hunllefauwriting-blog

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

The Key to Dealing with Hauntings

Hauntings.

It’s something I see on here a lot, and whenever I read about other people’s experiences, I internally cringe. Hearing a noise and immediately investigating it? Following the creepy looking thing that’s floating two inches above the ground? Conducting experiments to try to communicate with these things? Nope. No. Nada. In my humble opinion, those are some of the worst things you can do. The entity is already mad enough to start bothering you, and poking and prodding it is just going to make it worse. My best suggestion? Ignore it. Don’t follow that voice. Don’t record yourself sleeping. Don’t give it any indication that its tricks are affecting you in any way. Just simply ignore it.

Now, I’m no expert demonologist or whatever it is. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a poltergeist and a haunting or if they’re the same thing. My credentials are my experience. I don’t know all the facts and statistics on the supernatural, but I know what happened to my family and I.  

My wife, two sons, and I moved into a home out in the woods about three months ago. It’s a beautiful little cottage painted a light grey with white trimming, sitting amongst an old-growth forest that filtered the light in way that reminded me of fairy tales. Contrary to what most people pay for a haunted house, this property was not cheap by any means. There was a lot of land covered in forest and the cottage itself was well-built. But it was perfect. The realtor agent was a nice, young woman who seemed trustworthy, and the town that it was near was quaint and welcoming. There was literally nothing that indicated anything was wrong with the cottage. We were overjoyed with how well the boys acclimated to the new environment and new school, and it was heartwarming to see a small community so warmly welcome two women married to each other. My editing business was taking off, and my wife was having the time of her life decorating our new home. Within a month, we fell into a steady routine, and life was absolutely perfect.

And yes, of course it gets fucked up.

After a month, my younger son, Christopher, began coming into our room every single night, complaining about hearing a voice coming from under his bed. His older brother, Michael, swore up and down he had nothing to do with it, but I know what it’s like to have a younger sibling. It’s fun to play pranks on them, especially when they couldn’t prove that it was you. Despite me sternly talking to Michael several times, it continued happening. Knowing nothing I could do would stop it, I told Christopher to just to ignore it, and it would go away.

Next came the banging in the attic.

Loud, obnoxious knocks that came in threes scared the hell out of my wife, who wanted nothing more than to investigate it. I told her no, there was no reason to go up there. All we put up there were holiday decorations, suit cases, and camping gear, and I made sure there was nothing already there when we moved in. I suggested she just ignore it, and it would stop eventually. She didn’t like my advice, but she listened and after a while, she only slightly jumped when it happened.

Now, this next one did freak me out a bit, but there was no reason to show any distress. I wear an activity tracker that counts my steps and monitors my sleep. One morning, about two months into living at the cottage, I woke up unusually exhausted. My tracker only had me awake for a minute, and the rest was mostly deep sleep. But my step count was already at 15,000 steps; I don’t even walk that much during the span of a day. I didn’t fully believe it, but I forced myself to believe that it must’ve malfunctioned. I ignored it. I continued to do this when I woke up with muddy feet and a rust-colored substance under my nails. Of course, my wife asked questions, but I shrugged her off and she knew not to push it.

After that is when the old woman showed up.

My first encounter with her took a lot of self-control to not react. I was taking a shower, rinsing shampoo out of my hair. And because shampoo is awful to get into your eyes, I closed mine while letting the water hit me, feeling the suds slide down my face. It’s a wonderful feeling, honestly. Rubbing the water off my face, I opened my eyes to the milky white eyes of a dried, wrinkly face. I’m not proud to admit it, but I froze. Unexpectedly staring into the white eternal depths of an entity taking the shape of a hunch-backed, slack-jawed old woman will do that to you. It took me a couple of seconds, but I regained my composure and continued my shower. The woman stayed there the entire time, but it was easy to maneuver around her. My arm brushed against her once, but I was careful not to jerk away from the feeling of dry leaves dragging across my skin. After that, I saw her on a regular basis. In the kitchen, behind my sons getting their afternoon snacks. Clutching the ceiling, staring down at us as my wife and I had “our time.” Right next to the dryer as I was switching over the laundry. I seemed to be the only one who could see her, no one else reacted to her. I know I told them to ignore weird things, but I knew there was no way they’d ignore a sight like her.

