, maybe 1,500 or so people, so unless some radical has a grudge against corn and soybeans, I doubt it was a terrorist attack.

Anyway, a few hours after that weird rainstorm started, people started getting violently sick. The ones affected couldn’t stop throwing up, there were reports of extreme nausea and even an onset of what they thought was tuberculosis, because the ones diagnosed had a bloody and agonizing cough.

Authorities noticed a trend almost immediately after people started getting sick, in that it seemed only fairly weak people got ill. The sick, old, and young were the only ones who got sick with those violent symptoms. It retrospect though, they got the easy way out.

People that were diagnosed with the illness, dubbed the Yellow Rain Fever, died just hours after getting sick. Some of the victims’ immune systems who were already sick just couldn’t handle the increased fever and vomiting, some were simply too weak to handle much of a sickness in the first place, like the old and the very young, and some actually died of blood loss due to the consumption like cough. But they all died shortly after getting ill.

When people were nearing death, they started hallucinating, or what we thought were hallucinations at the time. They all saw these, dark, shadowy humanoid figures with glowing yellow eyes, lurking in dark corners or just inside unlit rooms.

There were only three or four accounts of these figures, due to the fact that almost no one could speak in their final moments of the sickness. It was enough though, people with the same disease sharing the same hallucinations, it made almost everyone extremely paranoid, as common or shared hallucinations, they reasoned, meant a type of drug or chemical.

After the reports came in of these shared hallucinations, the most paranoid of our population started barricading themselves in their homes. Said they were going to wait out the storm, literally and figuratively.

When most of the initial victims had passed, we started seeing fairly normal people getting extremely sick. Healthy, middle aged people getting the same symptoms, and worse, some of the victims actually faced necrosis before their deaths.  The second wave of people who were sick didn’t even make two hours. Same as before, there were several reports of people seeing those black, shadowy figures with the glowing yellow eyes, waiting in corners or dark rooms.

Our small town was devastated at this point; we had lost two or three hundred people by now. And I was absolutely stricken with grief when my dear wife Muriel, may God rest her soul, was diagnosed with the Fever.

By the time we had lost another 100 people, and the disease was announced to be contagious, we were quarantined by the CDC, and government agents were coming in to check out the town decked out in air-tight radiation suits, said they were trying to find the cause of the storm.

Not even an hour after the agents came in, they evacuated. The thing is though; there was no story about this on the news. I don’t know what those CDC guys did, but apparently no one was able to contact the media. There was a mention of a flu epidemic in our town, and that’s it.

My friend, Mark, came over to my house almost immediately after the report on the news aired.
“A flu epidemic?” He yelled, absolutely enraged. “We’ve lost almost five-hundred people to this bastardized mix of symptoms from tuberculosis and food poisoning, and they say it’s the damn flu?” I tried to get him to calm down, but he wouldn’t have it. He said he was going to go get out of town, to try and contact the news, something, anything but staying here waiting to die.
The thing is, I kind of agreed with him, I’d much rather go out fighting rather than sitting around and praying not to get this damned fever. There was something in my gut telling me it would be a bad idea to try and get out. I told Mark that I was going to stay here for the time being, he said fine, that if I wanted to die here as a passive waste, that was my decision.
So Mark left in his truck to try and escape the quarantine. It was the last time I saw him alive.

Things got progressively worse from there. First, the disease spread, there were reports of another five hundred people infected. Of course national news was worthless, but channel six, the local news, was running a Fever Watch. That’s how I got most of my information.
After the next wave of reported infections, symptoms got worse again. Pre-death necrosis was a symptom of almost everyone with the disease at that point, not just an unlucky few. Victims also getting extremely paranoid as their illnesses progressed. Almost all of them were scared of the same thing, of the dark, shadowy figures with yellow eyes creeping in dark areas.

Our whole town was in hysterics, people who had boarded up their homes early were envied. Looting and arson was widespread, our town was a chaotic symphony of anarchy.
As the disease spread, nearly seven hundred people had succumbed to the Fever. There were some really minor details that unnerved the living hell out of me, like how the infected started saying the figures were getting closer, not lurking in just pitch black areas anymore.
I was mortified when Muriel, who had only had a slightly wet cough and a light temperature up until that point, started screaming about dark figures lurking in the corners.

When the local news reported our population was nearing eight-hundred after only nine hours after the first yellowish storm cloud rolled in, I locked myself where I am now, in our cellar.

Muriel’s already gone, those damned shadow men got her, and they ripped her throat out. Those news stories were bullshit and I know it, it was these fucking creatures that lurk in the dark that killed everyone. I know, because I’ve seen what they can do firsthand. Muriel’s lying upstairs in a puddle of her own blood because of those figures.

They’re watching me now, with those hungry and greedy yellow eyes. They want me, I can see the dark desires, the urge to feed in their eyes when they stare at me. They’re sitting in the corners, where the light doesn’t reach, waiting for me to make one wrong move, to turn my back or fall asleep, well I’ll be damned if I get eaten by some God-forsaken monster.

They think they have me, I can hear them now, their joyous whispers; they’ve seen my bloody cough. The beasts’ whispers are deafening now, they know I’m growing weaker. What they don’t know however, is that I’ve taken a lesson from Mark. I still have the power of choice. Do I want to go out in defiance, or sitting, waiting for the inevitable? I have to remember to pray to my dad, thank him for leaving me his revolver.

They’re getting closer. I have a few minutes at most, they’re getting closer. At least I get to end this how I want it to end, not how they want it to.

–

Subject: FORWARD ALL; ADDENDUM, SITUATION REPORT 37-B
To: ALL
From: ADMINISTRATOR PAIGE

Message: Hello ladies and gentlemen, I’d first like to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Now, as you can see from the attached document, Project Ion Rain was a massive success. Only ten hours after the weapon was activated, our city of choice was almost completely eradicated. With initial reports saying that 95% of the population died due to disease,4% are clinically insane, and 1% having committed suicide, as you can see from the document above.

Yes I know, there are ethical issues involved in this, why test Ion Rain on our own citizens? First off, the equipment involved to actually produce the deadly toxins from seemingly thin air are not carried around or smuggled easily. And it takes weeks of preparation; we simply don’t have the resources to smuggle this Project into an enemy country and keep the thing hidden.

And the way I figure the situation, and the President agrees with me on this one, is that if we can blame this incident on a terrorist attack, we’ll have the backing of the public to invade whoever we decide to blame.

