…even this post.
I’m sorry for doing this to you but I need help. Someone has to see this, to provide me with an answer. I see them everywhere now. I’m not sure if it’s one or many of them, but they’re everywhere and I’m terrified. Please, please, save me while there’s time.
It started with an email, like one of those old chain messages that sends you a curse, except this one was mostly just blank. The subject was written as “DEADMAN” and my curiosity got the better of me this time. So I clicked it open and all it said inside was “you will see.” Honestly I thought it was some silly, dumb hoax, but it sent a slight shiver up my spine. Why would somebody sent this to me? But there were so many reasonable explanations that soon flooded my head and I soon forgot about it. It could remain in my bin until deletion in 30 days.
Three days - my final three days of happiness - passed and everything was normal. My mind wandered back to the strange email once or twice, but I already berated myself for my overreaction. Scared? Scared of what? A scammer on the Internet? An unfunny joke? I had no idea yet how I’d altered my fate, potentially irreversibly. On the fourth day after that email, I first saw them. That night I decided to watch an old movie I’d picked up in a charity shop on dvd. But I couldn’t find the player’s cable, it had been so long since I’d used it last. It was almost dark when I resorted to searching the attic. It’s small, my attic, and poorly lit, but I had a fair idea of where everything was so I quickly found a box marked cables at the very back left. I took my torch and I ripped off the tape and I opened it up to my horror. Shock barely describes how I felt when I saw them. Inside the box, a face, horrific in its uncanniness. Pale white, grinning, without any teeth. I jumped backwards, with my heart beating loudly in my chest and I rushed from the attic, as quickly as my arms and legs would take me.
That night I slept poorly, beleaguered of terrible dreams of that unholy face. In that quick glance, my subconscious took a snapshot of its features, to haunt me in my sleeping moments. It had no eyes, I realised. In fact every aspect of its facade was reflected in harsh black and white. Ceramic white skin, surrounding pools of evil black. Still smiling widely, without teeth to bare. I promised myself to stay out of the attic while I was alone, and I hoped I would never see that visage again.
I was so wrong. The next day began as normal and I decided that the events of the previous day had just been some awful delusion amplified later by my sleepless state. Instead of dwelling on it, I dressed myself, headed to work and busied myself with my day. “How was the movie?” A coworker asked me, and I shrugged a noncommittal reply. There was no need to tell them why I hadn’t watched it. They might think I needed help. But the rest of the day sailed on smoothly until I was confronted with a familiar foe. Paper Tray Empty the office printer read. I grabbed a new ream from the shelf and I opened the tray to an unwelcome sight. That face that had haunted me all night. I screamed.
Since then I’ve seen them so many times more. Always when I open. An email, a box, a paper tray… I’ve followed the pattern. Every time I feel as though my heart will explode, like I’m filled with an irrational dread. Whatever they are, they are evil, malevolent being or beings sent to bring us dismay. And every time I see them time gets shorter until the next… I’ve stopped opening things altogether. The doors of my house are all locked and my drawers are strewn on the floor. Cabinets, puzzle books, curtains… who knows where I will see them next. I’ve opened this app as one final resort, to find help. Help before they’re everywhere… help before I see them every time I open my eyes.