What really pushed my limits was waking up and finding my family dismembered in the living room.

It was a Sunday, and my wife wasn’t still in bed next to me when I woke up, which I thought was weird but shrugged it off. She had been talking about attending a church service or two the past couple of days. It was also completely silent within the house, which does not happen with two boys, so I figured she took them with her. She knew better than to ask me to go, explaining why she didn’t wake me up. Anyways, I got up, showered, and stumbled my way to the coffee maker. To get to the kitchen (where my lord and savior, the coffee maker, lives), I had to pass through the living room.

Now, imagine your family. You love them more than life, and it’d kill you to see anything happen to them. Now imagine them torn to pieces and tossed into a pile. Yeah, that’s what I walked in on.

I really didn’t know what I as looking at, at first. There was this oblong object poking out with stubby, wide sticks capped with red attached. While staring at it, it slowly registered that I was looking at my wife’s dismembered foot jutting out from the bottom of a pile of flesh and viscera. After that, my mind seemed to register every hanging ribbon of skin peeled from the muscle, every blood droplet dripping from tattered arteries, every splinter of white peeking through the deep red. I drank in the sight of it, so close to screaming and raking my nails against my eyes to claw it out. Their heads sat intact and wound with entrails, as if to keep them standing to greet me. Eyes wide with terror, filmed over with a milky white; jaws broken and slack, hanging down past the heads’ pedestals of intestines. Blood drenched everything, the puddle still creeping outwards from the pile, slowly devouring the white of the carpet.

That terrible, fucking curse of a sight is what I walked into, while thinking my family was at church and I would enjoy some alone time. And you know what I did? After gawking at it for a few seconds, I swallowed my initial reaction and walked past it. I ignored it. Entities are capable of conjuring all sorts of hallucinations, aren’t they? I originally thought that they went to church, and the entities saw their chance to try and fuck with me. They wanted a react and I was not about to give it to them.

After the sun started setting, I figured my wife just got tired of everything going on and decided to stay at her mom’s house with the boys’. That’s all. I thought she’d at least leave a note or call once she got there, but she tends to shut me out when she’s pissed. Lord knows I’ve pissed her off with ignoring everything that’s been happening around the house. So she’s just taking a break. That’s all.

The stench of the living room is beginning to make me gag every time I go into the kitchen, but I’m still holding strong. It’s been a few weeks since my wife left with the boys, but I’m confident she’ll call at some point. I’ve been considering moving again so they don’t have to deal with this; they’re much worse at ignoring everything than I am. Until then, I’ll hold strong. Ignoring the pile of bodies is getting easier even if the smell is getting worse.

Ignoring is the key.

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

Gorgia's Gorgeous Skin Renewing Masque

Ever since I hit puberty, I have been searching for that one product (or a combination of products) that just clicks with my problematic skin. I have tried EVERYTHING. Proactive, Neutrogena, Clean & Clear, Clinique, Curology, Paula's Choice, you name it, I've tried it. I've been on multiple pills, have gorged myself on water, went on strict diets, went through nightmare detoxes. Hell, my dermatologist even gave me UV light treatments and blasts of nitrogen gas in an attempt to calm the ridges of miniature, pus-filled volcanoes that wreak havoc on my face. Extensive Korean skin care routines have grabbed the attention and praise of Pinterest, but I've had no such luck. So when I found a new product on Amazon, I figured I'd give it a whirl. I didn't even hesitate to shell out the hefty price for it, I was desperate.

Gorgia's Gorgeous Skin Renewing Masque looked like any other skin product; a beautiful woman beaming from the box, sporting dewy, blemish-free skin. I scowled, knowing there's no way I'd ever be able to look like that. Ripping open the box, I shook out a pearly pink tube with the product's name scrawled across in looping white cursive. On the back, the directions simply read: "Reveal beautiful, blemish-free skin by smothering those imperfections with our miracle masque. Avoid any facial muscle movement and wait 20 minutes or until dry. Start peeling from the outer edges and work your way in. Rinse off any leftover residue and enjoy your new skin!"

It was rather unceremonious and barbaric how I twisted off the cap with my teeth and slathered the pink goo around my mountainous face. A few pimples burst opened and gushed as my fingers ran over them, but that's a regular occurrence for me.  