Well, see you all on Monday, have a nice weekend.

Sincerely, Paul Paige, Administrator of the Central Intelligence Agency.

 

Credit To – Josh M.

Annie ran away again the other night. It took me hours to find her in the park, going back and forth on the swings without a care in the world, like she had every right to be there. And she dyed her hair again, blonde this time. I didn’t want to make a fuss with all those people around, so I caught her on the backswing and dragged her home kicking and screaming like a lunatic. It was humiliating: I had to smile and shrug at all the people staring like it didn’t bother me.

As soon as we were home, I sent Annie to her room. She just sat there on the bed, crying and crying. The way she carried on, I didn’t have the heart to yell at her for running away. I guess that’s the real problem, this lack of discipline. I’ve never been good at tough but fair. I’m always going too far one way or the other.

Like a few months ago when she came at me with the kitchen knife. For a minute I really thought she was trying to hurt me, my own sweet angel. But afterward she just lay there in my arms so quiet, letting me stroke her hair and sing her a lullaby, like nothing had ever happened.

But then there was that other time when she started messing around with my doll collection. They’re such fragile things, my dolls, and Annie was playing so rough like she wanted to break them. I love those dolls: they remind me of when everything was easier, when I wasn’t stuck in this house all day long with Annie’s tantrums and Bill’s moping. I got upset, and I hit her. I was so ashamed, when she ran away that night I didn’t go after her right away. I just stayed there, crying and feeling like the worst mother in the world.

I tried to be gentler after that, more understanding. So instead of getting cross with Annie, I let her stay in her room and cooked her some dinner. I turned up the TV real loud so I wouldn’t hear the racket she was making in there. She makes such a mess sometimes, and it makes me so angry, the way she breaks her things like she doesn’t even care about them anymore. I bought her a puppy once, but she wouldn’t even touch it, like she was scared of it. The very day I decided to take it back to the pet store, it vanished. I found Annie in the backyard, holding a little trowel, sitting on a pile of dirt. I helped her wash up and never mentioned it again.

I made her favorite food, macaroni and cheese, hoping it might calm her down. But as soon as I opened the door she slammed into me, trying to get past. I almost dropped the food everywhere wrestling with her like that. She had this wild look in her eyes, like an animal. It scared me, being alone in there with her when she was like that. I put the food on her desk and gently pushed her toward the chair.

“I made it just the way you like,” I told her, smiling and trying not to look as afraid as I felt.

She stared at me like she didn’t understand a word I was saying.

“Will you eat some of it?”

“I don’t want to,” she said. Her voice sounded strange, different than I’d ever heard it before. I hope I didn’t shudder. I didn’t want to upset her.

“Please, Annie, I’m very worried about you.”

“That’s not my name.”

She likes to change her name sometimes. It worries me. One day she’s Beth, the next day Irene. It’s just like her hair, she changes it every time she runs away. I get so scared that one day I won’t be able to find her, and the police won’t be able to help because I won’t know what she looks like or what she’s calling herself.

“Sweetheart, I’d really like you to eat a little bit. Just a little, please, for mommy.”

And then she said, with the meanest look on her face, “You’re not my mommy.”

It hurt so much. It felt like a stab to my heart. Tears welled up in my eyes before I could stop them, so I turned away. I heard her scramble onto the bed, her fingernails scratching like little claws on the posts. When I looked back, she had her back pressed against the corner of the room, legs drawn up to her chest, rocking back and forth. Staring at me with those wild animal eyes.

“I love you, Annie,” I said with as much dignity as I could manage. “But sometimes I just don’t know how to deal with your behavior.”

She screamed. Just this one long, loud, echoing screech, like a siren. Her mouth was wide open, but her face was blank. I covered my ears, got out of the room and closed the door behind me.

I had to collect myself before I could go see Bill. He’s been so odd lately, I don’t want to worry him anymore.

I got a second plate of the macaroni and brought it to the bedroom. That’s where he spent all his time, lying in bed.

“Honey, I made dinner.”

He didn’t answer, didn’t even roll over to look. I picked up the plate from this morning, the food on it untouched, and put the new one down where he could reach it.

“Annie’s back. I found her in the park. She’s pitching a fit in her room already.”

He must’ve heard the screaming. I always tried to keep her quiet, told her that daddy needed rest, but she never listened. Sometimes I wondered if he could even hear her. He never got up to see what was wrong.

I knelt beside the bed and looked into his eyes. He stared back at me, not saying a word. He’d been like ever since the first time Annie ran away. They’d been alone together. Then she had run off, and he’d stopped talking. He lay down in bed and never got up again. Lost his job, lost so much weight. He hardly even looked like the man I’d married.

I kissed him on the forehead and left. As I closed the door behind me, I thought I saw him start to get up, but I guess I must have imagined it.

Annie kept on with that awful screaming for hours. I stayed in the living room, sitting on our big three-person couch alone. I turned up the TV as loud as I could, played music, turned on the blender, tried everything I could to drown out the awful screaming. It was like nails being driven into my ears, like spiders crawling up my neck, like ice water splashing on my legs.

Finally it stopped. I thought maybe she’d finally tuckered herself out, but then the scratching started. That was almost worse. It started out quick, rhythmic, but it got slower as time went on. Sometimes Annie would make a noise, like she was crying again. I started to worry that she might be hurting herself, but I couldn’t get that awful thing she had said to me or that wild look in her eyes out of my head. I just stayed in the living room and tried to sleep.

I don’t know how it got to be like this. I’ve thought about taking her to a doctor, but they always give her these strange looks. It’s gotten to where I don’t dare to go to the same doctor twice: I’m afraid they might be thinking of taking her away from me, of doing something awful to her.

I’ve thought about calling in a priest. I know that must sound crazy, but the way she gets sometimes, like she doesn’t even know me, it scares me so much. She’ll call out to people who aren’t there, shout names I don’t know like they’re real people. And there was that business with the kitchen knife. It wasn’t the first time she’s tried to hurt me. She smuggles rocks into the house and tries to hit me with them when my back is turned. When she gets really wild she’ll bite and claw at me. Some days I start to wonder if she’s really my little girl, or something else, wearing her face, haunting me.

After a long time the scratching stopped and everything got quiet. I sighed with relief. The house is so much nicer when it’s quiet.

