Onision Self Insert (Reaper's Creek)

Chapter 2: The Cold Glass Smack

My mom was a little late getting home, traffic. She threw her keys on the table and hugged her husband, my step dad, Donny. "How are my kids" my om asked. Papa replied "These little rascals? They're alive." My mom glared at Papa, clearly not satisfied with the bare minimum requirement that we not die on his watch.

My mom proceeded to telling us to fend for ourselves for dinner. With her mattered down dyed red hair and basic makeup smeared after a long day's work, she was off to take a shower and spend the rest of the day watching VHS movies on her 13 inch TV in her bedroom laying on the custom log bed Papa had made her.

Joanna walked into the front room and yelled through the door to my mom asking "Hey mom can i go to Uncle Matt's house for the bon fire?" my mom screamed back "I don't care!" so Joanna immediately smiled and ran off to get her jacket. "I wanna go!" I screamed after Joanna. Joanna replied "I don't care, just stay away from me." I smiled and ran to get my own coat as well.

Our neighborhood was a quiet place, we lived in the middle of nowhere, our neighbor's houses were a good thousand feet from one another at the very least leaving us to easily mind our own business at all times. A creek ran through our small village, mostly family members were in the area which is why my mom clearly had no problem with us running over to a bon fire after the sun had already gone down.

To get to my uncle's, we had to cross a bridge that was falling apart. It had boards with giant nails punched through them, the boards weren't quite parallel or consistent in width or length. The bridge hand rails and support system was made up of metal cables, tiny wires wrapped around one another, slowly rusting over time. To say the bridge was not appropriate for a child as young as myself, would be an understatement.

After crossing the slippery bridge in the dark, we could see the bon fire, people laughing, and clearly arealy mostly intoxicated. My mom trusted my family, but considering how much alcohol ran through our bloodline, I'm not sure why she would at this hour.

The night was mostly uneventful till one of my uncles offered me some whiskey. I was mostly opposed to drinking alcohol and drugs in general. But I was even more worried about drinking off the same bottle as my uncle. Strangely enough, I am more anti-germs than anti-drugs, and I am really anti-drugs.

"Come on Daniel, take a sip!" my uncle screamed. He was the oldest of all the kids in my mom's immediate family and lived across the creek from my Uncle Matt. My other family members around the fire got quiet as I replied to him "No." But my uncle did not like this answer and said "What are you? Some kinda wussy? Take some whiskey!" I again said "No, I don't want any." My aunt just to my right looked at me and said "Come on Daniel, it's just whiskey." I sat there silently, angry that an otherwise good night was turning into an awkward situation where my own blood was trying to infect me with a lifelong addiction. I saw what it did to them, and I didn't want that to be me.

My uncle hollered sitting opposite of me around the bon fire, "Here!" as he threw the bottle to me. I didn't even try to catch the bottle and it smacked against my knee. Immediately I jumped up and yelled "I said no! Why did you have to ruin my night!?" and before he could respond I stormed off toward the bridge to go home.

My sister Joanna was in my Uncle Matt's house, so she didn't see what happened. She didn't hear what they screamed after me as I walked away, and I was so upset, I didn't process what they said either. Full of rage my whole walk home seemed instantaneous despite the walk being about a quarter mile in distance.

The timely shower I took daily was spent in silence on that night, I just stood there, brewing, staring at the knee had been impacted by the whiskey bottle. This would only further my frustration with people who drank alcohol. I would have understood if I was at least drinking age, but they didn't care, and my mom trusted them... why?

My head slammed against my pillow, right next to the blaring furnace that heated my entire tiny house. The burning gas-filled sound was a welcome relief from the disappointment I felt for my family that night. I knew if I was an adult and saw another adult trying to get a kid to drink alcohol, I'd throw them in the creek head first, but no one did anything. Not one defended me.

My eyes closed, "How could this night get any worse?" I thought to myself not realizing the night was not over yet, my dreams owned my sleep and my soul. They were about to take me to a place I had never been before.

Something was very different. I felt a chill to my bones. I woke up in darkness, no longer in my bed, I was in the middle of a massive nothing. No signs of walls, no sign of a room of any kind. Just silence. I could hear a crackling noise, but it wasn't with my ears, it was like, a noise you remember, only this was playing in the back of my skull. I went to touch the back of my head when I was interrupted by another non-audible noise. It was a voice, but it was speaking a language I had never heard before. I looked up and saw a warped face. It was at this point I knew I was not in my world anymore, I was in a dream. Despite the warped face now being closer to my eyes than before, it remained hard to make out, like my eyes were sleepy causing an intense blur, only I could see their body clearly. Their long skinny legs, their stick-like arms, I could even somehow see their spine protruding outward and hunched forward despite me having no clear sight of their back. In dreams, I can hear things most can't hear, I can see things most can't see. I have no explanation cognitive abilities in a sleeping state.

The alien figure spoke what I can only remember as sharp aggressive whispers. I was paralyzed, unable to escape, a perfect victim for whatever the creature wanted to do to me. This is what a fly would feel like, trapped in a spider web, only I couldn't even struggle, I was paralyzed physically and mentally. The alien graced the back of my neck with his twig-like fingers, he brushed both hands down the sides of my face and shortly after lined one figure up with the front of my throat. I began to feel a piercing sensation, but it was accompanied with the sensation that I was being choked as the alien pushed their finger into my neck. I could see from another perspective within the dream that they had submerged half of their finger under my flesh.

As if my soul was outside my body, I could easily see myself being impaled by this cold, gray creature. My eyes turned black as I began to choke up a mud & ash like paste out of my mouth.

"Good morning, good mo-or-or-ning, good morning to you! We're happy, so happy, good morning to you hoo hoo!" my mom sang in the most irritating way to get me up every other morning. I looked over my bed rail and there she was, with my lunch packed, my backpack in her hand, clearly indicating I was going to be late for the bus.

Time to go to school.