The substance felt like gummy mucus in a Pepto bismol pink, but the light rose fragrance and cooling sensation had me worry-free. I could feel my pores open at the substance's touch, humming in sweet relief of the constant pain. Points where pus was kept in by only a thin membrane of skin (that didn't burst upon contact) instantly felt depressurized, and I let myself hope that I had finally found a product that I could swear by. I took my time smoothing my fingers across my T-zone and tracing the outline of my eyes and lips, enjoying the luxurious feeling of that sweet, tingling sensation. I was amazed at how invigorated and alive my facial skin felt. By the time I was done smearing a thick layer of the deliciously scented gunk down my horrid features, my skin was shivering in delight. You never realize how much pain multiple, near-bursting pimples are until your entire face is covered in pink sludge and goes numb, relieving the constant ache you've lived with for years. To be honest, this feeling was way beyond that of a sneeze or an orgasm. Tears blurred my nightmarish reflection as I imagined that this is how normal people felt all of the time. This is what it felt like to live in a skin that doesn't radiate agony and spew hatred in the form of chunky, off-white pus. It was the most beautiful feeling in the universe.

Careful not disturb the otherworldly substance with facial movement, I set my phone timer for 20 minutes and sat on Reddit. I couldn't pay attention to anything, I kept glancing at the timer, checking to see how long I had left before I saw what the result of this miracle-product. I tried to keep my hopes in check, as some skin products may feel amazing but don't do shit, but the way this product soothed the fire, there was no way it couldn't be doing anything. I couldn't go 30 seconds without checking my phone. Once it hit 18 minutes, I just sat there and watched the countdown.  

Three... Two... One...

At the sound of the timer, I raced to the bathroom like a sprinter jumping to the sound of the gun. The pink seemed to have adhered to my face, sinking into every pore to work its wonderful magic. I had to really sink my nails in to get under the very edge of the mask, but my skin was still singing the beautiful song of numbness that I thought only vicodin could give me. Slowly making my way around, I managed to get all the edges lifted and began working my way to the middle. I tried to be gentle at first, but this stuff was cemented onto my skin. I had to use all the strength my puny arms could muster in order to get the mask to budge.  

Concentrating on revealing my skin underneath the pink goop, I didn't notice anything strange until the sink was almost covered in dark red. It was pooling at the bottom, splashing onto the sides of the white porcelain.  

"What the fuck..." I muttered. My fingers came into view as I reached out and I could see bits of pink and red caught underneath my nails. Blood was dripping from my fingers and down my arm, shining in the harsh bathroom lighting. My brain couldn't process what was happening, there was so much blood and I didn't know where the fuck it all came from. I was just trying to reveal my new skin.  

Look up.

I don't know why I listened to that little voice inside my head. I should've immediately ran to my phone and called an ambulance or something. It all clicked in half a second and I did the worst thing possible. I looked up into the mirror.  

Pink attached to skin was hanging off in ribbons. Muscle and bone were smeared with blood that was released as I had torn my own skin off. Around the outside of where the mask had been, I could see little crescent shapes from my nails burrowing through flesh and ripping it up.  

I still couldn't feel a thing as I ran my fingertip over raw muscle. I tried to comprehend that I was still numb even as I gripped the strands of skin hanging off and yanked. Still nothing when I began clawing, desperate to get the "miracle" pink mask off of my face. I could hear tearing and wet smacks as long strips of skin fell into the sink, but I couldn't feel it. White shone through the red and my eyes were delirious from the sight of it, but that didn't make me stop. Nothing would until I got rid of every scrap of pink off of my goddamn face. There were no thoughts as I continued my rampage of ripping and tugging, splattering gore all over my reflection.

I passed out after I pulled the last sliver of the facial mask left on my face.  

They took skin off of my back for the skin graft. The burning itch lasted for months as my skin attempted to knit itself back together. I thought my acne scared people away, but now no one can look at me without wanting to puke or run. I don't go out into public anymore because I'm so tired of the gasps and doubletakes and terrified children screaming and crying. I look worse than the guy who got his face eaten off in Miami some years back.  

But Gorgia's Gorgeous Skin Renewing Masque technically did do its job. I do have new skin.  

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

I used to love books.

