My thumb repeatedly pressed into the remote, changing the channels on the television. The motion was almost pointless as I unconsciously knew that I’d never land on a channel that could hold my attention. I had already seen all the movies I wanted to see and watched the same commercials hundreds of times over. The task was redundant, but I continued anyway because there was nothing else for me. I clicked through pointless stations, wagering my time against the hope that I’d find something to waste it. If that thought had come to my mind at the time, maybe I would’ve chuckled, but at this moment my mind was a blank slate.
Just as I started drifting off to sleep, something flashed across the screen. I noticed it too late and it was gone. I tried to go back and see if there was anything noticeable, but nothing caught my eye. I paused for a second to try to remember what I had seen that startled me so badly out of my hypnagogic state. Unfortunately, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t rack my brain to conjure the image. I thought maybe it was a dream. With that, I continued my channel surfing and let my eyelids grow heavy again.
Static. How long had I been asleep for? I looked out of the window and it was completely dark. Not like it was nighttime, but as if someone had put blackout curtains on the outside of every window. All the lights in my house were out, and everything was still and silent. The only sound came from the high pitched hiss of the static that illuminated my television screen. I unconsciously watched the black and white dots of fuzz dance around the screen for a moment until I realized there was something wrong. Behind the field of snow-like particles, there was something coming towards the forefront of the screen. At first, it was distant and only distinguishable by a nearly imperceptible, slightly darker outline of the body. As I sat there frozen in a trance, I watched it grow closer as I could make out more shapes of the grotesque abomination.
The first thing I noticed were its lips that were pulled back to the gums, exposing smoke rotted teeth. Unnatural shadows and the very high exposure made the features even harder to read. The eyes were horrible. I tried to look into them, but my mind tried to stop me from processing the thing as a whole. My own eyes went in and out of focus and became blurry as it got closer, and I could make out the entirety of its face. There were whispers coming from the darkness all around me, like claws from the darkness scratching at my sanity. They spoke in so many layers that I couldn’t understand the exact words, but I knew that they were vile. I wanted to run and scream to get away from this terror, but I couldn’t move. I tried everything I could to avoid the creature’s gaze as it came to the forefront of the screen. I must’ve only seen it for a second, but that was all it needed to plant the seed of despair. The static dispersed from the thing’s face; even the inanimate snow didn’t want to touch it. I saw its eyes staring into mine. They shook violently in their sockets with no eyelids to contain them. It was as if they had never been touched by any sort of moisture, as what should’ve been white was dark rusty brown with bulging red veins spread like worms crawling throughout them. My mind slipped as it opened its mouth and started screaming louder than anything I could’ve ever imagined. The last thing I felt was warm blood trickle from my ears as the fear engulfed me and I blacked out.
I woke up the next morning in the same armchair I was in. The sun was high in the sky, and I realized I had woken up far too late to be in time for work. I got up quickly and tried to push the dream I had to the back of my mind. I was so exhausted as I rushed to get my work clothes on and get myself ready. By the time I was heading to the door, I had nearly forgotten about the night before. When I left the house, I immediately noticed a sound beneath the racing cars passing by my house. The noise of the city outside was slightly muffled, and as I stood still and listened closer, I could notice the tinnitus. This wasn’t a ringing in my ears, but the high pitched sound of television static. My heart dropped as I lifted my right hand up to my ear and felt the dried blood that had left a crusted trail. I used my sleeves to wipe it off and tried to ignore the growing anxiety in my chest as I drove to work.
When I got there, I sat down at my cubicle and started my work, entering numbers from the never-ending stack of papers next to me into the blank white sheets on my screen. Slowly, black numbers began to fill the little boxes. As I looked closer into them, they seemed to change colors slightly, and when I turned away, it was like horizontal curtain blinds were going across my field of vision. A throbbing pain was present in the front of my head, and it spread around the circumference of my skull. I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes to get some reprieve from the fluorescent lights in the office. I sat like that for a moment before I felt something touch my shoulder. In my mind’s eye, I saw a long decrepit hand with disgustingly long fingers. I jumped in fear and turned to see my coworker with a startled look in his eyes. “Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you,” he mumbled nervously. “No, it’s alright,” I winced at the throbbing pain, “What’s up, man?” “I just came to…” His voice was muffled by the tinnitus. I grimaced. “Sorry, can you repeat that?” “I just came to ask if you’re doing alright. Do you need to go home? It looks like you’ve got a massive headache.” “No, I’m fine. I have this huge stack of papers.” I pointed to the empty spot on my desk. Wait, what? Just a minute ago, I had so much to do. I looked at the bottom right corner of my computer screen and saw it was an hour past the time I was supposed to go to lunch. My heart was racing, which only compounded the pain in my head. “Yeah, I think I’ll go home.” I grabbed my phone and stood up. “Please tell our boss that I left.” After saying that, I briskly left the office and went out to my car.
