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A blister’s lanced on my outstretched forearm, forcing me to recoil back to the wall. Don’t cry out! Don’t cry out! Be strong!
Through the trails of running’s drips on the steam-covered door, I can see – I think, misty, vague shadows. I’m sure I’m not imagining them all out there; it’s like they’re just watching me, or at least, listening.
The shower’s flashed cold again. I’m taking my shot!
I’m through the cubicle door – shattered glass is everywhere – things, so many – not human – thick with evil – they’re biting me – get to the window – get to the goddamn window!
No! Slipping and sliding over broken glass – ignore the pain!
Back in control – make it! Blood is everywhere, I can feel it making my steps slide and skid – concentrate! They’re scratching and biting my blisters – take the pain – get to the window, damn it!
Get ready to jump out! This is it!
My head – a sharp dull pain. It’s hard to stand – to focus. I’m on the floor again. But I’m unable to move… it’s peaceful here. There’s a lot of glass on the floor, I can see it like millions of diamonds in the moonlight, blood as well probably. Who cares. Eyes closing. Who cares.
Dream
Am I dead? No, dreaming. It definitely feels like a dream. But It’s so dark. I don’t think I’ve ever been so aware in a dream before. Hello? I don’t think I can speak. Hello? Nothing, just darkness. Do I have my eyes closed? I don’t think so. I can’t feel them. I’m sure they’re open and I’m definitely staring, I think? I don’t know – I think I am. I am, I’m staring, I’m sure of it now. Yes, I’m staring into their world. I can feel it. It lives here, in the infinite darkness. The feeling of dread is getting closer. But am I moving towards it, or is it coming to me? I don’t think I care. Strange.
I’m on something, I can feel it beneath me. It’s hard, yet soft, like the sheet on a mattress, or a cloth over a table or… an altar. I can smell something very familiar, something from my childhood, like the pungent rotting of autumnal leaves. I used to smell it when I walked to primary school with my mum around Halloween time. Yes, rotten leaves and dirt, not cloth, it’s pressing against my greasy, unclean face. I must be laying on my side and… and there’s dirt inside my mouth, large clumps of it. It’s so dark here, so empty. Is this Hell or something else? I’m sure I should care more. But, I just don’t. I do, however, feel unclean, inside as well as out. Everything about me is unclean.
The taste in my mouth is of putrid, snail and slug-greased grit and decomposing leaves or mulch. Everything around here feels cursed; it excites me. I want it, this feeling – I don’t know why. But licking the dewy moisture from the unseen leaves perversely, feels amazing. Nothing hurts anymore, I feel real, impossibly alive like nothing can hold me back. I feel, immortal, like I’m one of them. But I’m a newly born demon spawn, yet to develop. It’s disturbing. But not enough to give it up. I liked it here – it’s more natural to me than unnatural, pure. Inhibitions uninhibited – I’m as free as the mind of a child. The rules are broken and I’m unchained by mortal restraints.
The dank, bitter moisture that clings to the leaves around me has a taste, more in the background than right away… diluted. It’s reminiscent of the bloody taste of my own bleeding gums from years of dental neglect; that crisp metallic flavour filling my mouth.
Invasive things are crawling down here. I can feel them coming towards me in the darkness, through the dank, moist earth and rotting leaves. It’s so dark and the air in this place hangs low, it’s stagnant and unchanging.
An oppressive bass-like sound thumping loudly against my eardrums. I didn’t notice it at first. It’s rhythmic, like that of a strong heartbeat during a fever, smothering all my newly acquired senses.
The deep rhythmic pounding has forced me to focus on the creeping unnatural sickness of this hell and although I can’t see them, I know everything here is watching me. Everything here is evil, nihilistic and means desperately to do me harm. I liked it. I’ve no idea why. But I want it.