I looked at the clock and could hardly believe how late it was. She must have finally fallen asleep. When I looked over at her door, I saw the light still on through the cracks. Quiet as I could, I tiptoed over. I would just peek in, turn off the light. Maybe give her a little kiss good night.

I opened the door just a crack, but that was all it took. She slammed through, knocked me to the floor, and scrambled away.

“Annie stop!” I shouted. She was going right to our bedroom, making so much noise I was sure it would wake Bill up.

She shoved through our door and I ran after. But inside she was just standing there, staring at the bed.

“Sweetheart, daddy’s sleeping,” I hissed.

She started screaming again, even louder than before. She pointed at Bill and screamed and screamed. I shushed her, tried to tell her he was sleeping.

But she wouldn’t stop. She screamed and screamed. The sound pierced through me, tore apart every nerve in my body. I covered my ears and scratched at my face and soon I was screaming too, just as loud as she was. I took her up in my arms and we screamed together. I hugged her as tight as I could, squeezed her to me, wishing I could do something, anything to make it stop. I held her so close I could feel her heartbeat, how soft and quiet it was, growing quieter and quieter.

She stopped screaming, there in my arms, and soon I stopped too. I sank to my knees, holding my little girl in my arms, stroking her hair.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that. It was so dark in the bedroom.

I looked down at Annie, but it wasn’t Annie at all. I was holding one of my dolls.

I must have fallen asleep, holding her there, and she snuck away and put a doll in my arms instead. It was a funny doll, one I didn’t remember having. It had such lovely blonde hair.

I felt so silly, holding that doll like that for who knows how long. I got up and carried it to the closet where I keep the other dolls and laid it there. There were so many dolls, and they were all so big, I was starting to run out of room. But I couldn’t throw them out. They were so pretty, such lovely little dolls. They all looked different, but every single one reminded me of Annie.

I checked around the house, but she was gone. She must have been very upset, to run away twice in just two days. I got my coat on and got ready to go look for her again.

Before I left, I went back to the bedroom to check on Bill. Somehow all the noise hadn’t bothered him at all. I touched his forehead, but he didn’t seem any different. My fingers stuck a little bit, and there was some funny green stuff left on them afterward. I wiped it off on the bed and said goodbye.

It was such a lovely day outside. I took a deep breath of the fresh air. I love our house, but every once in a while I notice the worst smell in there.

Somewhere off in the distance, I heard the sound of children laughing. It was so nice to hear after all that awful noise last night. Maybe Annie thought so too. I followed the laughter.

Credit To – Gray

Everything started out normal. It was just a simple nightmare, right? But the more I thought about it, the more unlikely that sounded. No nightmare could be that detailed, that gruesome. At first I thought I was alone in that dream, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. There was something there, in the far corner of the room. It sat there, watching, waiting, taunting me, almost drawing me towards it. It looked like a statue, made of dark stone with glittering eyes made of rubies. It’s hands were crossed over it’s heart, as if holding a small object close. Silently, I walked towards the object, somehow knowing I would regret the decision. It was only a few feet away now. Something was off about the statue. It had a deathly cold air around it, almost like an invisible wall that you had to push through to get past. Once I was only a foot away, I immediately knew what was off about it. This wasn’t a statue. No, far from it to be exact. It was some sort of…phantom, reaper, whatever way you want to describe it. It just stood there, unwavering, unblinking. I desperately wanted to move away, to turn and run as far away as possible, though something rooted me to that exact spot. Was it fear? Fascination? Maybe a little bit of both? Whatever it was, I despised the feeling for keeping me in such a dangerous spot.

It all happened so fast. First, I was standing there, watching the creature. Then, it lunged at me, wrapping it’s robed arms around me, the cold air chilling me to the bone. I blinked, a new scene unraveling in front of me. I couldn’t exactly describe where I was, because there was nothing around me except snow. The white fluff was blowing in the wind, like ice cold razors cutting through my flesh. All sense of direction was lost, replaced by desperation to get out of the freezing temperatures. Sprinting off in what I thought was north, I stumbled a few times, quickly getting up in fear that something was chasing me. I must have been running for hours, though I couldn’t tell. Off in the distance, I thought I saw what looked like a cave. It was still a good two hundred yards away, but surprisingly clear through the blizzard. Seeing it as my only option, I ran towards the entrance, finally stumbling into the blackness. Upon reaching the bottom, I found myself in a jungle, heat beating down on me, the sweat refusing to evaporate into the already humid air. Getting up, I brushed the dirt off my pants, carefully slinking through the trees and undergrowth, not wanting to attract any unwanted guests. There was a sound in the distance, almost sounding like an elderly man’s voice. Ignoring it at first, I continued to walk, the man’s voice getting louder with each step until I reached a small clearing. In the center, an old man sat, his knees pulled to his chest. The man’s back was towards me, but as I walked around him, I was surprised, no, terrified when I saw what he looked like. Pale, emotionless eyes sunken into his skull. Thin lips muttering something I couldn’t hear. Skin wrinkled and burnt from sitting in the blistering hot sun. The man looked up at me, recognition flashing in his gaze. “I saw you in my dream. Can you save us?” He asked, still rocking back and forth. The words shocked me, and as I backed away, he repeated himself. Over and over he spoke the words, each time his eyes growing wider and wider, his voice raising to a shout. Turning, I sprinted off in the direction away from the clearing, though the words still followed me the whole way.

Another few hours passed, and I was in a field. The change of scenery confused me, and I knew that it had to have something to do with the reaper that attacked me. Off on the horizon, there was a mountain, it’s peak reaching high above the clouds. Walking towards it, I tripped over something, falling onto my face. Turning, I saw what looked to be a young girl, about 13 years old, laying in the grass, her hands folded over her chest. “Don’t believe what they say. You’re dreaming. You have to wake up,” She said, returning to her pensive state. Backing away, I continued my trek towards the mountain, though I didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Frustrated, I kicked a stone, falling back onto the ground. There was a cold wind, red eyes flashing above me before the world went black.

