The Devil Lives Next Door

TDLND - Introduction

Dedicated to MiniMoxx for being the first person to find my book, and give me positive feed back! Thanks for you awesomeness lol. ^_^

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Introduction

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I sat by the window as I painted random strokes of color on the canvas; I liked painting, it was all I did for a living. I painted portraits and other things for people and got money for it. I even had a website set up, and I must say that my business was booming.

I didn't have to talk or try to hear what people said because it was done online, the person would send me a picture, and offer me a price. Since it was always people with money that wanted my paintings they always offer a generous amount.

As I hummed a tune, I saw that I was painting a dark figure; I always painted freely, not fixed on an objective, but going with the flow as people called it. The painting was strange, the dark figure looked just like my previous ones but it was closer than my last one as if it was walking to me.

Every year on November 5th, on the day I almost died, my hands would paint the same figure. It started out as a mere point in the canvas but like every year past the point grew into a figure, and the figure was getting closer.

I thought it was weird when I compared all the paintings that had the same background of autumn leaves falling as the dark figure approached but I thought that it was just my mind involuntarily drawing the figure closer every year on the same day since I was lonely.

I mean, what am I supposed to infer from that? That some kind of evil being or someone dark is coming for me and that it's getting closer? Ptch, that's just ridiculous.

Sometimes I paint my painful past, to relieve me of the pain, I know that it's weird, but that is how I cope with my past.

When my mind felt like it had enough of freelancing, I looked at the painting and my eyes widened as I dropped my brush on the wood floor. The dark figure looked like it was looking at me and smirking, the smirk on its face made the hairs on my arm stand on end, and I had no idea if it was the good or the bad chills.

I snapped from my trance, picked up the brush from the floor, and cleaned up the mess I made before it could stain the floor. After putting my painting utensils away I took the canvas and put it on the balcony to dry, even though I felt a little creeped out by it, I still wanted to keep it.

I went on my laptop to see if I had gotten any request and to my dismay, I did not, I only got replies on how amazing my paintings were. I sighed and opened a new tab, I had Google search opened and I did not know what to do.

I soon decided to research the mind, unconsciously imagining a dark figure, the only thing I got was sleep paralysis, which didn't apply to me since I wasn't sleeping and delusions weren't it either since I was painting it.

I sighed, giving up on the search, and put my laptop on hibernate. I went to the kitchen to fix myself some dinner and decided on making myself some chicken Alfredo. When I finished, I cleaned up and took a plate out to eat.

I couldn't help but feel the vibration of the fork hitting the plate, and notice the empty seats next to me. I was alone and it would always be that way, whether I liked it or not.

Why am I alone? Well, I am alone because I never had friends, to begin with, everyone at my high school thought I was a freak since I was the only deaf person there. I have no family because my father was an only child and my grandpa and grandma died when I was three.

After mom died when I was 8 years old, my father started to abuse me with no intentions of stopping, I always had to cover up my bruised up the body and try to act normal in front of my teachers. One Time I had forgotten to cover up a bruise on my arm and a teacher noticed and asked me about it.