(Mind) Tricks

I'm Not Alone

     I'm staring into the eyes of the monster locked behind a door again and it looks angrier than ever. The fiery eyes burned with the ferocious hunger of a thousand wolves. The flame inside was mostly blue, burning much hotter than before and peeling away pieces of its blackened exterior. This time I noticed that it's fingers were sculpted into sharp talons, seemingly meant for slicing into just about anything it wished to. I also noticed that it's back was protected by a pair of torn and burnt wings that looked quite reptilian in nature. Barely audible over the crackle of the flame, I heard a deep, distorted, and breathy voice speaking.

     "Why do you flee from your fate?" the creature breathed out the words.

     "You flee from the inevitable, yet invite it. You are needed elsewhere, and I have been tasked to bring you there. I have killed people whose time was not over to attempt to bring you with me. Once you allow me to take you, the people will stop dying. If you continue to flee, the consequences will become increasingly dire." The voice became shaky with anger.

     "You have been warned, Clarissa Frost. We will not stop until we have you..." The voice faded simultaneously with the body as the wind swept it away again.  The tears begin again and I feel weaker than ever. My body feels as though I was hit in the stomach with a softball bat and I couldn't catch my breath. I look down and there are small droplets of blood starting to appear on the floor and I realize they are coming out of my nose. I take my jacket off and bring it to my face to try stopping the blood, but it keeps flowing out. I sit on the staircase and pinch my nose hard as a last resort, but soon I'm choking on the blood that I'm trying to stop. Tears and blood cover my jacket and my shirt as I sit all alone on the stair. I feel like a child, I'm crying for my mom for the first time since I was twelve.

****************************

     I wake up on the floor with my pillow over my face and my sheets torn off of my mattress. My pillow has tear stains on about half of the fabric and I'm sore from sleeping wrong. Today is Sunday. I have to attempt to buy groceries again today, but I have no motivation to do so. My fear of yesterday is going to my head and I don't want to risk another incident like watching a young cashier die a tragic death. His face as the life drained away haunts me and probably always will. I decide not to go out and instead try to do some research on everything that's been happening. I feel like for the past week I've been doing nothing but living in fear, it's time for some answers.

     I pull up Google's Advanced Search and started typing in keywords. I type in a full description of the creature in one or two word forms.

     "Tall", "Burnt", "Red Eyes", "Burning","Demonic","Murderous","Real?".

     One site came up with the title "You Have Been Warned". Clicking on the site revealed a poorly made website with a black background and bright red text. The title was bold and underlined, for emphasis I guess. The site went on to say that the writer of the article was a psychiatrist and that two of her patients have seemingly committed suicide after telling her about the same monster trying to kill them. The patients would say that the monster would appear in their dreams and follow them around during everyday life. The monster would tell them the same things, that they had been killing to try to get to them and that they were needed somewhere else. There were no pictures or actual evidence of the monster because scientifically they couldn't exist and they were never seen by anyone else. The site ended with a statement saying that if you are experiencing this monster, try to fight off it's power for as long as possible. Once you give in, it overtakes you and takes your life away.

     If anything, I have more questions now than I did before. The site said not to get help because the monster will kill whoever knows your struggle. The site also said it seems to use psychological warfare tactics to break down your walls and take you over. There was still no concrete evidence that it was real, but at least I'm not the only one that's going crazy.

     I caught a glance at a line in the middle of the page that said both patients went to psych facilities after being diagnosed with severe psychosis and were reported dead by suicide in their rooms. Both died by slitting their throats, but no weapons or homemade shivs were found in their rooms. The paragraph continued by saying that the deaths weren't coincidences, but no concrete evidence could be found to disprove suicide. When asked about their deaths, The writer told them everything, but their stories only proved their psychosis diagnoses. The similarities didn't occur to the investigators and they considered it an open-and-shut case. The author of the article said that she had wanted to study this phenomena after the investigations closed, but never found another person experiencing the same things as her patients did. She had an email and I knew I had to email her. I wrote down the email, then looked up the name she had left at the bottom of the page. Her Facebook page was memorialized, she had died in a car accident three years ago. I guess emailing her is out of the question.

     I walked to the school cafeteria for the first time since freshman year, taking hidden routes so I could smoke on the way and not get caught by campus police. I remember them having okay food, and I didn't have any in my dorm room so I didn't have many other options. I got about halfway and got tackled into the bushes by someone.

     "Jenn?"

     "Hey Cutie."