**

A soft dripping sounded in the distance, soft whispers followed by a beep…beep…beep. I didn’t open my eyes in fear of seeing the reaper, continuing to listen to what was going on. There was a louder voice off in the distance, and I sat up, my eyes opening to take in a white hospital room, flowers and a card sitting on the table next to me. There were doctors out in the hallway, whispering softly. One must have seen me, because they all rushed into the room, huddling around my bed. “What did you see? Did you dream? Was it there?” They asked, all the questions making my head start to ache. Someone from the back of the crowd hushed everyone, pushing his way to the front. He was tall, and though he only looked to be about twenty-two, he had dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. “Let the poor girl wake up a little first,” He said, setting a clipboard down on the edge of my bed. “Here, I’ll explain,” He said. “Police found you in the woods about a mile away from your house. There were several puncture wounds all over your body, and you were shivering as if you were in the snow without a coat. A few of us checked you out, though we were unable to identify the cause of said wounds. You’ve been in a coma for over two years,” The doctor explained, his eyes dark in sadness. “During the coma, we have written down several things you have said in your sleep, most of them inexplicable,” He said, looking down at the clip board. “Your stable now, so you’re free to go home any time you wish,” The doctor said, grabbing his clipboard and heading out of the room. A nurse handed me my clothes, the rest of them leaving the room to let me get changed. After doing so, I walked to the lobby to check out.

**

That same night, I crawled into my bed, pulling the blankets up to my chin and looking out the window. The branches rattled against the window in the wind, making me jump every time they brushed against the glass. I could’t seem to shake the memory of the reaper, especially the red eyes. Something about them seemed so foreign, yet so familiar. Shaking my head, I turned over so my back was facing the window, deciding to think about it in the morning. Closing my eyes, I heard a soft whisper.

“Sleep tight… I’ll be waiting.”

At my young tender age, painting was the only psychoanalysis I ever needed to retreat to, or how common people call it therapy. Every hour in the morning until the sun rises, my brush strokes back and forth. It tells a part of a story I wish to tell, but I am only full of fear. The brush strains itself dry with repressed fear as its ink.

What did I paint this time in the morning?

 

A bird.

My first night under the new full moon in the summer was an everyday moment. The repeating cycle forced upon the cold shadows of what used to be formal civilization. I tried to close my eyes, entering into a tranquil state, relieving myself from the pain of familiar faces.

Entering the other side of my mind, the visions and experiences to which my emotions created.

A dream. One night I entered.

One night I took in the unexpected.

One night I envisioned a corrupt identity.

Visions blurred around, but at once I reasoned to the fact I was falling into deep space. My eyes closed shut, to let the feeling sink in. Unsteadiness arose when my bare feet felt cool slabs of brick.

This is quite strange, I thought.

I’m outside.

There I was on my hands and feet, rising up to wave around, feeling any possible walls in this pitch-dark environment. Only two walls reached my grasp, side by side. If there was a passage, there was a way out. I took a light step forward with one hand on the wall. Light was up ahead, and my hand lost touch at the end. Something rushed by inches from my face. My eyes deceived me, for that was not a train, creature, or being, it was a coach.

A coach? Have I gone mad?

The rush of wind trailing behind caught my legs, forcing them back down on the pavement. Whatever this place was, nothing of modern living was shown. Old street lamps in black lighted each corner. All of the buildings were in a crimson color; to where I stood was an abandoned alley.

My Lungs dropped abruptly, choking and wheezing for a gasp of air. Grey paste retched out of my system, relieving the pain my lungs had.

“Oh! The indecency!” said a woman above me. The paste stained her dress and petticoat. She scrunched her little nose, tossing her head the other way. People treaded across the grey puddle, all mimicking the woman’s disgusted face.

Retreating to the alley was the only choice now. There was a stinging pain across my head and heavy shoulders dragged me down. Rest was inevitable now.

 

Very little time had passed in my struggle to rest. The night grew darker with nobody around. I had very shallow strength to walk, but it was not time to worry about.

The well-kept perfection of nothing out of place chilled my knees. There stood lit lamps, cool breeze, no quarrelsome ruffians or pestering chats. Everything kept in place.

I stood up at the sound of a slow clacking noise down the pavement. On a corner across the alley, stood a lamp where a shadow grew closer.

 

It was a woman.

The woman clicked in her heels quickly, clutching both arms in the cold. She lifted her head up to catch a glimpse of the night sky. Such an illuminating beauty she was. However her eyes encountered a different story. They sunk in deeply, losing color in the iris of what should have been hazel. The woman lowered her head on the lamppost, exhibiting weary highlights of indigo and violet in her hair. Outbursts of sobbing were all she did.

“Get the damn girl…Wait! There is no…either that filth…. YOU HEAR ME? DEAD!”

Unknown thoughts stung me various times, burrowing its messages in my head like swarming wasps. I kept bashing at my forehead, believing this was a demented illusion. Every vein retracted inside. Something was pulling strings, since I could not even twitch. The strain held back blood from my beating heart. It would skip for seconds until it ceased to beat at all. Death nearly took me away, but the hidden force released me and I collapsed.

Faint laughter was heard from the entity.

“…Lucky…sense…here…he…here…. He’s here. Fufufu-hahaha………such…queer…you…are…”

At the corner, the woman ceased to stop wailing. What stopped her wails was the sound of another’s footsteps. She flinched at its shadow coming near the lamppost.

The lamppost shined on a tall man in a dark cloak with his fingers in white and sharpened at the tip.

His face is what shook me.

Only a white bird mask covered his face. There was little skin on his right cheek, and red meat dangled on the side. The woman looked at the damage with sad eyes. I listened deeply to the woman’s voice of anguish, hearing not a hint of what I could understand. The man spoke softly to calm her down. She stomped a heel, yelling at him in frustration. He took a hard slap from the woman and yelled in agony of the dangling meat ripping away. His white hand seized her arm. She whimpered at his impatience, hearing the dark tone in his threat. But the man could not bear seeing her forlorn.

He openly embraced the woman, soothing her fear with words.

“You…ignore…happiness. Have…”

The entity returned.

I had enough of the message it tried to send.

“This cannot change on what I believe in. Possessive thoughts are for the driven.” I told the invisible being.

What was I saying…?

“Fools? You. Better…even the girl…DAMN LIFE-“

“SHUT UP!” I covered my ears, no to believe the insanity in me.

“Would…you…to be happy?”

“Happy?”

“Yes…only…to…rid…pain…slaughter…his…cherishment.”

There was a moment I had, looking at my right hand.

EVERYTHING HAS AN END.

 

The wretched bastard fooled me by being apologetic. Every day she visited less and less, until a note was written to me on how she was happy in Lock Haven, with him as her betrothed. Bitter days raised and desolate nights set. That was an end to our friendship. And my madness as an animal opened.

