Finn UpChurch
The dark has never bothered me. In fact, there was a time I found comfort in it. The silence, the way that everything hung suspended… It was peaceful. But things change. I feel watched. Followed, even. Something lurks behind me, following every step I take. Watching. Waiting. My heart speeds up every time I’m alone and I can’t lie awake in the darkness of my bedroom anymore. I am afraid of who, or rather, what might be following me. In the early hours of the morning when I wake up, panting and paralyzed with fear, there will be a silhouette that watches me. It is not human. It is not of this realm. It gets closer every night and I fear that one night if I open my eyes, I will wake up to its face right in front of mine, and then I will vanish from this plane. Anyone I talk to dismisses my concerns as nothing more than stress or anxiety acting up. But I know that what I see is true. I cannot document this creature, for every time I see it, I am too struck with fear to do little else but stare at it and shiver like a helpless babe. If I try to remember it in the morning, it is all for naught. So I have decided to outwit this creature. To try and capture some proof so people will know that what I see is real. That the demons that plague me are real.
But this was to be my undoing.
In the evenings, I would take to retiring early, so I could get a head start on the creature. I know that naming it might give some clarity on what it might be. I have never seen anything like this, to my knowledge. I can’t ever remember what it looks like. And now it haunts me during the day. I see black shadows following me out of the corner of my eyes. When I turn to see what had been there, it’s always nothing. I am being followed. No one knows about this. No one seems to care. But I persevere. These things, whatever they are, must be brought to light. And I am the only one who can do that. And now, in my bedroom, I have watched and waited for what feels like hours. It is dark and my heart thunders in my chest. I know that it is here. I can feel it breathing in time with me. I dare not sleep now. If I wake as I usually do, alone and in the darkest hours of the night, it will be right in front of me and I will be powerless to stop the horrors that I know await me. I desperately wish to know what it wants from me but it either cannot understand me or does not care enough to listen. But still, I force myself to stay awake. But now the creature plagues me while I lie in wait. It hovers, just out of my vision, taunting me. Ever watchful, ever following me.
It is as though my end comes by the hands of this creature are inevitable and it taunts me with that knowledge.
It has been months. This creature taunts me still. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat. This is the only thing that matters. Finding proof. And here and there, I will see flashes of movement that do not come from any earthly being. It leaves prints that disappear in the morning when I try to prove to my wife that what I see in the night is real. It is watching us. It means to kill and it has been creeping ever closer. It moves barely more than a centimeter every night but every night that it gets closer, I can see more of its face. It is too beautiful, terribly beautiful. It is not of this earth with its horrific beauty. All I can hear is my heart and the ragged breathing of this creature every night. I can no longer hear my wife or my children. This creature looks at me, every night. And every night, without fail, dread washes over me every time I see it fixate those glowing, haunted eyes on me.
It means to end my life.
Who am I to stop what watches us in the dark?