Tales To Tell In The Dark

Visions of Daddy

I see things. Every night. I see them in my dreams, and they haunt my subconscious constantly. They are both horrifying and beautiful at the same time. They make me think dark thoughts, about my family, my life, and my mind. I'm constantly dreading the night. I hate going to sleep, and I pray every night that these dreams will not occur. But my prayers are never answered.

The dreams always start the same way. I wake up in a cool dark shack, shivering and naked. Lying next to me are a pile of bloodstained clothes. I put them on subconsciously. The shack has a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. I pull the cord and turn it on, as I do every time. Usually, the shack is empty. This time, I'm not alone; there is a small boy, huddled in the corner. He is facing the corner, and I can't see his face.

I stare at him for some time. After an hour, he turns to look at me. His face is missing. His face is missing, but I can see another face in his blank one. The face stares at me. It has no mouth or nose. It has white eyes, with no pupils; just white. The eyes stare into my mind, as if trying to read the story of my soul. I try to read his in return. Soon, the boy fades away as the light dims again. As he disappears, he attempts to speak. No sound comes out, but I read his lips: 'let him in.'

I hear a clicking sound, and find that the door of the shack is now unlocked. I slowly open the door and I see an abyss of trees, an enormous forest, covered in a blanket of fog. The tree corpses are so thick, they block all moonlight from reaching the earth. Their twisted branches reach towards me like broken arms. But hard as they try, they can not harm me. In the midst of the trees, I can see what looks like a thing. A tall, hairy, black figure, watching me with white glowing eyes, acting as a grotesque shadow. I keep walking, try as hard as possible not to look at it. Although I do my best to keep it out of sight, I can still feel it following close behind.

I hear no footsteps aside from my own, but I still sense its presence following me. I feel the thing's white eyes boring into the back of my mind. My mind is racing, with thoughts of dark emotions and the thing's face. Sweat drips down my face. A dull pain is beginning to shoot through my chest, but I continue walking. I can feel that the pain is being caused by the thing following me. Eventually, I come to a clearing. A group of small stones on the ground spell out four words: 'i love you daddy.' I stand staring at the message, with thoughts of my late father creeping through my mind.

The stones rearrange themselves: 'let me in.' Suddenly, a glimmer of white catches my eye. I can see that it isn't one of the thing's eyes; it is a piece of paper, attached to a tree. I approach it and examine it. It is a crayon-drawing of the faceless boy holding hands with the tall thing. It looks as if a small child has drawn it. The drawing has a name written in the bottom-right hand corner: my name.

There is something written above each figure: the word 'Me' is written above the faceless boy, and the word 'Daddy' is written above the tall thing. I stare at the drawing for several minutes. Then, I hear a sound: a whispering voice. It is hard to make it out, but finally I hear what it says: 'let me in'.....let me in.' I turn around, and I see it. It is standing before me; it is tall, dark, and covered in shadowy hair, with glowing white eyes. He says to me, 'let me in.' I stand, staring him down. I attempt to speak, but my mind doesn't want my mouth to open. Eventually, I succeed in opening it: 'i love you daddy.' I begin walking towards him, slowly but steadily, making my way into his welcoming arms.

I finally let him in.