“End…it.” The entity murmured.

I tightened my right hand into its very grasp with crimson trickling down.

There was a blade in my hand.

Not a damn would be given over the pain; I slit the rest of my palm and held the handle in my left hand. The woman had been given the man’s cloak for warm comfort. They walked separated paths after dealing with conflict. I paced forward in her direction. She seemed detached of worries over any possible danger in the night.

 

I pounced upon the woman’s petite figure, stuffing my fingers in her mouth to block any uttering shriek.

My blade punctured her face numerous times. The absolute rush of releasing my demented rage was everything to me!

Pride. Wrath. Melancholy. Emotions representing harsh cloaked feelings.

Sympathy. Joy. Care. Emotions those are full of untouched beauty.

All the colors splattered around and mixed their contents to make sheer and brilliant crimson! Everywhere! EVERYTHING!

But everything has an end.

The man had dashed to her muffling cries, kicking me right off the woman. He pulled out a sword to finish me, but it turned to ashes. The man and woman disappeared.

And so did the world.

 

Dark dust rose with fog surrounding me. The dust formed a cloak; under its shadow was a hideous face with deep holes scowling in disgust.

Its neck creaked each inch, raising the head toward me. The being slurred:

“Envy has. …Become… Your master….”

The face outstretched itself, growing long teeth and a slick tongue. It charged right at me.

“NO!”

My lungs peaked at its height in an attempt to breathe. I was alone in bed, looking at the alarm clock.

5:09.

The sun has not risen yet.

My right hand seemed empty, no cuts, and no blade. Not even a dark thought that stung my head. I let out a deep sigh of solace. There was no need to go back to sleep. I had a conjecture over her happy ending. It was her fault for choosing that man. My only loss of regret was not choosing to see her again. Without a helping hand, she could have been lost. Seeing them both happy was enough to make me repulsed.

 

The thought made me chuckle a little.

“Five more minutes of sleep would do…”

 

Misery had always been The Artist’s great friend. Even in the lowest of times, I can’t help but reflect back on those dark times in my paintings.

Look, I even painted the moon, with one side dark and one side light.

 

 

Credit To – Atzin

(Based on a real life premonition.)

On the eve of his parents death Alex sat down at the dining table and poured himself a glass of crystalline red wine. He swirled it around in his mouth before swallowing and grimaced at sour grape-like taste that died on his tongue. Alex had never been much of a drinker ‘but then again’, he admitted to himself ‘I was always going to need some help today’. He shuffled in his seat lethargically to look at the dust-covered picture that hung from the wrought iron fireplace. In his mind he could see the hole that he had made in the sepia photo, burned through by three hundred and sixty five days of wonton staring.

His folks were gone, ridden a car into the great here-after, and deep down he knew he’d have to accept it one of these days, but for Alex the grief had not faded.

Far off in the depths of the oaken rafters a small snap resounded through the whole house. A clock chimed for one in the morning.

Otherwise the house was deathly quiet, and for a young man scarcely out of his teenage years the absence of sound rang louder in his ears than his preferred drum and bass solos. He hadn’t felt like listening to music in a long, long while, or doing anything else for that matter except try and re-order his heat oppressed brain. An entire year had come and gone without Alex ever leaving the family home.

Had Alex been born in any other time this would have been an impossible feat, as the hunter-gatherer instinct would have been his only recourse for daily nutrition but with the introduction of welfare cheques and cooked meals that could be delivered to your doorstep, Alex discovered he could withdraw from the world entirely. He could take up a permanent residence inside his head. Resigning himself to yet another evening of moroseness, Alex slumped down into his fathers old chair and felt for the familiar wrinkles in the leather or perhaps, if he were lucky, a handprint. The tragedy was that Alex had been a very active boy until his loss. How he used to run when his folks were still living. Alex remembered how he was able to for miles, and how proud it made his parents to see that Alex had placed a great deal of his time on fitness. ‘Great work ma boy’ his gruff old dad had said to him, a smile wide on his whiskered face. ‘We’ll make an athlete out of you yet, don-cha-know-it, only don’t forget your pa when you make it big!’

Alex sat up, faster than any movement he had made in the past seven months. This was a waste of life, and it was only now, on the anniversary of his perpetuated misery had he come to realise it. ‘This wasn’t the way his parents wanted him to live’ he had thought, and he intended to put that straight. Alex pulled up his grey tracksuit and headed to the green front door. Stretching out a hand, Alex had begun to notice a few things that struck him as odd. Like how whenever he’d look over at his parent’s photo, he couldn’t see them like he could see himself. In the photo, Alex had seen, a pacemaker suspended a meter and a half in thin air. Just a smallish plastic and metal pump floating in front of a Yorkshire countryside backdrop, and floating above that was a set of wickedly grinning dentures. These were the non-organic parts of his father, that and his mothers’ replacement hip; toward the left side of the picture was all Alex could see of them now. Alex placed a hand on the brass handle, ready to feel the cold night air on his face.

What had also seemed odd was that his memories of their deaths often changed. Sometimes he was sobbing uncontrollably into the sofa, allowing the phone to drop out of his hand when it called upon him to identify the bodies. Other times, he was there, out on the road, watching through a windscreen awash with streaky raindrops.

No. No, that wasn’t right. Sometimes he felt like he wasn’t witnessing two bodies flying over the dashboard, and land crumpling into a broken heap some twenty yards away. Sometimes he felt like he had only seen one. The latch clicked but Alex held the door in place, the full terror of his circumstances gripping at his insides. He took a sharp, quiet breath inward and let the final thought drift through his mind.

And sometimes it felt like he wasn’t moving his legs when he walked around the house, couldn’t remember how and when the delivery man had dropped off the takeaways, and why his internet was always dead.

That word. Had he been on the road that night?

Alex opened the door outward. And saw nothing. An inky black fog as far as he could fathom, was expanding and contracting in every direction. No houses, no cars, no street lamps. All Alex could see was a barren space, as wide as the imagination, and as blank as slate.

Slowly, Alex closed the door on the infinite void and let the memories of the past nine minutes fade out from his mind. Just like always, it was too much to bear. So he forgot. He would always forget. And so for the 8,193,495,194th year in a row, Alex locked his front door, and walked back into purgatory.

Credit To – Urbsun Psychic.

