I don’t remember how I went to sleep that night. But I woke up screaming. The sun was already up and the lights were turned off. I felt exhausted. My parents were already at work as was my sister in school. I didn’t want to stay in the house alone with that thing. So I drank some coffee and headed to university.
My thoughts were occupied with what I saw yesterday and as a result I didn’t even though that university didn’t work that week. So I went to the nearest mall and sat there all day staring at nothing. I headed home in the evening and hesitated before entering.
I was returned to the present by my mom knocking on the window of the kitchen asking if I had forgotten the keys. I shook my head no and went inside.
The walk to my room was long. With the creak of the door, I stepped inside and my hand hovered above the light switch. I was torturing myself. I flipped the switch. It was there. In the same spot. The moment I saw it I shut the door with a loud thud. My heart raced as I held the door handle with a tight grip.
“Dinner is on the table! Don’t let it get cold” Mom calling startled me.
I made two steps back from my room. And as I was sure it wasn’t following I entered the kitchen. My kitchen is pretty big with two big windows on two walls you can see entering. And I saw IT in all of them. The reflections showed it standing near my usual sitting place. Seeing it felt like a punch to the gut. Everyone was already finishing their meal. I tried to excuse myself from the table but it didn’t work with my parents. I tried not to look at the windows. I sat down and started into the plate. I made myself eat dinner almost throwing up at the thought of it being right behind me. I glanced at it a couple of times. It didn’t move.
“Sis, What are you looking at?”
“Do… Do you see anything in the window?”
She squinted her eyes and looked at me confused.
“Are you trying to scare me again?”
“No. I’m not. Forget it.”
She shrugged me off and headed to sleep.
I felt confused. Scared. I went to my room again. Walking inside I turned the lights off immediately and waited. I stared into the darkness trying to see anything. After some time tiredness finally kicked in and I decided to sleep in my clothes on the floor near the door.
From that day onward it was appearing in the reflections of my windows at night. For a while, I was too scared to even bare the image so I started to draw curtains before turning the lights on. It roze questions with my parents. But soon I broke the hook on one of the curtains and I had to encounter it again and again. It never moved and hasn’t changed. So after a week or so seeing it only in the windows gave me a false sense of safety. Like it was outside. So I stopped bothering myself. Funny how you can’t be scared for a long time.
Deep down I wanted to tell everyone about it. But it was impossible. How can you make someone believe in something they don’t see? So I tripped with my words every time and ended with “never mind”.
Meanwhile, I got kinda used to it. And the university already started so I needed to work again. I woke up it was still dark outside and returned home when it was already dark. So it was always there when I was home. I stopped avoiding the places it would stand too. When I noticed that I could kinda feel it then I walked by or right through the place it was supposed to stand. Like the air was trying to avoid it. It unnerved me a little.
I took some of the art assignments home. I felt it didn’t like that. Even though it was just a silluet in the reflection I felt it more when I was drawing. Like it was more tense. And then it clicked. I turned my head to the reflection.
“A-alex?” I whispered
It moved. I freaked out. I bolted out of the room and locked myself in the storeroom the only place with no windows.
I waited until the sun was up to leave. I bought some sage in a local shop knowing I needed that thing out. I got home and waited in my room as it got dark. No one was home. Well for at least an hour more. I turned the lights on. It was in its usual place.
I started to burn the sage. I looked at myself in the window’s reflection and then at Alex. My heart raced I took a step closer still looking at the reflection. My hands were shaking causingash to fall on the floor. The smoke from the sage started to reach Alex.
“Why?” was whispered on inhaling and echoed in my ears.
It disappeared for a second from the reflection. But I felt it appear behind. The reflection proved my feelings. But it was different.
The sickly yellow glow was the first I saw towering other me. Then the big hand with claws reached and squeezed mine until I dropped the sage. Then I saw the head. It was half rotten. Well not rotten. Like it was rotten before but then the new perfect skin enveloped dead and rotten tissues still deformed and deflated. Like if you pressed just hard enough the puss and gore would burst out. But that was just half the face. The other was worse. The same skin doubled still healthy one and pushed on it deforming the features and making the face look like it was in constant agony. And the eyes… they weren’t physical it seemed. They were definitely eyes. But no life was in them no glow. They were the only part that didn’t have that yellow sickly glow. But they were looking.
I felt claws press into my back. Sharp pain coursed into my brain. I turned to face it still holding my hand. I saw blood on its claws. I saw the same skin making its way inside its rotting abdomen and ribs. And its eyes looking not in mine not at me.
“I will free you…” the same whisper echoed.
I heard the knock on the door. Alex disappeared. I felt my T-shirt getting wet. I touched my back. And felt blood on my fingertips .