The Unknown

Part 3

I paused to catch my breath. My wife handed me a glass of cold water to help me continue. I couldn't ignore these signs of terror and curiosity on her face. I tided the events in my mind before I started again."The popularity in Macvils kept shrinking since that day. Lots of my friends abandoned the place and never came back, never saw them again. I wish they all had gone already before I get to see this week. Three months after the boy's incident, we had a tough day at work. Theodor suggested going out and bring some beer. Two hours had passed until the back door to the carpentry knocked vigorously. I rushed to open it, but there wasn't anyone on the other side. I looked in all directions, but it seemed as if no one has come here for weeks. While closing the door, a pack of six beer bottles was on the doorstep. I picked up the beer to go back inside. The carpentry was empty. There wasn't any one of those I just left a few seconds ago. I realized the reason when I heard a crowd shouting and running towards the downtown. I forgot to tell you that house 32 is located exactly in the center of the town. The black spot in the middle of a place full of good and brightness. I jogged with the people heading to the place to find a circle of viewers surrounding a dead body. It wasn't anyone else but Theodor at the house gate. His limbs and head were cut off from his body. Not to mention the number of who stood to watch that fainted or vomited all they had on breakfast. I give a look at the house from the outside; a look of anger and fear before I left to go home. 

I keep thinking about the matter whenever I am awake. When I sleep, my nightmares never stopped visiting me. Every night I see myself holding a candle and crossing this house's gate. I see lots of things there when I go inside. I see four people sitting on a dining table with sharp tools, waiting for their upcoming prey. I see an alligator big enough to swallow two adults in a blink. 

People fear a variety of countless things. Some of these things are because of incidents that took place in their early years. Incidents that have planted deep roots of fear in their unconscious mind, leading them to shiver once they see or feel the existence of particular objects. They fear dogs, spiders, or elevators, under the name of phobia. 

Phobias can be hereditary from the ancestors or acquired because of the surrounding nature factors. But these things we fear are so specified and well known. The only and the most effective way to escape this deadly fear is to avoid these things that fright us. But what do you expect when danger is mysterious? When you don't know what you are afraid of. There is danger, and it's probably serious, but you can't define its source. If it was a hungry rabid lion, we could plant a fine lethal poison in a piece of meat to get over it. If it was a gang of three psychopaths killing people, we could call fifty police officers to break in and arrest them. The problem is we don't know any of that, what we know is that this is a death field caused by the Unknown. This overpasses the known limits of fear that we know and makes our minds confused and lacking what to expect the fear would come from. Your grandmother suggested that we leave the city and find somewhere else safer. I spent my entire life there, and I wasn't willing to start a new life somewhere else. After Theodore's funeral, I left the graves heading to the house, not mine, but house 32. I don't know for how long I stood there staring at every single detail of it. I am sure enough that I spent hours enough for the sun to disappear. I walked back home in heavy steps."