I am writing this minutes after attempting suicide. Despite my hypoxia-addled mind, I believe that the events which have just transpired need to be detailed and shared with the masses.
The world needs to know what I have just seen.
I went about it as I usually do. I committed a strangled genuflect– acting as my own personal papist and executioner.
There I knelt on my bathroom floor, blood pounding in my ears. I’ve read that you can only survive for fourteen seconds without blood flowing to your brain, so I counted. One to two. Three to ten. Twelve to thirteen. Then I saw it. Through the inky darkness pooling into and obscuring my vision, I saw it.
A larger-than-life being– it looked like it was made out of kaleidoscopes made out of stained glass portraits of a lion’s maw. I felt a wave of deja vu wash over me, recalling the hallucinations I experienced a few months ago, after overdosing on cough syrup.
That’s not the scary part though. No, that’s ultimately tame in comparison to the visage surrounding it. Crowded around this horror were overlapping apparitions writhing and sobbing on the ground. It was upon squinting that I realized these ghosts were familiar. My world began to spin as I came to understand that these ghosts had my face, expressions all scrunched up like pathetic little tissue papers.
This demon, I realized, was devouring them– its carnivorous teeth spinning like windmills.
I was so startled by this that I remained kneeling in frozen terror– poised like the executioner’s next kill– only capable of watching and witnessing the horror of the events transpiring in front of me. Hot tears dripped down the burst capillaries in my cheeks and soundlessly hit the ground. It felt like my entire life had been leading up to this one horrifying moment.
I could no longer hold back the choking sobs inside my throat, and it was because of my tearful coughs that it, the specter, finally acknowledged me.
It opened its many mouths, and with a voice that smelled like petrichor and weather vanes it warbled, “Stay.”
I stared at my gored corpses scattered across the floor like shattered Christmas ornaments. In my mind’s eye, I remembered myself coming home from school on a rainy day, tracking mud into my house because I forgot to wipe my boots off on the mat.
“Those Apparitions Are Not You, They Are Merely The Imprints Of Your Dysthymia. They Are What Sustains Me.”
Strangely I began to recall a Wikipedia article I had read about suckermouth catfish, highly demanded as bottom cleaners in the Aquarium Trade.
“I Want You To Know That I Am Grateful For The Feasts You Have Granted Me In Your Life. Out Of Everyone I Have Attached Myself To, You Have Managed To Live The Longest, Even In The Wake Of Such Bountiful Despair.”
I think my terror hit a plateau at some point during this, and somehow this gave me enough confidence to cough out, “…what? Are you killing me?”
From its kaleidoscope maws, there erupted a sound like a thousand hummingbirds’ wing beats. I assume this was as close a proximation as it could come to a laugh.
“It Is In My Best Interest To Eat, So It Is In My Best Interest To Keep You Alive. I Attached Myself To You Not Parasitically But Mutualistically. Creatures Like Myself, Misery Feeders, Have Subsumed Your Race Much Like How Plant Cells Absorbed And Became One With Photosynthetic Prokaryotes. You Have Evolved To Have A Capacity For Misery Beyond That Of Any Other Species On This Earth, And My Species Has Evolved To Subsist Off Of That Misery Solely.”
“Like coral and algae?”
“Sure. How, I Ask You, Would Such Miserable Creatures As Yourselves Be Able To Persevere If There Were Not Some Outside Force Keeping You Alive? It’s Like You’re Built For Self Destruction.
Child, For Many Months We’ve Met Here In This Room–
And I Have Stood Between You And Death Every Time.”
After hearing this, I passed out, and as I slipped into a dreamless sleep, I thought I felt a hand stroking my cheek.
That brings me to the end of my recollection. I think it is critical that every person on this earth be made aware of these creatures that have attached themselves to us. Even now, in the solitude of my home, I am wracked with an acute perception of the fact that I am not truly alone, and if I squint, I’m sure I can see the outlines of my devastated form.
Even now, I’m sure I can feel it feeding.