I came around the corner slowly. Everything inside me was screaming, with all my heart I did not want to see. With every ounce of my will I fought against my legs, and my eyes. I did not want to see.
But it was inevitable.
And I knew it.
There was that scratching noise again! In my heart I knew what it was. It had visited me so many times, in the dead of night, in my darkest dreams. I could never quite see it, and always I could only barely hear it. Like a whispering just beyond the reach of my consciousness. I would snap awake, out of breath, like I’d been running, to the profound silence and utter blackness of my life.
There are things that stir beneath the surface of reality. Things that taunt us, tease us.
Things that hunt us.
Something was hunting me. For years it had been hunting me. I never knew it, of course, but it was there. Always there, waiting. So patiently, waiting. Watching. For some months now, the fear in me had steadily grown. The frequency with which the dreams occurred increased. And every time I woke up to the sheer black sheet of night, a small cry would escape my throat, like an uncried tear begging to be set loose.
The wall felt cold and unyielding beneath the touch of my damp palm. The house itself seemed to sway a little as if to the sound of a slow melody that only the night could hear. It seemed to grin menacingly at me, like an absurdly huge face leering over my shoulder from inside my mind. But I was inside the cavernous mouth of this beast. I could feel the stench of its fume-like breath caught in the back of my throat. It made me want to retch. A cold sweat broke out on my face. Fear like sadness gripped me, the strength draining slowly from my gut, I wavered. If only I could fall away into the black oblivion and know no more of this nightmare dream suddenly stepping into the real world life that seemed more and more like a dream to me.
I felt myself dropping to my knees, my hands landed palm-down in front of them. My head lowered, as if worshipping, the strength now completely gone from me. I was grateful that I could no longer inch my way closer to the sound of that scratchy whispering voice behind the veil of darkness that separated, protected, me from what was around this next corner. A quiet sob eased out of me. And another. I felt myself beginning to shiver, I was so cold. So cold. I rolled up into a little ball and waited for that dreadful…thing…to come and get me. Silently I prayed, hoped and wished that I would simply and quickly die… before it could get to me.
Please.
Let me die here now.
Quickly.
Please…
please?
But it was not to be. I tried to drop away into unconsciousness, I tried to let go. But the shivering of my sweat-drenched body, and my breath coming and going in sobs kept me just awake enough to discern the rasping, whispering terror as it perceived me where I lay and began to creep steadily closer.
My eyes were open. I could not find the will to close them. The darkness pressed against me like a physical weight. I was lying on my side rocking back and forth, whimpering. I could hear myself. Some small spark of my male soul still nudged at me from deep inside, somewhere, to be stronger than this.
But I could not stop myself from shivering. My mind was reeling now. The world was out there somewhere beyond the endless night, but it was spinning and wheeling all around like a crazy thing, far beyond reach.
Sssscraaaahhhh!
So softly did that sound come to, that I could barely hear it over the creaking of the house as it settled in the cooling air. As it settled in to enjoy the creepshow. My life dwindled away into the air like a whisp of cloud, and then suddenly it was here! Standing over me like a giant. I couldn’t see it, Oh please God don’t let me see it!
But I could feel it towering over me. A monolith. With claws and teeth and a terrible rasping whispering breathing sound.
And it wanted me. Oh, how it hated me! It seemed to revel for just a moment in its own power as I lay there sobbing and whirling like drunkard.
Cold snakelike fingers curled around my throat, tightening, sickening. A hiss of delight came out through its awful mouth. I felt nauseated and weak, like a limp fish.
Oh please God! Please kill me!
Please kill me quickly. The madness that now crept into me was somehow more terrible than the creature now living and real and with my neck in its grasp.
That’s when I began to scream and cry. Something snapped back to life in me. The terror finally got the better of me, I began to rock and kick wildly. I screamed and screamed and flung myself around like a mad thing. I lost control of my bladder, as I lost control of my mind. All my life became a terror, and a nightmare. The sound of my own screams came to me as from a long distance.
It was strange that, somehow, in that last moment, I felt no pain at all. I was aware for just a moment as the skin on my neck began first to stretch, and then to tear with a horrible ripping sound. The kind of sound that you can feel as it crawls suddenly down your spine. My screaming stopped, the night disappeared, and finally, mercifully, everything dropped away, far away.
Far, far away, into the night.
Falgn0n The Wizard "NFS" Wild
- 15 years, 10 months, 16 days ago