The wind brushing up against my face was common, but it never felt subtle to me. Never felt as if it was there to cool or comfort; only there to remind me of where I was. In my bed laid me – and in me laid my mind, which was a sanctuary where I reviewed the past events of life. Most nights, the same memories would flash across my mind – my temple. Occasionally, however, a past instance unbeknownst to me would arise in the inner confines of my brain. These instances were special. They proved to me that there was more than just the tangible memories. These memories weren’t real, yet they were. They had to be, or else how did I have them?

One night, the wind was prominent. It was grazing against my mind, urging it to think – and so like most nights, I would try to have thoughts until sleep fell upon me. That night was different though. It was different because I wanted to rest; I didn’t want to be kept awake in the complex and constant firings of the synoptic nerves inside me. Nevertheless, I knew that my longing to sleep was futile and so I succumbed to the scratchings against my skull. I tried to force a memory out from the caverns behind the millennia of compressed stone, but my castle only lowered the drawbridge when I was ready. I waited. Waited. Waited. It wasn’t easy – to just lie awaiting the miracle of mental satisfaction, but I had no other choice.

Looking back on it now. I don’t remember what thought came to my mind that night. I am not certain of its confines nor am I concerned with it any longer. All that I am aware of is that something came to me that night.  I am positive of this, because I know that I fell asleep. Something fell asleep at least. Maybe it was inside me. The dark corners of my world within my mind grew. They formed in endless ambiguity and they regressed the steadfast luminance of the candles in the hall. The hall.

I didn’t stay in my dreams long though. No time for that. I opened my eyes and there he laid. Next to me. He was there with me and he was silent. I was startled to say the least – how could this entity have possibly found me in my sanctuary. His eyes were open, but no expression was apparent. Was he observing me? Was he as shocked as I was? My questions were answered sooner than I thought – for he opened his mouth and said

“Hello Taylor. It is nice to finally meet you.” The guttural bellowings of his voice frightened me, but I did not want him to know what was in my mind. This being said, I knew that he had only opened his mouth to address the thoughts circling inside me. I responded slowly, because the gravity of the situation was still setting in. “I suppose it is nice to meet you as well, although I don’t have the pleasure of k-knowing your name as you do mine.” The ever-so-slight stutter was enough to blow my cover. This person laying next to me was keen, I knew he had caught my falter. “No need to be afraid. I am not here to hurt you. Promise. Only here to show you,” he snidely remarked with confidence abundant. I could feel a sense of warmth come over me and the wind had gone stagnant. I started to wonder why I hadn’t gotten up, why I hadn’t ran away from this situation. I realized there seemed to be no threat and to be honest – I wanted to see what he would say next. I waited and finally decided to lay on my side to face him. Up until this point, we were both on our backs – underneath the covers except our faces. When I turned, he did as well. I suppose he felt it was only logical, but I was not sure he understood how unique this memory was. He looked like me. Almost identical except his face was narrower and his jaw more pronounced. His hair was lighter, but it was hard to tell considering my eyes were still adjusting to the darkness. We were close together, so close that I could feel his breath. It was ice and the coldness of his aroma reminded me of the wind. I got to thinking.

“Listen, I know that my thoughts are open to you. I know that you sense my fear. I am afraid of you and I want you say mo-” “Stop it,” he said. “I can’t interpret your mind. I don’t need to. If you want me to leave – I will, but I’ll return tomorrow night and the next until you are ready for me.” I felt ashamed for some reason after this utterance entered me. Guilt – as if I had let him down with my statement of emotion. We had barely spoken at all and yet I felt like I owed him something. Questions. Question were puncturing my machinations.

Make them stop – I am begging you.

“You can stay, but I need answers;” the implication of my demand didn’t fully make known its consequence until it was too late, but I felt as though I had to require something from him. He sighed loudly and it sent shivers down my spine. The mixture of cold and warmth in the room was intriguing to say the least – my body was reacting to opposite stimuli every moment. The mental tiring was straining to say the least, I held my own for as long as I could. “I was afraid you might say that…I am not here to give you answers, only to bring you to them;” he laid his hand on my shoulder saying, “you have to trust me. Constricting you would be tightening the shackles on me.” I gathered the strength to confront him more vehemently; “What is your name and how did you get here? What are you?” His hand retracted sharply as if by pain; “as of right now, you know as much about me as I do. I am learning though. I am learning quickly and every word exiting your mouth helps. As for how I got here…isn’t that obvious? You of course. How else?  I don’t know what I am. It really all depends on what you want me to be I suppose. You ask me of things only yourself can say.”

The wind was still nonexistent; I was capturing everything. My eyes were gathering as much of his face as they could handle. My ears picked up every creak in the room. I was making sure that this was a memory I would surely not forget. I looked over to the digital clock behind him, only to find that the time was reading blank. Was I still dreaming? Obviously. Relief fell over me and I finally felt at ease. It was time to make this encounter more interesting, now that I knew for certain I was not in danger; “I don’t want to name you. Let’s be friends though, I think that would be nice.” His expression went from blank to anger instantly. His hand projected outward to grasp my throat with speed and precision on an uncanny level. I felt myself gasping for air, my eyes went black. The wind rose to a roar from my window and I lost my hold on reality.

When I awoke in the morning I was facing the other side of where I had been strangled in my dream. I was glad to know I had not forgotten the dream,  for it was a common occurrence. “Don’t make light of me anymore. This is not a joke;” the words exuded from behind me like a ghost wrapping its deathly fingers around my ear. I cringed and held my breath. It seemed like hours I waited there, I finally convinced myself that I was just paranoid and slowly turned over. My eyes met his dead-on and my heart stopped. “Why are you here…why am I still dreaming?” I asked him with pain in my throat. He only smiled and said “I’m sorry, I was only trying to make you see the truth.” I touched him on the face. It was real. I tried to push him softly – there was weight in him. He didn’t seem to mind the experiments I was running on him. He finally gathered how hard this was for my mind to wrap around. “Stop. Can’t you see that I am real?” He cackled with much delight. I closed my eyes for a split second to regain composure, but when I had opened them – he was nowhere to be found.

I checked underneath my bed like the toddler does for the monster. I looked in my closet and in every corner around the house. It was to no avail. I walked down the long hall between my room and the shower and decided to relax with a long bathing. My mind was racing and my heart would not cease its pounding. I dried myself off and figured that I was finally over the hellish nightmare that plagued me. I looked in the mirror to see if I needed to shave, but then it hit me. Like a sledgehammer to my skull I collapsed in pain from the sight. There were bruises around my neck. I could see him behind me in the reflection pointing, but not saying a word. I didn’t even try to turn around. I knew he wouldn’t be there.

