Omnipresence

There is something to be said about the stillness of the forest in the dead of night.

Everything is variations of black and gray, with the only source of light emitting from the full moon that peeks out from behind the thin, dead branches of the trees. There are no leaves left on them now, the harsh and cold winter sending its warning call in the form of death. Once alive, the leaves are now lifeless and dry on the forest floor as they crunch beneath your feet.

It is the only sound you can now hear, seeming as loud as a thunderclap as it disturbs the utter silence.

Your chest tightens, and suddenly it has become hard to breathe. You feel claustrophobic, something that has never been a problem before. It suffocates you. It consumes you.

What exactly it is, you do not know.

You whip around at the sound of a twig snapping behind you. For a moment you stand stock still, paralyzed with fear. Hysteria bubbles in your throat but you suppress it, hoping feebly that somehow silence will save you. Deep down you know it won't.

All of a sudden excruciating pain bursts behind your eyes and blinds you, and this time you cannot keep down your scream of agony. You drop to your knees and clutch at your head. You pray to anything that will listen to make it stop, but it does not relent.

Through the pain you see faint images and hear sounds. At first they are indistinguishable, but then they become clearer. You realize with horror what they are - memories that have not been accessible to you up until this point. Up until this very moment they have been taken from you by something. It.

Blank white eyes staring at you from the dark corner of your bedroom. Whispers in an unknown language you somehow understand playing in an endless loop as you try to block them out. Chilled hands of death reaching out for you and only you. A presence tormenting you on a regular basis.

For the past few months almost every night you have been visited. On every occasion you have not been allowed to remember. Now you have been granted the privilege.

As quickly as the pain came it stops, leaving you instead with a hollow feeling. Now it is no longer blood running through your veins but ice. You no longer feel human. You are now detached.

You push yourself up and stand, swaying a few times on unsure legs. Your eyes dart this way and that trying to see something, anything. All you are met with is the forest that now mocks you with its tranquility. No matter what happens to you the woods will not change. The landscape may but the essence of it will not. You envy it.

Never before have you wished for death. Now it is your sole desire.

If you had known what was to come of this camping trip you never would have gone. How could you have known? You were robbed of your knowledge, and now it has cost you your only daughter. Any and all faith you had dissipated with the last shuddering breath she took as she died in your arms.

Never will you forget her terrified scream that jolted you from your sleep. Never will you forget her blond curls getting splattered with crimson as an invisible force slashed at her. Never will you forget the life draining from her young eyes so similar to your own. Never will you forget how helpless you were in those moments.

But judging by how things are going, you doubt you have long to remember.

You can hear the whispers now, like nails dragging slowly down a chalkboard.

You're next...you're next...

They chant in a crescendo, growing louder and louder until it is no longer a sound but much more. It is now in the air you breathe, in what little thoughts that are running through your mind. You have become one with it.

Then you can't take it anymore and take off running at a breakneck speed. You are not running to save yourself but just simply to move, because anything is better than standing still. Once again you wish for death, for blissful relief from this hell.

You don't know how long you dash through the trees, but eventually you find you can go no farther. Once again you fall to your knees, uncaring of the tears that leak from your eyes. You lower your head for just a moment, but then when you raise it again, you are met with the milky, empty eyes that have haunted you.

Nothing could have prepared you for this moment. Your throat closes and breathing becomes an impossibility. Its cold breath brushes your face, filling your nostrils with the smell of decay. Ebony mist swirls around its eyes like a black hole. There is no identifiable body.

It is simply the true essence of hell morphed into a single entity.

Two long tendrils of black reach out towards you. You did not know this kind of terror existed. The fright takes over, and everything you have ever felt no longer matters. The fear has extinguished them.

When its frigid touch comes into contact with your neck, you are no longer human.

A piercing sound fills the air all around you. Tortured screams that will go on for all eternity. Sounds that will become your background music forevermore.

It has taken you.

What it is, is what you have become.