Have you ever had that feeling that you’re not really where you’re supposed to be? That maybe, just maybe, you’ve woken up in an alternate reality? I always thought it was just a feeling until it happened to me.
A couple hours ago, I woke up feeling dizzy. It seemed like an average morning, so I went about my routine, I went to the bathroom, I brushed my teeth and washed my face. Being a widow, I went to my kitchen and started cooking breakfast for myself while memories of my beautiful wife rushed through my brain. Once I took my dog out for a walk, that’s when I started feeling as if something was off. The sky was greener than usual and everything was slightly darker. The air felt moist and thick, leaving a slight smell of Sulfur. I felt something was off, but I shrugged it off, thinking it was just my hangover from the party the previous night.
After a couple minutes of walking my dog, I realized that there was no one around to be seen. Not even my neighbor Sheila, who is a 70 year old that’s always out in her front yard looking at nature and all the planes fly by. Today was the first time in four years I hadn’t seen her. Then I noticed that no cars were passing by either. Everything was so quiet, that in its own unsettling way made it feel peaceful.
Suddenly, as we were walking, my dog seemed to have freaked out. My dog started pulling back and eventually the leash broke. I started to run toward my dog who was already across the street by that point. Around half an hour of searching later, I still was not able to find him. Seeing as how I was already closer to my local police station than I was to my house at this point, I decided to go there to make a report. As I was walking to the station, I suddenly remembered the quietness that filled the air around me as I worried less about my dog. It had been around 40 minutes since I had left my house and there was still no sign of any other person around me.
With a sinking feeling in my gut, I made my way towards the local police station. As I walked, scraps of paper blew past me, like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. And when I finally reached the station, I attempted to read the sign.
The sign was indecipherable, the characters were twisted into a nonsensical alien language. I was starting to become even more confused, but I stopped myself and looked around for a moment. As I slowly brought my head up and looked at the stop sign on my right, I noticed it was also in an alien language. “Has everything been written like this all along and I haven’t noticed?” I mumbled to myself. That’s when I noticed that something was way out of the ordinary. Soon after, I felt my muscles contract and a chill go down my spine. Every sign in the road had been in English the night before, so why was it in a weird unknown language now? As I looked around, a part of me died seeing the station’s door wide open with no one in sight.
The unsettling part was when I walked in. I saw an officer sitting down on a desk filling out some papers. I sighed in relief thinking I may have been drugged by someone during the party from the night before. I thought to myself that I had never tried drugs, so maybe this was what it felt like.
As I approached him, I felt my gut instinct tell me something was out of the ordinary. I went on to report my missing dog to him while he kept filling paperwork. The cop, still looking at the paper, lazily took another paper and started writing. This time in English. The paper had a description that was far too detailed for me to have given him. While reading it, I felt everything stop. I never told the cop what type of dog it was, let alone the age and weight, yet he still knew.
The cop moved the paper away and continued filling out papers. Right before he put another paper on top of my report, I took a look at it just to realize it changed back into that same weird language I had seen outside. Then, the cop looked up at me and in a dull and off-putting voice, he said “Thank you for the report, we will call you if we find your dog.” While looking at him, it was obvious that something was off about his appearance: his eyes were wide open, and his movements felt forced and mechanical, as if he was being controlled by some invisible force. That was when I realized… he wasn’t alive.
When I noticed this, I acted normal. In a cracked voice, I thanked him. Immediately after, he stopped moving and fell onto the table. Once I got out of the door, I kept getting this weird feeling as if I was being watched. I decided to start walking toward my house, but since I still felt like I was being watched, I started running, but there was no sign of life anywhere around me.
That’s when I noticed that the sun started to go down. But… the day had just started like an hour and a half ago? How was this possible? The feeling of being stalked grew more and more as the sky became darker. The more the sun fell, the faster I ran. Suddenly, I stopped. I looked at the intersection only to find myself face-to-face with a towering, inhuman figure with glowing white eyes. Once I saw it, I felt my heart fall to the bottom of my chest and shatter trying to process what I was looking at.
What… the hell… is that… that figure… it was not human… It didn’t have four limbs like us… The creature started running.. or crawling toward me. I quickly turned around and ran away as fast as I could. I kept hearing thuds and distorted human screams coming from it, but I didn’t dare look back, especially with the memory of those piercing white eyes that stayed with me.
When I realized that my safety was at risk, a deep sense of fear engulfed me as I began going through options. After a few moments of panic, I broke down the door of a nearby house, and once inside, I quickly ran down to the basement. There, I found a baseball bat and now I am using it as a weapon to protect myself. As I hide in this dark basement, I ask whoever is reading this to call for help as soon as possible. My mind is filled with uncertainty, and I am in a state of panic. The screams that I hear outside the house are getting louder by the minute, and I’m scared for my life. Please, I beg of you, get any help you can. I don’t know how much longer I’ll survive down here…