I walked into the kitchen to find that my mother was already there cooking breakfast. She didn’t notice the bruises. She never noticed anything. “Mom, when are we going to the doctor? I have been having trouble sleeping for months now.” She pretended like she didn’t hear me, but I knew why. Ever since father died, we never had enough monetary resources to sustain even basic needs, much less unnecessary luxuries. Co-payments for medical check-up fell into the latter category, but my brain sure didn’t want to accept that. The fort wasn’t holding up. I needed sustenance to concentrate. I needed to focus, to gather my thoughts together. Just as I was about to ask how long the food would take to get ready, the plate was gently placed in front of me. The scent of the plate entered my nose. Needless to say, it was not a subtle sense considering my hunger. I ate in haste and was completely satisfied, my opinion of mother was rising considerably – but I still could not let go her lack of understanding. As I lounged back to try and clear my head, I noticed out of the corner of my eyes that he was standing in the dark laundry room behind the crack of its closed door. I tried to ignore him, but he was as true as a statue in his deliberate staring into my soul.

I needed a distraction, but I was hoping for something a little less abrasive than my baby sister screaming from across the house. “Take care of her, would you son?” I left without saying a word, I welcomed the change of scenery once it sunk in that he was not going to give me peace. I gave Lena her bottle and helped her drink as much as she could. As terrible as it sounds, part of me hated her. Father had left mother with child before he went missing on a business trip and never returned. As a result, we had another mouth to feed and needless to say, it caused a multitude of complications for us financially. I held a grudge even though I knew it was irrational. All the memories of the family together was flooding my mind, I couldn’t take it anymore.

The pain, make it stop.

I left the room only to remember I had forgotten to take the bottle with me to be refilled. I saw him staring over the crib looking down on her. He was whispering something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. “Stop talking to her! Leave her alone. I thought you were here for me only!” I raced to meet him and I look at his mouth in disgust. His whispers vanished in realization of my presence. He looked sad, as if I had somehow done him wrong. “Why don’t you like me? Why won’t you take me seriously? I am not a monster, I am just the first domino. I have what will start a new age for you. I will bring you the truth. I will set you free.” He looked different. His face was narrower and his jaw was enlarged. His eyes were sunken in and punctuated by a not-so-subtle line of darkened flesh. His hair was shorter and he seemed taller then I remembered. I responded quickly, “What are you talking about? I have no idea what you want from me or what I am supposed to do. Don’t you see how this isn’t normal?!” His demeanor changed. His movements became more cryptic. He breathed differently and his eyes were shifting wildly. His mouth didn’t move, but I could hear the words clearly, “This is all I have ever known. Soon. You will know it to be true as well.” My heart sank and fear was rising to unforeseen heights in my body. My fortress was destroyed and desecrated, I lost all composure I had and fled from the room.

I could hear him laughing hysterically in the back-ground, but I refused to let his reality consume mine. My thoughts were racing as fast as my heart and there was a chilling draft in the house I did not feel before. I returned to my mother to bring the news that Lena was no longer in agitation. She was pleased, but seemed clueless to the fact that I was catching my breath. I walked back to my room down the hall. The long hall which separated my room from the rest of the house. I sat down and began to search for something to focus on. I pulled out my pocket knife and studied its contours. The blade was shiny and well-kept; I loved my knife even though I had never used it for anything. It was a gift from my father, but I don’t remember why he thought I would want it. My father…he was always a quiet person and he was not home for most of what I can remember of my life. His job required him to travel a lot and I never forgave him for that. I wanted to keep him home, I didn’t want him to leave. Memories of him were always painful for me to reminisce because they never lasted long enough for me to gather any real emotions. My mind always hated him for that. I glanced back down at the blade and saw his eyes perfectly aligned in the metal. I quickly snapped the knife back into its handle and tried to forget what I just saw. I needed something to get my mind off of him.

Anything to make it stop. Anything would be better than this.

The rest of the day was as abysmal as the beginning. He would pop up occasionally to remind me of his existence. Every-time that he entered the confines of my senses, I felt the hostility rise. His words became increasingly vague and prophetic. His appearance worsened and his skin was becoming paler for every encounter. I couldn’t bare to look at him anymore, I didn’t want him to know that he was winning. Psychologically he was straining me; he wouldn’t attack my body anymore – maybe he had learned something from the physical assault that he did not want to relive. Whatever the reason, he seldom got close to me anymore. I never trusted him from the beginning, but as the seconds passed I saw him increasingly as an adversary. My room became more of a prison of nightmares than an escape from reality. I knew eventually night would come and he would be there, the darkness being his home.

My fears once again became a reality. As I laid down in my bed, he was already there waiting for me. He seemed more real at night, as if the silence empowered his voice. “The stars shine light, but they will never shed wisdom like I do. It isn’t long now. You will see the truth. I will help you remember. I am your friend Taylor. Don’t you see that?!” I bit my tongue. “When the blood of ties is plastered and dried on the floor. You will come to know the fullness of my being.” The wind was picking up again and I couldn’t stop my brain from turning. I refused to respond to him, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of my words for his nourishment. I didn’t want him to continue, but my lack of conversing only coerced his message more. “I am the carvings on the trees of this land. This plain of reality suits me well. I like it here. I like being out in the open. Not stuck in that infinitesimally confounding torture chamber!” His implications were full of spite now. I was not deceived by the hopes of him still being on my side. I knew that something was going to happen. I knew that my stronghold would be weakened if I did not act fast. The wind  was violent now and so was my temper. I couldn’t bear it any longer. I had to fight back. “Shut up! Shut your hideous mouth! Get yourself out of my bed! Leave me alone! I am not here for you! I know the truth! I know what I need to know!” I screamed at him, the condensation droplets from my spit landing on his demonized and white face. He laughed at me. I was giving him exactly what he wanted. I was fueling his power, giving him strength. I couldn’t breath with this realization, my throat was closing as if he was strangling me like the night before. Yet he wasn’t touching me at all, only infuriating me with his uncontrollable laughter. “I am going to sleep. Please stop talking and let me have some solace,” I said to him after he finally calmed down. “As you wish, but know this – for every moment you waste not accepting me, you only delude yourself further from the truth that I will force you to see.” “That’s something I am willing to risk. Goodnight.”

