Damien

Chapter Eight

Sickening

Reed started standing in front of a mirror. Everything around him is dark. Only his reflection is seen. He wants to look around but can't seem to pry himself from his reflection.

A clawed hand grabbed his shoulder, followed by a raspy voice that sounded like a hellish choir.

"Stop fighting, boy!" The thing repeated itself over and over.

and over

and over

and ov-

Reed bolted up just as a knock on his door sounded. Looking at his phone, the time showed 3:48 p.m.

'Thank God it was a Saturday.' Reed thought to himself.

Remembering the knock at his bedroom door, he said a quick "Come in."

Opening the door were his friends, Riley and Rory. They had a worried expression on their faces; he could tell they wanted to ask him something, possibly about his weird attitude yesterday, over text. Before they had the opportunity, Reed spoke first.

"I'm sorry guys, I think I dreamed going to class; it all felt so real." "I guess I was in denial or groggy or something." Ending his apology with a laugh and a smile towards his friends. 

Both looked like a weight had been taken off their shoulders by his apology, and they smiled before accepting it. For what felt like hours, they just hung out in his room. either scrolling through social media or telling him about something he missed at school. Rory was bragging about the 100% they got on their test, to which Riley shot back that they wouldn't have gotten that score if not for her. Reed couldn't help but laugh at their bickering, feeling truly at home and comfortable. 

Suddenly Riley stood up and said, "Hey, wanna go on a walk or something?" "Maybe we can go check out some more of that diary?" She finished popping her joints from the uncomfortable beanbag chair she had been sitting on since 3 p.m.

They both agreed; Reed only agreed because he couldn't find an excuse not to, and Rory looked just as excited as Riley did. So they began to walk casually, not minding how slow they were going, mostly because they didn't have a curfew on weekends. Reed enjoyed them talking about anything and everything that came to mind; he had totally forgotten where they had been going until they got there. 

The cabin looked just as they'd left it, but Reed had noticed the missing corpse that had adored the front step and its welcome mat. Instead, what lay there was a dark brown stain that he couldn't remember if it had been there before or not. They filed in, sitting again on the dusty couch. Picking up the journal again, Reed started reading.

'4/27/04'

"It's been quite a while since I've had enough time to sit down and write in this thing, so I guess I should start off explaining what happened between entries!"

"To start off, the plumbing needed to be fully repaired since it had been so long since anyone had actually worked on it."

"The second thing was that a predator had moved in around my house because I kept finding dead rabbits and birds in my yard." At first, I thought it was a stray cat or something because cats have a bad habit of not actually eating the things they kill, but then the dead animals started getting bigger, like there was a deer dead in my yard. A call to animal control later, they thought it was a bear and told me they'd figure it out. "Apparently they never did, because I haven't gotten a call back."

"The final reason is that I've just been busy with commissions and other art projects."

A footnote at the bottom of the page with a drawing of the assumed dead deer the author had found. It had been mangled. neck and other limbs twisted in a sickening way, with its bottom jaw seemingly torn from its skull.

Closing the journal, all Reed could do was sit there.

He felt sick.