I have always had a passion for books. Not just reading them, but collecting them and watching my bookshelf fill and eventually overflow. They were my lighthouse for when life was a restless ocean determined to see me drown. When life was good, I would read, thinking that I could store my happiness inside of them for when the next bout of depression hit. I would read while eating so I could forget the calories that I needed but hated. They were my children, and I loved each and every one of them.

But all good things must end.

Ironically, I was reading Lovecraft when my own little horror story began. It was approximately 7:30 PM, and I was eating a ceasar salad for dinner accompanied by a glass of wine. With my eyes absorbing the Cthulhu, I made a reach for my wine glass, missed, and glanced over for half a second. Locating where my glass was, my eyes flicked back to a blank page.  

All of those beautiful, inky black letters that were scrawled along the page were just...gone.

In my shock, I snapped up, spilling my wine. Eyes wide and staring, I strained to comprehend exactly what was in front of me and came up empty. It's impossible for paper to have words printed in ink on it one second and then be entirely unmarked the next, right? Clearly this new wine was not reacting well with me.  

As I gaped at this confusion, the sensation of being watched crept up my spine like tiptoeing fingertips. The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention, and I had the absurd thought that the page was glaring back at me. Its eyeless emptiness drilled into me, sparking a fear I never thought I could have. Despite not trusting what I was seeing, I was afraid of one of my most loved books.  

My eyes strained in their sockets, burning and begging me to blink, but I couldn't. I was transfixed by this impossible page, this monstrosity of a simple blank page. Thoughts scattered, trying to come up with an explanation, trying to ignore the notion of being watched by an inanimate object. An impossible inanimate object.

I finally gave in and blinked as tears welled up and the burning became too much. Rapidly blinking and seeing through watery eyes, I thought I saw words scatter across the page. Had I not been drinking wine, I would've sworn on my life that I saw "why are you eating" appear and disappear only to be replaced with the original story. Within seconds of the words vanishing, there they were, patiently waiting to be read as if they were never gone. As if the last five seconds were a figment of my imagination.

I sat in silence and stared at the book without reading it. What the fuck had just happened? Was the wine really that strong or was I just losing it? Books were the only steady and constant thing in my life, something like this was not possible.  

Hesitantly attributing it to the wine, I turned my gaze back to my dinner. Caesar salad is one of my absolute favorites and I had taken the time to craft this one, but all I saw was sickening green slathered in a chunky pus-like substance. I mentally gagged and threw away the food. I went to bed hungry that night.

It only happened once more, but it was on such a greater magnitude than the first occurrence. I had pushed the incident out of my mind, but I couldn't help but linger on "why are you eating" every time I opened the fridge or pantry or paused in front of the vending machines at work. But the blank page was at the back of my mind, all but forgotten.

I was curled up on my couch with my cat Felix purring happily near my feet and my nose buried in The Talisman by Stephen King. I know I started reading right after I fed myself and Felix breakfast, but I get lost when I'm really into a book and lose track of time. It wasn't until Felix started meowing for food that I looked up and realized that it was already dark outside. I got my feet, grimacing as bones groaned in protest. My ever so patient cat continued yowling at me.  

"Okay, okay. I'm getting your damn food," I muttered as I walked into the kitchen. Pouring some cat food into his bowl and grabbing a bowl of cereal for my dinner, I sat back down with my book. I had a spoonful of Apple Jacks halfway in my mouth when I blinked and the page suddenly emptied of all lettering.

A horrifyingly familiar white void stared defiantly at my unbelieving eyes. I didn't have a drop of any substance in my system this time, I couldn't escape the reality of a once word-filled page now vacant of any markings whatsoever. The tale of Travelling Jack was wiped clean, comforting words replaced with the oddly terrifying silence of a blank page.  

I felt my face gravitating towards the open book. Spoon, bowl, and cereal went clattering to the floor, my fingers too numb to hold them. The white loomed closer and closer as I dipped my head lower and lower, ignoring the screaming muscles in my neck and back. Slack-jawed and wide-eyed, an invisible string pulled my face towards the very thing I wanted to fling across the room. My thoughts slammed into my skull, and every heartbeat brought a throb of pain. I tried to put my limbs into motion, to scramble away from this glaring thing, but my muscles refused to do anything more than twitch in longing. I was helpless as white filled my vision, an endless hell that had taken over a well-loved story.  

