They were just nightmares. It was just my subconscious mind flashing images of brutal deaths and rotting corpses. It was just fire and the maniacal, guttural laughs coming from an unknown man I can only describe as having sounded like he had thick, clotted blood flooding his airway. I had never seen him in those dreams, rather felt his presence like he was sewn to my back and forcefully leading me to these gruesome scenes. I used to fight it. I used to claw at my own eyes in hopes that it would wake me up. I knew they weren’t real. I tried to believe they weren’t real… Until the day I woke up. Sleepily and slowly making my way to the bathroom, I tried getting the images of the young couple and their two toddlers being buried alive out of my mind as I reached for my toothbrush. I looked up into my mirror and my eyes locked on my own. I froze as I stared at the blood dripping down my face. I had deep scratches stretching from my eyelids to my cheeks, like I really had scratched at my own eyes… My eyes, blurred from the pooling blood now running down the terrified face of a girl I can no longer recognize, shifted down to look at the trembling hands that had committed this atrocity to her face. They were perfectly clean.
The scratches were hard to explain to everyone concerned so I refused to speak about them. But what’s worse are the scars. They’ve since healed but left a horrifying reminder that my nightmares were far from the cruel creations of my own mind. Slowly, I cut off all contact. How was I supposed to trust in my friends or family to not only believe what was happening to me, but help me. I didn’t know what would have happened to them, or even what was was going to happen to me.
I used to love reading. Painting. Writing. Now my brain morphs everything I read into a tragic murder or death. My paintings are nothing but dark and bloody. I can’t write anything without my brain switching to something evil. I feel like I have no control of my actions anymore and I’m scared. I saw him for the first time standing in my kitchen. It was four AM and I had just woken up from one of the nightmares. The streetlight outside gave me enough like to see he was shaped like a man but looked nothing like one. He was red and his shape moved like a lava lamp. He smiled at me. A dark, wide, thin, hallow smile. And his eyes were white but you would hardly be able to tell with how large and black his pupils were. He waved at me. And strangely, I felt no fear. I took in his appearance, then calmly turned to walk back to my bedroom to go back to sleep. I didn’t wake up until 7 PM that night. And when I did, I felt an excruciating pain on my back. I had woken up with burns all over my back.
I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, but I knew I would found out soon enough. Whoever he may be, he had made it known that he would be ready for me soon. I could feel it like it was my own thought. I was ready for him.