If you were to ask me how I was doing less than a week ago I would have kept it to an easy “I’m okay how are you?” To be quite honest with you, I don’t think I was relatively close to being “okay” My life consisted of working the old nine-to-five and wasting hours playing the same games with the same guys I’d been hanging around with since high school. Now I know some of you would agree with me but at the ripe age of 24, it’s beginning to get old. Forgive me, I’m rambling on a Reddit post for Christ’s sake. To be fair I’ve been a bit lonely. The past few days passed a hell of a lot slower for me, I understand that sounds a bit wack but give me just a bit of your time and I will explain.
Just like any other Wednesday, I was on my way to work, I’m from Northern British Columbia so the things you get to look at while you’re on the road vary between Trees, lots of snow, and if you’re lucky you might get the privilege of seeing even more trees. Being the middle of January the roads out here are rough, if you don’t have the best winter tires enjoy waiting for a tow truck in the cold roughly twice a week.
Considering it was about eight in the morning I was surprised to see a pair of headlights come into view ahead of me. something immediately didn’t seem right about them, just slightly swaying side to side. I tried to pull the car as close as I could to my side of the road, as the rather large truck got closer it began to slide on the ice causing the vehicle to rotate. No luck with my best attempts to avoid the collision, it slammed directly into the front left of my car sending me directly into the field next to us.
As my soon-to-be metal coffin impacted and started to slide through the snow my whole life flashed before my eyes. Every birthday, the people I held close and every single cherished memory down to every perfect little detail. Before everything went dark the last thing I remember seeing was the front end of the car quickly drop, the immediate feeling of falling like when you’re just on the brink of falling asleep and that immense drop flashes through your body striking every nerve but I didn’t wake up right away. It lasted what felt like hours until my mind gave up and everything slowly faded away.
When I woke up everything came rushing back to me at once, the feeling of the truck slamming into me, that dreaded feeling of falling, I quickly sat up attempting to catch my breath. my heart felt like it was crawling out of my chest, my lungs still refusing to let anything in. Finally taking a huge breath in, my lungs released their fatal grasp and my heart began to slow down from its murderous drum solo. Beginning to regain my senses I looked around. Everything looked strange, like not too different from the way everything looks when you’re just realizing you’re in a dream. Surprisingly bright like everything got a new coat of paint, but it all had that weak blur to it.
Now just registering my surroundings I realized I was lying in the field about fifteen to 20 feet from the highway. But to my disbelief not a single snowflake on the ground. The grass was pristine, every blade was a bright sharp green roughly 3 feet high. Not a single blade moved like each piece was handcrafted and perfectly placed. That’s when it hit me, the silence. no wind rushing through the trees, no vehicles in the distance, pure uninterrupted silence. Considering what I had just been through I felt fine. Strangely I felt good, not a single scratch that I could find.
After a good 20-minute trek back into town, I still didn’t see a single vehicle on the road. I was never able to find my phone anywhere near the spot where I had woken up, so by my judgment it seemed like sometime in the afternoon, blue sky and the sun was shining like any other mid-winter day. For those of you familiar with how it is up in “the great white north” that was an incredible joke. But for me in that circumstance it was terrifying. The temperature was the weirdest thing too, from the moment I woke up right I wasn’t cold nor warm. It was a perfect medium, the definition of room temperature.
A few more kilometres down the road I eventually came across the truck stop just outside of town. The closer I got I could see what looked like vehicles parked around the lot and at the pumps. I picked up my pace and ran into the building. Not a single soul around, I called for help. “hey! anyone around? I had an accident not too far out of town, things don’t seem right to me and I think I might need medical assistance.” I shouted down the corridor towards the employees-only section. The only answer I got back was the reverberation of my voice rattling off the cold concrete walls.
