The View Frøm The Shadøws

2- Josh The Newbie

A/N- So, I'm leaving to go camping tomorrow and most likely won't have signal the whole time. We come back sometime on Sunday so I won't be able to check comments and messages until then. Thank you guys!

It's been awhile since I first met Tyler, and I have to say this might be over quicker than I thought. This boy was wearing down quickly, and he's moving into his own apartment now which is even better. More alone time for him, means more time that I get to wear him down.

The day he moved into the apartment I didn't have much time to talk to him; his mind was too filled with the voices of his friends and his parents. It was frustrating me, so I went back down to hell to wait until Tyler was asleep. His dreams were the most effective way to mess with him, I've discovered. He's a very visual person so what better way to get through to him than visions?

As I waited in hell, I did the only thing I could do. Wander around with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company. In this way Tyler and I were similar, we are our own worst enemy.

Anytime I don't have someone or something to focus on, my own thoughts and foggy memories from my past fill my mind and completely smother any peaking chances of happiness.

There's no way to keep time down here, Collectors just kind of...know what time it is on earth wherever our current victim resides. When it was around ten at night I went back to Tyler's new apartment. I appeared right next to his bed, of course not thinking to look behind me, and began to get to work.

I placed my hand on the side of Tyler's head and began to project negative words and images into his dreams. At first, he simply started mumbling and he frowned. But he started to thrash around a bit and his words became intelligible and distressed.

"Hey! Who are you? Leave him alone!"

I jumped and removed my hand from Tyler to face the direction of the voice. Before me stood the boy who's face had been plastered all over the news and town for the past couple of weeks after his untimely death in a car crash. His name was Josh I believe.

He must be Tyler's Protector, I was wondering how long it would take for one to show up. I was beginning to think I had gotten lucky and he simply wasn't going to have one. But oh well, I've dealt with dozens like him before, he would be no different.

Deciding to give the newbie a little scare, I shifted out of my shadow form and let myself turn into "Blurryface" as Tyler likes to call me. He's even written a few songs about me (I'm flattered).

I gave Josh a small smirk before dissipating and going back to hell. I had already done enough to Tyler for the night anyways, and now I could give his new Protector time to panic about what was happening. Poor thing probably didn't even know how to pick things up yet.

Oh well, not my problem.

The next day I followed Tyler to his job interview, where he sadly got the job. When he went grocery shopping he took his loud friend with him much to my dismay.

But after getting a read of his friend, who I found out is named Brendon, I figured out he and his Protector Dallon are the ones who got rid of that asshole who wanted to be called Emperor. After that I didn't mind Brendon so much, I owed him and Dallon a lot. I was about to try to find out ways to kill myself if I had to put up with yellow eyes for one more fucking day.

That night after a slightly tipsy Brendon left Tyler's apartment, I waited for Tyler to fall asleep. Tyler wandered into to his room around one in the morning sleepy and bleary eyed ready to just fall into his bed. Josh was nowhere to be seen.

Perfect.

As I waited for him to fall into a deep sleep, I occupied myself my going out into the living room, remaining in the shadows to spy on Josh. I saw him scrolling through Tyler's laptop. Curious as to what he was looking at, I slowly moved until I was behind Josh and could see the screen. He was on some social media site that I see Tyler on sometimes, and was stalking Tyler's profile.

With a shake of my head I went back into Tyler's bedroom and saw that he was almost to a point where he could dream, and then I could begin my work. After another fifteen or twenty minutes, I could finally begin. I started where I left off last night.

After a few moments, I decided to kick things up a notch for Josh's amusement. I gripped Tyler's throat, giving the appearance that I was choking him even though that was physically impossible for me, and increased the negativity and persistence of the visions in his dreams.

Finally, he let out a scream alerting Josh of his distress. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blur of blue hair as he rushed into the room.

"Hey! I thought I told you to leave him alone!" he shouted. I simply turned back to face him as I morphed into Blurryface once again. I gave him a smirk as I replied.

"You have no say in what happens. He brought this upon himself, he deserves this. So stay out of the way."

I saw Josh flinch at the sound of my voice, his fear only fueling me further. I know what I said was a lie, but Tyler and Josh don't need to know that. The longer they're in the dark, the better.

I made another flood of images go through Tyler's dreams, and this time it was enough to wake him from his sleep. He shot out of the bed and fell onto the floor, curling up in a pathetic little ball. Deciding to up the dramatics, I walked over to the quivering boy and began to whisper harsh lies into his ears. Apparently, this is when Josh finally found his balls and decided to do something.

"I said, leave him alone!" He knocked me away from Tyler and through a nearby wall. We came to a stop in the living room and Josh immediately climbed on top of me in an attempt to keep me from leaving. If he only knew.

"Who are you?" He demanded.

"I am Tyler, but he prefers to call me Blurryface; he likes to pretend I'm not him, but I am. I'm the real version of him; all of his flaws and insecurities rolled into one. My job is to remind him of who he truly is, and you're getting in my way." I answered.

Taking Josh by surprise, I flipped us over and started hitting him. I know I wasn't doing much damage to him now; it was mostly just to scare him a bit. At one point he was able to have enough time to knock me off of him. Remaining on the floor, I looked up at him with a lazy grin.

"Fine, I'll go for now. But you can't keep me at bay Josh. I will win this, I always do."

"What do you mean by 'win'?"

"When Tyler is dead, I will have won."