You know how when you’re a kid, you imagine a creature racing after your car? I had one, except I had a wild imagination. So I would imagine it everywhere. On the roof of my school as I swung, leaping from car to car in the Walmart parking lot. I named him Tracker, cause he was always tracking me down.
I should’ve told someone looking back when I kept seeing Tracker as I got older. I could’ve gotten prescribed medication, then maybe I would’ve found things out sooner. But I am one to live in the past, I still cling to things of my childhood. So I thought it was just another thing. Keeping my head entertained in the boredom. Then I started to see more of them.
Tracker was long and thin, looking much like a deer except it’s head was pointy and it’s legs were straight and pointy and his tail was thin, splitting into a fork at the end. He was all black, so I couldn’t make out any details. He was always running, and he followed wherever I was moving. It was a long road trip when I first saw him. He helped me recognize landmarks, which really helped when we got lost.
Then as I entered middle school I started to see who I named Seeker. Seeker had a triangular head, 6 eyes, 3 pairs of ears, and 3 tails. She was short, and dark brown with white spots, and mostly I would see her out of the corner of my eye watching through any kind of window. I had to be stationary. I’ve seen him peer at me during tests, through those head cut outs at the zoo, and even up from a heating grate. But unlike Tracker, Seeker never let me make direct eye contact with her. She would always dissappear.
I also found Canoe. Canoe lived in the water, and I always saw him swimming around my legs or directly under me. In the tall waves of the ocean, canoe would be there in the waves. He was long, and built like a snake. But he had a mane of fins that surrounded his face like a lion and ran down his back. He also had catfish whiskers.
Canoe made me afraid of swimming in the lake, so I was ways catious there, and I decided the ocean wasn’t even an option. He was the only one who would touch me. Creatures under the water always freaked me out, and the fact Canoe wasn’t afraid to sweep my legs made me concerned about swimming where I couldn’t see unless there were witnesses, and I preferreda pool where I could keep track of him. Seeing him swim towards me, or under me, made me way too uncomfortable but I relented for my love of swimming.
Then there was Nyx. Nyx’s appearance was hard for me to see, as they only appeared in the pitch dark. I could make out white beady eyes, a rounded face, and antlers on their head that grew and shrank in the dark as I looked at them. That was the only part of them that moved, unless I was in sleep paralysis. It was a phenomenon I suffered from alot. Only then will Nyx move.
I still remember when I first saw Nyx move. I had glanced at him by my door before settling into bed, but my heart quickly lept as I awoke from my nightmare later that night, frozen. Nyx then moved up onto my bed, placing what seemed like a paw on my front side as it approached from behind, as if to keep me there even if I could move. I felt their whole weight on my back, restricting my breathing. I felt this overwhelming sense of anxiety and doom, a shiver down my spine that refused to end. They opend their mouth, exposing long sharp white teeth, and just began breathing in my ear.My breathing was too slow to scream, and as I closed my eyes not wanting to see I drifted in and out of dreams of being rescued, only to awake still stuck under Nyx, until I was finally jolted awake by my step-dad.
I began to draw pictures of them in the sides of my binder. None of them hurt me, just scared me a little sometimes. I thought nothing of them being perhaps hallucinations. It was bad dreams and imagination. Too much goosebumps as a kid, too many creepypastas before bed, me wanting to be an author, nothing more. I spoke of them in that way too, imagination.
Even as I got my new cat, and he started to notice the Creatures when I did, I still thought it was a coincidence. Even when my pitbull Rosie ripped the heating grate off the wall I saw seeker in, it was nothing. I mean, my pets where never harmed so it had to be nothing.
Then I met Brutus. She is the newest of the creatures. It was after I had met my first boyfriend that I noticed she was always sitting, staring at me, wherever I was. She was so far away, and never moved, that I thought nothing of her.
I was preoccupied anyways to think about the appearance of a new creature while I was in high school because cupid had shot me with his arrow. I was obsessed with my boyfriend, of course I was. A hormonal freshmen with her first love? It was a perfect recipe for doodling hearts on everything and singing a cringy serenade for the winter carnival talent show. I was so foolishly in love, I didn’t notice how much he was verbally insulting me. I am a plain looking girl who always was bullied, I didn’t even dream of a boy looking at me. And I was utterly crushed when he finally broke up with me.
Apparently, people where making fun of him for being with me. As aware as I was of my place in the high school social hierarchy, I was one to proudly march to my own drum. So why he was unable to do the same for “true love” I couldn’t understand. I kept tearfully confronting him in school, begging to not let others get in the way of us. I’ll admit, I was being incredibly embarrassing. It all came to a head as I decided to walk home one day specifically to intercept him.
I could see Seeker staring from an empty house window as I begged him to take me back. His freinds where laughing, I was crying, and before I knew it I was in the spring mud, my ear ringing and my nose bleeding. He had hit me.
He screamed at me to shut up as I blinked away tears. Screamed at me to leave him allowing and stop acting like a baby as, which each blink, I noticed Brutus. She got closer every time I closed my eyes to squeeze out the tears. My ex glared at me, looking so pathetic on the ground. He looked like he wanted to hit me again. He made a movement, I don’t know what kind but it made me flinch and close my eyes, bracing for impact. That’s when I heard the group of boys screaming. I opened my eyes to see Brutus, amid a sickening massacre, her grey fur soaked red and from her dark horns hung gore. I was so sick I turned my back, and when morbidity made me turn again the bodies and Brutus were gone.
I don’t know what they are. They are always watching me. They have their own rules and domains. And they follow me. I wanted to know, has anyone else had this kind of thing? Is this a psycosis? Those boys’ missing cases were finally closed today I heard, it went cold and the police gave up.
Well, it’s time to say goodnight to Nyx and go to bed.