I was so tired that I had to turn on the radio to keep myself awake. I tried to focus on the road, but my attention kept being drawn back to the knob and switching stations. The static hiss of interference overshadowed the music. I had never seen a signal this awful. I really started to panic this time, and I couldn’t help myself. The pain and noise were overwhelming me, and I barely noticed as I blew through stop signs. I was barely paying attention to the road, but I looked up just in time to slam on my brakes. The car barely came to a stop in time to avoid hitting a small family that was crossing the road. I tried to catch my breath and was embarrassed by the glares that came my way.
I made it home the rest of the way without incident. As soon as I walked in through the door and made eye contact with the television, another great fear came over me. All of my problems today started with the dream I had. I ran over to it like a kid running up the dark stairs, scared as if something was behind me, then I unplugged it. In the silence of my house, all I could hear was that damn sound. Like someone was spraying my ears with a hose on jet mode. I tried to do something to ignore it, but all I wanted to do was sleep. So before I went to my room and attempted to rest, I took some painkillers for my agony. As I laid down, closed my eyes, and drifted off to sleep, I noticed it. Far off in the distance of infinite darkness, a face stared back at me.
When I woke up, the clouds had covered the sun shining through my windows, basking the room in a crimson red glow. Bleary eyed, I looked around and knew something was wrong. My body hurt as I sat up, and the noise was still there. I tried plugging my ears to drown it out, and somehow it worked. I was grateful for a moment, but the realization hit me. How could I drown out the sound if it’s in my head? Unless it wasn’t. I was lying down, facing away from the television that I had unplugged. I knew it was watching me. There was no way I could sit here forever. I had to look. Slowly, I turned my body over and stared at the bright screen. It was there. The same thing I had seen the night before. I wanted to cry and hide, scream and run, but I could do nothing but stare frozen in fear as it stared back with a predatory gaze. Its mouth opened and closed with a slow force as if its ligaments were made of rusted metal. With the movement, a quiet whisper broke through the horrible sound surrounding me. “You will never escape.” And with that, the screen went dark. I got up and ran, dizzy with fear, to my light and flicked the switch on. Nothing. I tried again with the same response. The room grew dimmer, and I looked out of the window to see an impossibly dark cloud covering the sun. Soon, I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. In the light deprivation, I couldn’t focus on anything but the sound in my head and the figure in the darkness.
At first, I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t real. It was so far away that it couldn’t have been in the confines of my room. I tried to turn, but as I spun myself in a full circle, the thing didn’t leave the center of my vision. Slowly, it grew closer. With each step getting nearer, my mind reeled faster, attempting to find a way out of this nightmare. It took a while for the thing to get close to me, but it felt so much longer than it must’ve actually been.
I stood face to face with it. I could do nothing but sit with the dread and the thoughts of what it may do to me. Eyes still shaking in its sockets, it grinned and reached a hand with impossibly sharp claws towards me. Just as I felt the blades slowly press against my skin, the area in the corner of my eyes grew brighter. The pain was severe, and the feel of blood flowing from my cheeks sparked a primal fear in me. I screamed, fell backwards, closed my eyes, and swung my arms wildly. A few seconds later, I still hadn’t made contact with anything, so I opened my eyes. I was greeted by my room, and the sun was up again.
I tried to gather my composure, but I couldn’t stop my shaking. I tried to reason with myself that this was all over and I had defeated the monster in some way. I stood up, walked to the bathroom, and looked in the mirror. I was exhausted, but alive. I got ready for work and left the house without incident; the noise was gone. I went through the entire day, and nothing scary or strange happened. I got all my work done and drove home with the weight that I had been carrying now off my shoulders.
That night, I didn’t turn on the television. Instead, I sat scrolling through social media on my phone. Some time after dark, an hour no one should be awake, I heard a knock at the door. I wasn’t going to answer it, but I had to see who it could’ve been. Slowly, I crept towards the door and saw the outline of a figure. I got closer and could see movement. Looking at me through the window next to the door were the vibrating eyes of the abomination that had been haunting me. It dawned on me as I stared at it that the thing wasn’t staring at me through the window. I was looking at the reflection.
From the other room, I heard a click, and then the sound of loud static on full volume. Suddenly, a cold hand wrapped around my shoulder.
Credit: Vince Abyss
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