Something else, something faint within the pounding. It’s getting clearer. I know this sound. I can hear their torturous, yawning pain. It’s the unmistakable and haunting croaks of those corrupted frogs from my utility room. Their groaning croaks are growing louder still, replacing the oppressive pounding. Yet, I don’t think I care. I can smell vividly the slimy coating of their ripped and brutalised flesh; again, I don’t care, even when I can feel their small, slippery bodies falling over my own corrupted, naked flesh. I have no control. No strength. No wish to scream or hide. I want to be dragged through the dirt. I’m so submissive to everything in this dream, I could easily be just a pair of eyes fixed to two crooked stakes in the Earth. I love it here – absolutely love it.
From the black nothing limiting my viewing distance to only a couple of feet, comes a strangulating flow of nightmarish visions and within it, a vision of such anguish and suffering that it is all I can observe. Up close and in intimate detail, I witness the torturous destruction of Toby in its full gory detail. I stare and still, I feel nothing. Does nothing here have any meaning to it? Is this freedom in its most purist form?
Creeping into my line of sight is something new, something disfigured. It’s so strange and large, with greasy, no slippery skin, with an almost wet, leathery texture underneath.
I can see it now, it’s a disembodied, man-sized, frog’s head; illuminated by a dim, unseen light source. The creature’s staring unwaveringly at me from the edge of the black void, unmoving, unblinking, unnatural. Its eyes, the obsidian ovals, at their centre, look devoid of life, vacant. The whites of the demon creature’s eyes are marbled with twisted black veins, appearing like the tangled, sprawling roots of dying trees. These veins flex uncomfortably and both eyes look fit to burst open as they bulge achingly from their sockets, like the head of this creature is somehow being choked to death by some unseen force within the black vail beyond.
I have stared at this creature for what feels close to forever. Those unyielding eyes look blood red now. When did they change? How did I miss it?
As I stare, I can vaguely feel its moist, elasticated tongue wrapping around me. In a second, I’m inside this creature and feel it swallowing my entire, vulnerable old body; it wants my soul and I don’t care.
It’s getting tighter as I move slowly down its throat and without resistance I’m gone, swallowed up.
I’m falling now. I like it here, with its smooth, ribbed slimy walls; I run my fingers through the lumpy Jello as I slide further downwards. It’s warm and comforting against my tortured skin.
I don’t know how I know. But I swear I’m falling towards Hell itself. Is this all real? Is this happening, or is it a dark alcoholic dream? It feels real. Why am I okay with this and not fighting tooth and nail to resist?
Passing clawing talons now, jagged nails, snapping teeth and lapping tongues of every description try to sample a piece of me; try to devour me. As I feel myself tear open and bleed, I’m not afraid. I’m in ecstasy. Every beautifully malevolent thing in existence is desperate to feast on my withered, ageing flesh as I willingly fall into the nothing.
Another vision within the emptiness. Another thing I’m meant to see. I can make out something beyond an emerging cool, dim blue glow that’s somehow guiding me to something – it’s something good, like the aroma of exquisite food, the kind I can imagine at a medieval banquet. It smells divine, uncorrupted. I’m starving. My stomach is all that seems to ache and cause me true pain here. My hunger grows.
An all too familiar darkness has set the table, a demonic creature before so cruel and so full of hate, now feels closer than ever to being an understanding friend. I can’t see it, mind you. Even inside my dreams it hides its true form in the shadows. It knows the hunger and wants me to be well, to feed. The room I’ve found myself in is familiar, though dark. But how it should be; only reversed.
I know where I am. It’s my own bedroom. My main bedroom. My bed is the table and my sleeping body… the banquet. A sadistic twist. But I cannot help salivating, cutting my tongue as I lick my enlarged, sharpened teeth. I’m more than willing to feast, to satisfy my now crippling hunger. The slumbering lump is so tantalising. I’m so, so hungry.
I screamed in shock. But nothing came out. To my surprise, in the mirror opposite the bed, I can see a dishevelled version of myself sitting upright in bed, frozen in a fear equal only to my own as we stare hauntingly back at one another.
My surprise is interrupted by an insatiable hunger that is returning with more potency than before. With fear evaporating, I glare hungrily at this mirror opposite – my doppelgänger. It’s more appealing to me now than the version of myself laying sound asleep before me – I want it. I want my doppelgänger more than anything else.