I made my way back towards the front of the store and took a last glance around. All of the products looked like it was made less than an hour before I arrived, and the food was immaculate. resembling the food you might see in a commercial, placed and contorted so that you couldn’t make out a single flaw. The product was shiny, missing a single indent in the packaging and front faced to perfection. I left for the parking lot to test my luck out there, and once again not a single soul in sight. I began checking vehicles, every single one of them were empty and spotless like they were brand new off the lot.
As I was just hitting the point of giving up and breaking down I was stopped by the sound of a large slam. My head immediately snapped to the source of the sound. In the distance, I could see the doors to the store shaking like something had smashed into them with incredible force. Before I could react the doors shuddered again, the sound louder this time. The doors began to tremble as the blows picked up in speed, The banging ringing out faster with each ring. Frozen in place I couldn’t take my eyes off of the doors. From inside the store came an ear-piercing scream, the type of scream that sends a shiver through your whole body, something evil and primordial. That seemed to be the one thing my body needed to kick into gear and start running.
I took off towards town not wanting to meet whatever was trapped in its convenient prison. The moment I got to town I headed straight for home, just like in the store everything was clean. The buildings and houses looked like they were just built, glistening in their neat rows. By the time I was just rounding the corner to my house the distant sounds of doors and windows slamming started to grow louder. A deranged symphony crescendoing with every step I took. The moment I reached my door I flung it open and ran inside, locking it behind myself and sprinting to my room on the second floor. I dove into my closet and then immediately closed the doors, proceeding to cover my ears drowning out the chaos from outside. I don’t know if it was the exhaustion or just out of pure mercy but I soon drifted off to sleep.
when I awoke I could see the rays of light shining through the cracks of the closet, hesitantly I made my way out into my room, and that eerie silence returned this time bringing a sense of relief with it. I sat down at my desk and booted up my computer. To my surprise the power worked, I pulled up my browser and was instantly met with a lack of internet connection error. If we were going to find out anything that was going on our best friend the World Wide Web was not going to help us. I sat up and peered out the window, the streets were empty and quiet but then out of the corner of my eyes I picked up something moving slowly in my neighbour’s window, what I saw completely stopped me in my tracks.
This thing was certainly humanoid, pale grey skin, Long dangly arms that hung far past its waist. It had a large gaping maw that stretched across its face, its eyes were dark like two pits that saw directly into your soul. But then I realized this thing was staring directly at me, I think it knew that I had noticed our little staring contest because the sides of its mouth began to curl into a smile you would only see in your darkest nightmares. It slowly raised its hand to about shoulder height and waved. I couldn’t look any longer, I dropped under the window and started wailing until not a tear nor a sound would come out of me.
The next few hours were spent blocking all windows and doors with anything that wasn’t nailed down, when I was satisfied I returned to my safe place and prepared for a long night. Once the sun began to set the torture slowly amped its way back up, but tonight was louder. The screams were angrier and more guttural, the beating was much more forceful. After hours of listening to the hell emanating from beyond my fortress of solitude, I heard the sound of glass breaking from one of the nearby houses. Retreating into the closet I covered myself in clothing and hoped for the best.
No matter how hard I tried I still can’t recall how long I laid there or if I had even fallen asleep but the next thing I knew when I pulled my fingers out of my ears I was met with that blissful silence. pulling myself out of the closet I looked out my window straight to where I saw the creature. The bay window at the front of the house was in pieces, a dark substance stained the jutted leftovers. My heart sank, whatever knew I was observing was presumably free of its residential jail cell.
At this point I knew two things, whatever these things were only became active once the sun started to go down and that I needed to find a way home sooner rather than later. I figured my best bet would be to return to the place I woke up, if I got here from something in that field then that had to be the way home. From the window I could see the sun just touching the top of the mountains if I was lucky I would have about an hour to get to there on foot, it was either take that risk or wait another night and hope our friend wasn’t coming for a late night visit. I decided it was now or never, I swung my door open and ran for the stairs. Almost clearing the staircase I headed down the hallway and started around the corner to the front door. Ripping down the barricade I was interrupted by a guttural scream from inside the house, I turned towards the kitchen to see the large pale creature staring back at me.
