The End of The Bench

It’s funny how the silence of a park at night can feel like both a sanctuary and a prison. For me, it had always been the former. I’d sit for hours on a worn-out bench under the skeletal branches of an old oak tree, the frigid winter air biting at my cheeks and seeping through my threadbare coat. It didn’t matter. I needed that solitude, needed to escape the constant hurricane of thoughts in my head. The park was the one place where the world didn’t demand anything from me. It just let me exist.

But not tonight.

“Hey! The park’s closed,” the nightguard’s voice cut through the silence like a jagged knife. I’d seen him a few times before, a sturdy man with a flashlight that seemed unnecessarily bright. He’d never spoken to me until now. I looked up, startled, my breath puffing out in white clouds.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, pulling myself off the bench.

“You can’t be hanging around here at night,” he said, his tone more evil than hostile. “You’re not supposed to be here.” I’ve never thought that his voice was like that.

He didn’t wait for my response. He just stood there, his flashlight casting long, eerie shadows across the frozen ground, until I shuffled away. I stuffed my hands deep into my pockets and started the long walk back home. I felt displeased. My apartment wasn’t far, but it felt miles away on a night like this. The cold was sharper now, like needles pricking every inch of exposed skin. I kept my head down and my thoughts inward, the crunch of snow underfoot the only sound accompanying me.

At first, I didn’t notice anything unusual. The streets were as they always were: dimly lit and deserted, the occasional car passing by with headlights that briefly illuminated the frost-covered world. But then, the air seemed to shift. It wasn’t just colder-it was heavy, oppressive, like the atmosphere itself had grown denser. The shadows cast by streetlamps stretched unnaturally long, their shapes twisting and writhing as if alive.

I tried to shake it off, chalking it up to exhaustion and my overactive imagination. I quickened my pace, eager to get back to the safety of my apartment. But the path ahead seemed… different. The familiar landmarks were gone, replaced by unfamiliar streets that seemed to curve and twist in impossible ways. I started to panic as I realized I was lost.

The night felt alive. The trees lining the road—barren and leafless in winter—seemed to lean closer, their branches clawing at the air like skeletal fingers. I could hear faint whispers, just at the edge of perception. They weren’t words, exactly, but a soft, dark whispers in my head that made my skin crawl.

“Hello?” I called out, my voice trembling.

The only response was the whispering, growing louder now. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. My breath quickened, and I broke into a run, desperate to find something familiar, something real. The snow beneath my feet felt different-softer, almost spongy. Looking down, I saw that it wasn’t snow at all. It was… gray, shifting, like ash or fine dust. My footsteps left blackened marks, and the air began to smell acrid, like burnt wood.

“What is this?” I whispered to myself, my voice barely audible over the growing cacophony of whispers.

The landscape around me was no longer recognizable. The buildings were warped, their windows like gaping mouths frozen in silent screams. The streetlights flickered erratically, casting sickly yellow light that seemed to pulse in time with my racing heart. I stumbled and fell, my hands sinking into the ashen ground. It felt warm to the touch, like something smoldering just beneath the surface.

I scrambled to my feet, my eyes darting around for any sign of normalcy. That’s when I saw it: a figure standing in the distance, shrouded in shadow. At first, I thought it was the nightguard, but this figure was taller, impossibly so. Its limbs were elongated, stretching unnaturally, and its head tilted at an inhuman angle.

“Hey! Can you help me?” I shouted, though every fiber of my being screamed at me to run the other way.

The figure didn’t move. It just stood there, motionless, watching me. I couldn’t see its face-if it even had one-but I felt its gaze piercing through me, cold and unrelenting. The whispers grew louder, more distinct now. They were chanting, repeating a single phrase over and over. I couldn’t make out the words, but their rhythm was hypnotic, pulling me closer to the figure despite my fear.

I took a step forward, then another, as if drawn by some invisible force. The ground beneath me cracked and splintered with each step, revealing a fiery glow that pulsed like a heartbeat. The figure raised one long, spindly arm and pointed directly at me. The whispers stopped abruptly, replaced by a deafening silence that pressed against my eardrums.

“What do you want?” I managed to choke out, my voice barely more than a whimper.

The figure tilted its head further, its body contorting in ways that defied logic. And then it spoke. Its voice was not a single voice but a chorus of many, overlapping and discordant. “You do not belong here.”

The ground gave way beneath me, and I fell. The world around me dissolved into darkness, and I was plunged into an abyss. My body felt weightless, my screams swallowed by the void. Images flashed before my eyes: the park bench, the nightguard, the twisting streets. And then, faces—hundreds of them, their eyes hollow and mouths open in silent agony.

I landed hard on a cold, metallic surface. The impact knocked the wind out of me, and I lay there, gasping for air. When I finally managed to sit up, I found myself in a room. The walls were lined with mirrors, each one reflecting not my image but a distorted version of it. My reflection smiled at me, its eyes black voids that oozed darkness.

“What is this?” I whispered, my voice trembling.

“You wanted to be alone,” the reflections said in unison, their voices mocking. “Now you are.”

I tried to move, but my limbs felt heavy, as if the air itself was pressing down on me. The reflections began to move independently, their movements jerky and unnatural. They stepped out of the mirrors, surrounding me. I screamed, but no sound came out. One of them reached out, its hand cold and clammy against my skin. Goodbye.

Credit: FinnishGoofy