Using the shadows to move as instinctively as my unseen friend is as easy as thought; I can float, crawl and scurry around the ceiling of this reversed room easily, as if I were air. I adore the absolute freedom from the restraints of the waking world. Anything imaginable feels possible here. I love it!
Sensing what I am doing terrifies my adjacent doppelgänger and knowing this, brings me an intense and sadistic joy, making me thirst for its purity all the more. I think I’m drunk on this unbound malevolence, the unbound power. In this moment, this beautiful moment, I understand the motivations of the thing that clings to the shadows. I too find myself more than willing to embrace the very darkness that’s tormented me. I want it, I want to live here, consequence-free, only indulging my base instincts and pursuing shameless self-interests. Here, I am unbound and for all time, I’d truly be free.
It has crept up near me, I can sense its presence. It’s joined me spider-like up here in my hiding place, up here, in the darkest corner of the ceiling. It’s communicating, not with words, but with projected emotion; so strange that I understand. So pure.
I feel it behind me, just over my shoulder – enjoying my turning. It wants me to open a door only I can open – to let it in to my reality. It wants to share my doppelgänger with me and I am only too keen to let this happen. I know the way into my world. I can lead the way.
From up here on the ceiling, I crawl spider-like along the wall and lay face down upon my sleeping form on the bed.
Deliberately casting a frightful, gloating glance over my shoulder at my horrified doppelgänger, I coldly take possession of my sleeping self, ripping and chewing my way inside them; my sleeping self never resists, never stirs, not once as I burrow inwards, tear after tear, bite after bite. It’s glorious as I rip and chew and all the while the smell of my doppelgänger grows stronger and stronger; it excites me. It’s insatiable. I need it – I need to eat it – to taste it! To corrupt it! To kill it! So, I dig and I chew, faster and harder.
Laying within the bloody embers with my stomach barely full and dripping top to toe with gore, I slide my head along the blood-soaked sheets and stare purposefully and coldly at my opposite. With sadistic, ravenous intentions, I craved their delectable purity.
Turning back to the open chest cavity at the centre of all the gore, there is a hole where a spinal column should be. I’ve done it – I have revealed the doorway and the smell emanating from within is divine. The sheets beneath me are soaked through with blood and torn flesh. I slide with ease inside the brutalised cavity that drips with ribbons of shredded flesh and enter the hole, followed eagerly by my unseen friend.
Awake
How did I get here? I was in the shower, that was the last thing I remember. These games, I hate these sick and twisted games!
I don’t remember how long it’s been since I slept in my own bed. Days? Weeks? I’ve missed it, but I swore I’d not come in here again, for a good reason. It’s not safe. With everything going on, this place, my main bedroom, feels like the epicentre of all that is wrong with my home. Evil surrounds it – possesses it.
A dream? So distant and vague I can’t even begin to remember it; but I think I liked it.
It’s not just the gout in my feet. But everything hurts now. In my dream, I’m sure I dreamt nothing hurt. Maybe that’s what I liked about it? Yes, the pain is definitely back. My blisters, burns, bruises, scratches and the countless rat bites are pretty much everywhere. How am I still alive? No, put it out of your head; it can probably read my mind. It seems to be able to do anything it pleases.
A bottle of Vodka, and my paring knife from the kitchen knife drawer. I don’t remember putting them on my bedside table. I’m sure it wasn’t me – really sure. What’s going on? Is it possible I just forgot about the bottle? I doubt it. I’m not wealthy enough to lose count of Vodka bottles; they’re like gold dust here. I definitely didn’t leave the knife.
That bottle – that bottle represents the last of the booze in this whole godforsaken house. So yeah, I know how it all got there. It’s put it there, to tempt me in a negative direction, I bet. The fact of the matter is, no small thing, no inconsequential act in my vicinity has been an accident, it’s by design – It’s design.
To be here, back inside my main bedroom with no memory of how I got here feels like the culmination of a grand and diabolical plan that’s taken whatever is in my house days, weeks, or even months to configure? Was it easy for the entity to manipulate me, or have I been difficult – I’ve no idea, but I hope at least, I was a bitch of a target.