Up close you could see its decaying grey flesh holding onto its body for dear life. Its mouth twitched as its eyes began to meet mine, its mouth began to widen and unhinge revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth each their own crooked jagged peak. It let out one final scream before charging towards me, Long sharp talons started to emerge from its fingers as it took off in my the things arms stretching out towards me.
The next second my front door was launched open and two large figures breached through together. “close your goddamn eyes” one of the figures ordered, I saw a baseball-sized object whip past me towards the creature, and quickly I slammed my eyes shut. The device went off releasing a flash of light so bright it was like I was staring at the sun. The creature let out a wail and dropped to the floor, as I opened my eyes I could see its skin blistering as it convulsed on the ground. I turned around to see the much more welcome house guests. Two large men with strange-looking rifles stood at the entrance to the house, both wearing what looked like military gear with a strange logo and the word “eclipse” across their chests.
Before I could say anything the bigger guy raised his rifle towards me and let out three shots, I watched as the bullets flew past me and all disappeared into the mound of flesh behind me. Three small bursts of light came from the creature shortly after, finally stopping the thing’s movements.
The other man pulled out a radio and began to speak, “holy shit, small bipedal met the sun. Hank put it down in under ten seconds, only took him a sun and three stars to cook the bastard. but you’re not going to believe this, it appears a civilian was looking for wonderland and chased the white rabbit to hell” After a few seconds chatter started to trickle back through the radio but I couldn’t make out what was said from the other side. “yeah i was under the presumption we had all of em locked down too, There’s enough gas in the rig that we can take him to the entry point and make it back before blackout. we’ll send him back through and you guys can finish the job, see you soon James out.” He holstered his radio and looked over at me. “we don’t have time to be standing here get your ass moving”
I didn’t need to be told twice, the two led me out to a small truck with strange metal plating. as we were entering the vehicle hank quickly asked “Where’d you wake up kid that’s all we gotta know.” “head east on the highway it’s about 15 minutes out, the big field between the woods.” James turned the truck on and proceeded straight to the location. “if you know what’s good for you, you’ll forget this ever happened and cooperate with the boys back home. everything will be alright.” Hank finished saying then shot a thumbs up in the mirror. We shortly arrived at the field, but strangely not too far off where I had woken up there was a large hole in the ground about 12 feet all the way around. “I swear to god that wasn’t there before” I blurted out looking at the two men. “yeah it would be so much fun to explain the physics behind an interdimensional rift to you right this second but it just comes down to me not wanting to, sorry. now get your ass out there and jump in” James shot back at me.
I slowly walked up to the hole and looked down into the dark abyss below. I began to say “Yeah I don’t think I’m gonna do tha-“ The bottom of a boot then found its way slamming into the base of my back sending me forward. Instantly I felt that feeling of the fall, I opened my mouth to scream but before I could get anything out I was waking up in a pile of snow next to my totaled car.
“Jesus Christ you guys said you couldn’t find the body, well it’s 5 feet from the car and moving” a voice called out nearby. The rest of the day was a blur, Emergency Services arrived on the scene fifteen minutes after the collision, and they found me roughly an hour upon arrival. I was rushed to the hospital and told my car looked like it had fallen down a mountain and that it was a miracle I survived without a scratch.
I was discharged the next day after a lengthy set of tests and scans, the doctor told me that I may have false memories after the crash from the brain trauma. so now I’m sitting here writing this, if it’s just false memories that I’m having then what’s the worst that can happen for sharing this? but if all of it really happened, I need to know the truth. I need to know everything. I know one thing for sure these things can die, what if I find a way back there but I go prepared this time? One of you will have to believe me or know something, somebody will. But regardless of finding help, if you were to ask me right now how I’m doing, here’s your answer. I’m alright and I’m going back.