(18+) Someone in the dark

Ch. 21: The note

It was a struggle to make dinner. I even struggled to pick the usual flower from the flower bed right outside the kitchen. Everything I did, cost a tremendous effort, and I was about to give up. I was empty. Drained. Utterly and totally drowned in fatigue, and this wasn't even the end. How much worse could it get?

It was getting darker, both because the sun was setting for the day, but also because of the thick fog that surrounded me and everything around me. The whispers gradually became louder, and now it felt like they were inside my head, outsourcing all other sounds so they became difficult to hear.

The stairs were like Mount Everest, and I could have sworn the tray weighed fifty pounds. I even had to take a break halfway up. But eventually I could put it on the table and dragged my feet into my room. Out of old habit, I went over to the windowsill to look at the garden. I wondered how it always was so nice and tidy. I knew Carl most likely was the gardener, but I never saw him or anyone else working there.

My eyes wandered to the large oak trees along what I supposed was the edge of the garden. It was almost completely dark outside now, so it wasn't much I saw of them. I wondered what was behind them. I knew that the property was thousands of acres, but it didn't show on this side. Unless the trees hid something.

And they did.

I squinted when I noticed something out of the ordinary. It was the shed underneath them. I wouldn't even have seen it if it wasn't for the vague light coming from it. It was shivering like a weak flame from a candlelight, and I was pretty sure it wasn't only my imagination gone wild. But why would someone need electricity in an old shed? It was a place to store shovels, wheelbarrows, and everything else you need for gardening. And there might be room for some garden furniture during winter if you stacked them tightly, but that was it.

Suddenly, I heard a sound behind me, and I groaned instead of getting scared. I was simply too tired to react much.

"Oh, for Pete's sake. At least let me have a break from this madness when I'm inside my room."

I turned around and found... Nobody.

"Why didn't that surprise me?" I muttered but decided that enough was enough. "I know you're here. I can hear you, so stop hiding and show yourself."

The sound was still there, like a quiet metallic rustle, and now I could hear where it came from.

"Come on! Are you pretending to be a monster underneath the bed? I'm not a child, and this house has already scared my brains out of..."

I stopped in the middle of the sentence. There it was again. A clacking, odd sound that gave me the creeps. Could it be a rat trying to gnaw or push something? I mean, there had already been a dog...

"Damn me and my curiosity," I mumbled to myself and got down on my hands and knees to search for the source. And I remembered it the second before I saw it. The key. I forgot I had put it there. But the most disturbing thing wasn't that it seemed to vibrate on the spot. It was glowing! Not much, but it lit up the place where I put it together with the newspapers. Where were the newspapers, by the way? They were all gone, and there was only a little note that was stuck to the key with something that looked like the slimy substance from the kitchen, and that had certainly not been there before.

"This can't possibly be good."

With trembling hands, I reached under the bed to pick it up. The metal of the key felt ice cold in my palm, despite looking like it was about to melt away, and the half-crumbled note was crispy and sharp at the edges. I tried to swallow the lump that was growing in my throat, but it just wouldn't go away. And my gut feeling was totally right. The words on the note were as clear as it could be:

"The End"

"No. Just... No!" I blurted. The chill that ran up and down my spine was so intense it felt like being stabbed by an icicle. I had problems breathing, and I clenched my jaw so hard that my teeth were close to shatter into pieces.

"I don't wanna die! Not now! Not until I'm old and gray. Shit. I already am old and gray. Just look at me. I'm twenty-four years old and look like a frigging raisin!"

Those were the words I wanted to say out loud, but they stranded on the way out. Only one was audible, and I spoke it with my heart.

"Michael..."

Tears started pooling up in my eyes, and the first one rolled silently down my cheek. There was nothing he could do about this, even if he wanted to. He had already done the only thing there was. He gave me his heart. I could feel it. It was like he was a part of me.

"I think I love you."

Maybe I was insane? Maybe I misinterpreted a crush to be something way deeper than it was? Maybe I was swooning over his words and his kisses, and thought that was how love was? I hadn't really been in love before. Not the way you see in movies, at least. But did it really matter? My life was about to end. If I died with a little piece of him inside my heart, at least I wouldn't be completely alone, even if he wasn't physically there.

"I love you, Michael. I only wish you could hear me."

The key vibrated in my palm like a mild electrical shock and snapped me out of my well of emotions. I dried my tears and looked down. It was glowing even brighter now, and it was the same shivering light as the shed. And I was almost certain I could see colors pulsating through it like waves in the ocean. And when I looked at the shed again, I could see the same colors flooding through the tiny cracks between the planks on the walls and the old door. Both with the same rhythm.

It couldn't be more obvious. The key belonged to the shed. Or was it all in my head? Maybe I had been in an accident and ended up in a coma, and was now stranded in an everlasting nightmare? Why did I find the key at all? Who put it there? And who kept whispering to me? What did they say? I could almost hear it now. I think they were chanting my name, and I suddenly couldn't look anywhere else but at the shed.

I opened the window, and my stomach churned. The whispering was louder and wasn't really whispers anymore. It sounded like there were many of them, whoever they were, and the light from the key grew a little stronger by each minute. Red. Blue. Yellow. Purple. Green. All the colors you can think of. Eventually, it became so alluring, almost like an irresistible magnetic pull, and I felt desperate to see if it fit in the lock. But I already knew it did. And I knew that the right question wasn't what was in there but who, and why all of them wanted me to join them. Even the house wanted me to go there. It was done with me and did its best to squeeze the last drop of energy out of my hollow human body. It ate me alive, and now it was time for dessert.

"Stay away from the light. Abandon the colors."

I knew what that meant now.