Hundreds of thousands of people are reported missing every year worldwide…
Is your home your safe haven, your happy place? A sanctuary to retreat to when the trials and uncertainties of life crush your psyche flat? Does being embraced in the air infused with the scent of your handpicked candles and fresh laundry ease your mind and instill a sense of security, of comfort?
*Does it really?*
What makes you certain the space under your roof belongs to you only? Can you say with confidence you are the sole inhabitant, and no one else, nothing else is nestling within the nooks and crannies, invisible to your mortal eyes, completely unbeknown to you? How about all those times you lost an items for no particular reason, only to locate it far from its orginal whereabouts; the times when the kitchen faucet that is supposed to be shut off operates on its own and doubles your water bill; the times your locked door creaks open - are the responsible factors your random lapses of memories? Are they? Are they?*Are they?*
*Are they? Say that aloud? Say it with no hint of doubt. Say it. SAY IT. SAY IT. SAY IT!*
You can’t, can you?
Nobody can.
Shhh… Be quiet. Don’t glance behind you. Do you feel the shift in temperature? It’s not the air blowing from your AC. The uncanny slippery slithering down your back isn’t from perspiration either.
Don’t acknowledge the tongue.
*You wouldn’t want to meet the rest of the body.*
.
.
.
.
.
You are temporary safe. Your housemate is elsewhere. It’s imperative to refrain from exhibiting signs of fear, they would be pulled to its allure the way maggot are to decayed roadkill under the scorching summer heat.
Don’t press your luck, and adhere to the rules.
*The deception wouldn’t prove so useful next time.*
**Rule 1: You will always be sleeping throughout the night**
There is no rustling in the curtain cascading down by your windows. There is no one peeping at you from behind it. There is no one drawing it up to elongate their serpentine neck into the room to leer at you. The whiteness of the orbs and their inhumanly wide grin are nothing more than reflections of the street lights standing close to your home. You don’t live in an alley. You don’t live in an apartment 20 feet off the ground. There is no power outage. There is never power outage. *There is never power outage!*
There is no wardrobe door creaking open in the dead of the night. Within its void-like darkness, you will be seeing no pallid, gaunt fingers writhing in a grosteque dance that leaves them cracking every second in your peripheral vision. The bundles of inky hair that spilled outside from the crack between each plank of the wardrobe are yours. You. Do. Not. Have. Short. Hair.
The footsteps bouncing on your floor are from the scurrying mouse. The chattering and contorted giggles licking on your earshell are their chirps and squeaks. They don’t sound like a person trying to gurgle with a throat slit open. Mouse are not a threat. Mouse are no reason to frighten. Mouse live in the dark. Mouse approach you out of their curiosity. Mouse are never a danger.
The humanoid figures looming over you are induced by sleep paralysis. You don’t smell the foulness of their disintegrated features, you don’t feel the slickness of their peeled flaps of skins on your limbs. You don’t hear them. They aren’t whispering. They don’t want to consume you. They are delusions. Delusions are not able to inflict physical damages.
**Rule 2: Nothing is wrong with your pets**
Your dogs and cats don’t bare their teeth for no reasons, they detect mouse, and it’s their disposition to getting triggered by potential prey. It’s in their genes. Nothing to get worried about. You don’t feel goose-flesh prickling beneath your sleeves whenever they display such instinctive behaviors. Your AC is in a bad shape, hence the unexpected reduction of temperature. You don’t hear the warped laughter that dallied by as though a broken ancient instrument is in the room. There is no distorted wails that sent shivers down your spine. There is no twisted figure with disjointed gait limping in your peripherals with an expression doused in agony.
Your dogs and cats crawling under your furniture and cowering can be explained by the scent of coyotes that live nearby. Your house have thin walls. Coyotes have broken out of the city zoo. There is no mutilated humanoid figure dragging themselves across the floor or the ceiling on their multiple twisted swinging limbs. Their neck isn’t slithering towards you, carrying their nauseating head alone. There is no skin ripping. There is no bone cracking. There is no guttural wheezes that don’t resemble anything on the mortal plane gritted out through their all-too-many teeth. It’s the coyotes. The coyotes are to blame.
Your fish cannot survive for an extended period because you forget to change their water, or overfeed them. And don’t be concerned when their population keeps declining - some of the variants swimming in the tank are carnivorous, that’s all. You find no monstrous entities clinging on the edge of your fish kingdom at night to terrorize them. It’s dark, you can’t even see your fingers, your brain is simply feeding twisted images to your imagination. You did not install a lighting system for the fish tank. And you certainly do not see gnarly fingers reaching down to seize a poor fish, nor a putrid tongue lapping up the water. The sounds stabbing through your ears are not appreciative animalistic moans, but the humming of the water filter. It’s old. It’s just old.
**Rules 3: Your ornamental items are inanimate and harmless**
Mirrors are reflective items, which suggests that lights will bounce off them to trick your eyes occasionally. Yes, it’s the light and nothing else. You glance onto its surface and find a frail incorporeal hand clamping on your shoulder, slighting tapping to catch your attention? It’s the light. The red handprints manifesting itself for seconds before vanishing? It’s the light. An elongated creature propping itself on endless insecticide feet to march across your flooring behind your back before sliding its whole length into your cabinet? It’s the light. You certainly do not hear sounds of sharp needle appendages scratching the floor. And you don’t find any mark thereafter.
Your decorative dolls are plastic, hence they cannot turn towards you collectively. If they for some reason make unexplainable movements, always remember that you were the one adjusting their posture a couple days earlier. You do not see any sickly hand reaching out from behind them to swivel any part of their body. The vibrancy of their nail polish… No. No fingers. No nail polish. *No nail polish!*
The glints in their eyes of your figurine are from the light glancing off the glass/ reflective materials. Their eyes aren’t painted. And yes, they have always been smiling in the first place - their smile isn’t broadening, or staining with red before your very eyes. Dripping red has always been their exclusive features, you got them years ago and your memories of them aren’t the greatest anymore.
You have a clown. A battery-powered one that is no longer in proper working conditions. It’s fine for it to hopping up and down in any area of your house. The haunting laugh laced with insanity is but another function - you got it as a Halloween decoration.
Your furniture do not sprout human skin, nor can they undulate the way living being can. The elasticity and the softness is your imagination, you are tired after a draining day of work. You need sleep. You need to be in your room. You can’t see any humanoid head popping up on the piece of furniture, and it doesn’t grin, or possesses moving arms that wave at you while you are walking away.
Hundreds of thousands of people vanished off the surface of the Earth every single years, and the responsible factors are not always kidnapping or crime.
Take care.
Don’t join them.
*Don’t ever glance back!*