I know what you are thinking, it’s just your bedroom door, but there was something very off about it the first night I looked at it. I woke up sometime really late or early morning, I couldn’t really tell, but the door just looked really strange. I always shut my door before going to sleep because my roommate, Geoff, has a very reasonable but loud habit of getting high and watching weird YouTube stuff on his Fridays (everyone else’s Tuesday) and the door keeps most of the sound out. However, I could see into the living room, even as I was laying down. The yellow tinge of the street lights was glowing on the back of the couch through blinds and it all looked really calm…. But
I know what you are thinking, it’s just your bedroom door, but there was something very off about it the first night I looked at it. I woke up sometime really late or early morning, I couldn’t really tell, but the door just looked really strange. I always shut my door before going to sleep because my roommate, Geoff, has a very reasonable but loud habit of getting high and watching weird YouTube stuff on his Fridays (everyone else’s Tuesday) and the door keeps most of the sound out. However, I could see into the living room, even as I was laying down. The yellow tinge of the street lights was glowing on the back of the couch through blinds and it all looked really calm…. But why could I see all of that?
I quietly got up to see if maybe I was just simply drained after my day and laid down without enough time to complete my normal nightly routine but as I looked at it the door was closed… or… that isn’t the right word. It was in line with the wall like a door should be if it was closed but the door wasn’t long enough. The latch to my door didn’t reach. The door just wasn’t snug to the frame like a door is supposed to be. “Huh” I quietly said aloud.
And then, with a satisfying and hushed pop, I blinked as I jumped back. The sudden sound was alarming in the dead quiet. But in that instant my door was back in place, latched and pressed to the frame that houses it. And with that I turned around and slunk back to my bed to finish the rest of my dream priorities I had all but forgotten.
I wasn’t meant to see anything but I did. Just earlier today I was stopped at a red light and noticed a nice looking man, he was old, but he wore a smile that told me he was taking his retirement in great stride.
Something was wrong. He was looking at the birds flying about (Good) and at the bus as it drove around the corner (Good) and he was just walking down the street (NOT Good). He wasn’t walking down the street. It looked like he was walking but he wasn’t moving. The arm swing and movements were right but he was just gliding his feet on the ground but didn’t seem to realize it. Long strands of black were just becoming visible as they pierced up from the ground. They were bending at certain spots, like notches that were a bit knobby to the thin needle strands. Then as my staring got more intense, pop, and he began to move normally again, no more gliding like he was in Call of Duty and his connection was timing out and no more black cacophony of fibers reaching up. He did have an odd expression on his face though like he was forgetting something, or better yet remembering something sad, unbelievably sad. A couple honks from behind alerted me that I and everyone else in my lane of traffic was going to be late for work, so off I went, giving the moment just a quick shake of my head and a promise I would finally go to the doctor after work, or end of the month, or whenever I get the chance.
Why did I have to see it? Why would it let me?
I’m not sure what was worse: realizing that the sound I was hearing was reality closing itself back up and that if that’s the case then maybe our world was destined to fall apart or realizing that there was something behind reality that was coming through. It was in charge of fixing it, sewing up the loose ends of existence so the fabric of the material world doesn’t fall apart. What I was seeing was the fraying of that fabric and I could only guess that I was seeing the labor of the tailor keeping it working. I have told myself that over and over but in all honesty I knew the definitive truth all along. It isn’t fixing anything. It is feeding. It exists through our world’s failures and it uses the shadow that is cast on its world like a bridge to reach us.I haven’t seen my roommate in a good few days now. You see I made a grave error in thinking about how things are made right when it arrives and then subsequently leaves. I failed to realize that it takes something, too. Geoff always crashes on the couch on his days off but I clearly could see the couch empty when I visualize that first encounter. And now after I know what to look for, I remember that old man I saw on my drive to work wasn’t alone. He was walking with his wife before it came to fix the error of reality.
It needs to eat, no, no, no, it wants to eat. When it enters here there is always some side effect. Those needle fingers aren’t to clean up the mess but to feast on whatever creatures they have time to grab. All that fit are its fingers. I know because I can see it and it knows I can because it can see me.
My bedroom is smaller than when I left the house today. Its hard to tell in the dark but the far wall has been moving closer and shrinking the room. The dark shadows have long past where my bed normally is and the dark wall is almost at the bedroom door now. And I- I can see it. There are the faintest muffled, bubbling, deep breaths that sound like the intake of a scuba diver who is running out of oxygen and is looking for his way out, using his few breaths to keep himself alive.
But its eyes scare me the most. I want to let you know there is a clear and awfully numbing difference between the darkest place you have ever seen at night and a hole so deep and hungry it devours anything, even the light. It will not stop. Not even for a second until it gets to me.
The tendrils aren’t just to grab you, they fill you with dread and hopelessness. I can’t run now, I can’t even remember why I would want to. There is nothing left for it to eat now besides my physical self because who I was feels so far away now.