What time is it? I’m too disorientated. It’s dark and I can still hear the sound of that Godforsaken snowstorm howling outside. But I can still fight, I think. So as much as I want to drink that delicious Vodka bottle dry and ultimately do myself in with that knife, I won’t. I’m not that broken yet. I’m certainly not afraid of death anymore, that much at least has changed. But I am afraid of where I’ll die. It’s a damned if you do – damned if you don’t – kind of situation now; especially when even in death you think you’re fucked. It’d be almost funny if the stakes weren’t so painfully high. But, a drink is a good idea at least, some “Dutch courage” – may even help with some of the pain. Not sure if a whole bottle is enough for pain relief considering the state I’m in, but it might get me through some of the endless night, though. No, I must be strong… but damn it’s so tempting. I know things will kick off again soon. But I need to focus, I just need to make my escape. If I can get back to the bathroom I can escape into the snow and die out there, out of the reach of this, this thing.
I can’t do another night of this shit – I just can’t.
Through the crack in the curtains there’s a vague sheet of light, presumably from an indistinguishable full moon being gently cast through my bedroom window. The blizzard hides everything, reality mainly. I haven’t been able to even see the road or trees outside my house for God knows how long. No visitors either, no Postman, no gypsies, not even a Jehovah’s Witness – no one.
I’m so, so sick of the snow, the relentless, goddamn sound of that howling wind – it never lets-up.
I think some of my blisters are weeping, some must have burst while I was sleeping and stuck themselves to my icy-cold bedsheets; what a horrid state I’m in. I bet what untarnished flesh I do have is blue, considering how cold it is in here. It’s always cold here. It never used to be.
Here we go. I can feel I’m being watched again. It’s here with me, right now, near the bedside table. I can’t see it, but I can sure as Hell smell it.
If I keep still. If I just, keep still.
My mouth’s so dry. Why is my mouth so dry?
Nothing’s happened. Why hasn’t it done anything to me?
God I’m thirsty. I’m not sure there’s any moisture left in my mouth at all.
I might have that drink now, I think.
Screw it, I need that drink!
A third of a bottle down. The taste of the vodka, just knowing it’s alcoholic is a huge, huge comfort.
I can feel it getting closer to me. I think it likes it when I drink. Slow down. Slow down, I have to make this bottle last. I’m shaking.
Its presence is strong now. Maybe it’s sensed my decision to slow my drinking down and that’s why I think it’s manifesting somewhere nearby me. I can’t see where though.
A slight, yet very obvious shake of my bed. I think – I know, where it is. It’s under my bed. I’m shaking so much the glass bottle is jittering on my teeth, is it me or my bed that’s shaking?
Another more obvious shake – Damn it, I’ve dropped the bottle into the mess of clothes on the floor by my bed. Shit! I know I should leave it there but, I don’t think I can. It’ll be pouring out and getting wasted, it’s been like a comforter. What will I do without it? I can already feel my anxiety rising because of it. I need to finish it – I need it for the courage.
If I can just edge my hand to the side of the bed without being noticed – another shake. But not a bad one. Be brave. Be very brave. I need to lean over a bit. There, now I can reach down the side.
No shaking, that’s good.
Just sliding my hand down the wooden bed frame.
Not far to go.
No-man’s land – no wait, too far – I can feel the clothes.
Nothing’s happening.
The base of the bottle. Thank God, I can feel it.
I’ve made it to the middle of the bottle.
But I can’t move it. A warm, hot breath is on my hand. It feels as if I make the slightest movement, it’ll get me.
A low growl: did I really hear that, or do I just think I did? I can’t see what’s happening. But I’m too scared to retrieve my hand or even try to look. What’s under my bed?
I can’t keep my breathing steady; my pulse is racing. The breathing, its breath, it’s so close I can feel the almost imperceptible touch of chapped lips on the underside of my exposed wrist, brushing against my softer, more vulnerable skin.
