They don't believe in gods here, but there's something in these waters, lurking deep in the woods, just visible through the mist that creeps in from the lake. Something's out there, and it's not divine, but it sure as hell ain't human, either.
Hell, Hell, maybe they were in Hell.
On the way to the lake, Percy passed through the park. Passed through the gray they called green, passed through the gray they called red. Winter is gray here. It lasts so long that you forget about color.
"Do you remember blue skies?" the man asked last week. He never existed.
Old men are drinking on a bench in the park. They've been there for a while. They've been there his whole life. They stare at him with hungry eyes, eyes that didn't hold a soul.
There is only one jogger in the park. He is seen everywhere, and each time he looks different. He will never stop running.
Maybe that was his Hell.
The park opened up to the road, the road that led right down to the lake and its hazardous shore. They're always trying to fill the potholes and the cracks in the sidewalks. It's from the ice, they say. Come morning, the holes always return. bigger. deeper.
Percy makes sure to stay far away from them.
Lake Erie has frozen over. Percy kept his shoes on, stepped out onto the ice, confident that he wouldn't fall through. There was too much ice, so dense. Under it, he saw something, a shadow of something, passing by. It is big, too big to be anything that belongs in a river. Maybe it was the gray people. Maybe it was Bianca. Maybe it was himself.
He turned around. The shadow follows him back to the shore.
He got home, he got to the place he always assumed as home. He lived alone besides the cat, the cat that liked to roam freely.
The cat has caught something and dropped it on the backstep, proud and haughty. Percy thanked her. He has no idea what she caught. He never wants to know what it is.
That night he vomited brine and seaweed. The cat was scratching at the door. Percy got up to let her in, but the hallway was empty. He went back to bed. Vomited again.
The cat is scratching at the window. He wants to get up, but notices the cat sleeping in the bed with him. There are two scratching sounds now.
There are always scratching sounds. The nights are never quiet.
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Hell is Real
FanfictionThe crows gather on the trees and buildings. You start counting, 1, 2, 3, 4, but there are too many to count. They gather as one, they fly off as one. That is why they will survive and you will not. Their feathers block out the light. X X (Plot base...