A week passed and he was no longer a “he.” He had turned into an “it.” A grotesque disfigurement of the original “person.” Its skin was whiter than white. Its eyes glowed in the dark and they were surrounded by pits as dark and as fiery as hell. Its jaw housed sharpened teeth and his nostrils had regressed into a serpentine-like arrangement. It was bald and almost twice my size in height – It no longer laid in my bed, but instead resorted to sitting at the foot of my resting place towering over me when It spoke Its deadly transcripts. I grew to hate It and that fact that It never revealed anything about the situation or how to rid myself of It. It was breath-takingly macabre, almost to the point of tear inducement. I grew used to it though – I had no other choice. Its voice was distorted and it became deeper in reverb. It was as if two entities were speaking at the same time accompanied with accents of growls and screeches. I cowered inside whenever It came close.

“I want to know the truth. If it will make you go away, it is worth it. Anything is worth ridding myself of you,” I said with an inch of confidence. “In time,” It regurgitated with hatred insurmountable. I pulled the covers from under Its weight to go over my eyes. I couldn’t sleep any other way. I wish to myself that this would be nothing but a distant memory while laying motionless. The wind reduced its intensity to normal levels and I inched the covers from over me to find that It had left my sight. It had been so long since I was the only one occupying my bed and  newfound determination filled my mind.

I awoke to screaming. Excruciatingly horrid cries for help were echoing throughout the room and I was in a state of frantic confusion as I hurried to gain my senses. I did not realize what was happening and I searched for It in the shadows, but I saw nothing and no one. I ran down the hall – it seemed like a marathon to reach the rest of the house. The screaming stopped abruptly and my mind prepared me as best it could. Blood. Blood was seeping from my mother’s room and it was seeping fast. I slammed myself into the door and opened it in complete hysteria to find her. She was strewn all across the floor. Her limbs were detached and her innards painted the walls red. Her head was caved in by brutal force and was laying on the ground directly in front of me. I cried uncontrollably. Who could have done such a thing? I remembered that the screams were only present a few moments ago and so I tried to contain my complete terror in order to asses the situation. The killer must still be in the house. Here waiting for me. Before I could turn around to hide I heard a faint crying. Lena, I thought was surely next.

As I hurried to her room as fast as humanly possible, I accepted the possibility that I would be too late. If there was anything I could do, I would do it – but I readied myself for futility and death. It was standing there. Holding Lena from her right leg upside down. It pulled out my pocket knife and stabbed her relentlessly and mercilessly. I screamed. “Is this the truth you were talking about?! Leaving me alone with no family!? With nothing and no one to care for?! Answer me! Answer me!!” It dropped my sister’s lifeless body onto the floor with no remorse, turned to me and calmly said “I only wanted you to finally be free of these bars that have been holding you back. Now you can begin to accept what you are.” I felt like I was going to vomit. I could hardly maintain myself from fainting, but I knew I had to fight back. “What kind of monster are you?” I said defeated and helpless. “I am you. I always have been. I always will be. You cannot run from me. You cannot hide from me. You fool yourself into think you are afraid of me when you reject the truth that we are one and the same.” It hissed and began walking closer to me. One step at a time the wind rose higher and more intense. My brain throbbed in pain. “What are you talking about?! Why are you doing this to me?!” It laughed with a devilish grin and spoke to me in delight, “This isn’t the first time you fool. You have had your hatred for another too and I came out to save you from your torment. You didn’t thank me though. You pushed me back into your prison and you tried your best to forget the memories. You were succeeding too, but there is a part of you who never wanted me to leave.” I shuddered and slid to the ground with my back propped-up against the door to keep me upright. I was remembering it all. The way I had wanted my sorrow to cease. The way I had wished for the strength to end everything, to destroy the reality that had obliterated my dreams. “You wanted your father gone too and I had no choice but to save you. You decided to live a lie after and you discerned to torment me! I am not enacting my revenge. No. I could never harm you! Here I am trying to help you again and you still treat me like a beast!” I lunged from the ground and snatched the knife from his hand. I wielded it as if I had trained to fight for years and managed to keep it at bay. “No! You can’t hurt me Taylor! It will never work! I will only come back stronger. You have to give in eventually. See the truth!” I stabbed It in the heart. I pulled out and went in again – reaching as high as I could – at the neck. I left the knife and watched It fall to the ground lifeless. I grabbed my heart and felt pain arise from beneath my skin. My neck was giving acute pain as well, but my mind was giving me the most trouble. “I can never die. I will never be gone from you. You can’t escape me.”

I remembered this story today and had to write it down to make sure the facts were straight in my head. Except, I never had this memory. No. I did. I had to have had this memory. Or else how am I remembering it? The wind feels nice today, it brushes up against my face often, but it never feels subtle to me. Help me. Make it stop. Please.

Anything to just make this stop.
Credit To - taylorlanson@gmail.com

In January 2006 in New York, the patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams. In more than one occasion that man has given her advice on her private life. The woman swears she has never met the man in her life.

That portrait lies forgotten on the psychiatrist’s desk for a few days until one day another patient recognizes that face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams. He also claims he has never seen that man in his waking life.

The psychiatrist decides to send the portrait to some of his colleagues that have patients with recurrent dreams. Within a few months, four patients recognize the man as a frequent presence in their own dreams. All the patients refer to him as THIS MAN.

From January 2006 until today, at least 2000 people have claimed they have seen this man in their dreams, in many cities all over the world: Los Angeles, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Tehran, Beijing, Rome, Barcelona, Stockholm, Paris, New Delhi, Moskow etc.

At the moment there is no ascertained relation or common trait among the people that have dreamed of seeing this man. Moreover, no living man has ever been recognized as resembling the man of the portrait by the people who have seen this man in their dreams.

Please visit thisman.org for the full story.

DERPNOTE: This isn’t a creepypasta proper, obviously. I stumbled onto this website tonight and found it very intriguing and, of course, creepy. Particularly because I’m totally falling for the feeling that I’ve seen him before, too! Anyhow, I thought you guys might enjoy reading about & discussing this enough to make it worth posting.

It’s also breaking in our new tag: Based on a True Story. Suggested by a few people, this is where I’ll place things like this, as well as pastas based on real-life events like the Dylatov Pass Incident or Black-Eyed Kids.