The tip of my nose collided with the right page. As soon as the paper bent from the slight pressure, letters dashed across my vision in rapid succession, appearing from a single point in the middle of the page and typing themselves out. With my eyes being so close, it took me a second or two to realize those letters weren't gibberish at all but were in a very specific order.

Finally finding the ability to control myself, I jerked upright and threw the book across the room in an attempt to protect myself against the string of words but the damage had been done. Those little black markings flashed across my reeling mind, standing out in the whiteness of the page.  

fatpigwhoregodieheartlesssoullessnogoodcutterbitchdisgustingslutdonteatwhyareyoueating

I could still see every single insult ever made to me typing out inside my head, retching open jars of memories I had tucked deep into the recesses of my mind. Voices shouted in all directions, filling my ears. Incidences I thought I had come to terms with bubbled out of the white, playing all at once, every detail clear as day yet all blurred together. Taunts, screams, words seethed through clenched teeth came from faces I never thought I'd see again. A  high pitched laugh floated just behind the memories. I could feel a stare from the thrown book, that feeling of being watched emanating from the blank pages as if it was watching me spiral down into hysteria. Through all of the shouting inside my head, a horrid thought occurred to me: it was enjoying this. Something I held very dear to me was enjoying my mental breakdown. Something that shouldn't be able to give off any type of feeling, let alone sick, cruel enjoyment.

Adrenaline pulsed within me, pushed through arteries by a heart pounding so violently, my sternum threatened to break. Air pumping in and out of gasping lungs, skin prickling with the need of being opened, eardrums humming with silent words and blood, eyes seeing nothing but black letters against a white that stretches on and on and on and on...  

I’m not sure when I blacked out, but I woke up ten hours later strapped down to a bed and surrounded by machinery.

From what the hospital staff and police officers told me, I started shrieking somewhere in the midst of my panic attack, causing my neighbor to rush over with a bat. Upon bursting through my front door and seeing me in the process of digging words into my skin with a broken pen, she immediately called an ambulance. She tried to wrench it away from me, but in my state, I slashed at her, barely caught her cheek, and continued with my frenzy. By the time the EMTs got there, I had words carved into both legs and my left arm. They had to use a strong sedative to stop me from starting on my face and get me to the hospital.  

I hit a few veins and suffered from blood loss, but the doctors said I was lucky I didn't hit an arteries. They asked questions of course, but I was still trying to cope with what I had seen so I told them that as far as I knew, I just had a panic attack. It didn't take long for me to be transferred to the psychiatric ward, where I have been since. At first, they let me in the recreation room, but that quickly ended when I took one look at a patient reading and went into hysterics. I vaguely remember seeing tiny words from a distance, but I don't remember the rest of the attack.  

Watching these words appear on the screen in front of me makes my scars crawl, but it's nothing like ink and paper. My doctor says that typing my perspective of what happened will help me sort through and deal with what happened to me, but I won't ever be able to function like a normal human being again. I've never told her what actually happened, so when she reads this, I will most likely lock myself in here for good.  

Despite the numerous medications I take daily, I've never felt so depressed and alone in my life. Although I can't look at one without panicking, I long to be able to pick up a book and read myself into another world. I want to hide from the Nazgul and regret recreating dinosaurs with genetics. I want to read about the unlikely hero who makes it through the most impossible situation and turns out alright in the end.  

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

Skin Care Help?

Hello all! I posted this on the skin care subreddit and got nothing but downvotes and "put this on r/nosleep" so here I am!

Anyways, I'm having major difficulties with my skin, and I've tried everything from coconut oil to ice packs to steam sessions. I've even tried dosing my face with rose water even though I hate that clawing smell that seems to stick in the back of my throat. I tried asking my mother, but her skin is even worse than mine! I’m at my wits' end here, and I'm sure there's a solution somewhere on Reddit.

I’m practically a makeup guru, so the discolorations on my skin aren't too much of a problem. However, they are becoming more problematic as it spreads and darkens. I'll probably need a new foundation soon, but Kat Von D's hides just about everything! Well, when I slather concealer on first, it works. When I wear foundation alone, you can definitely see my embarrassingly splotchy skin underneath!

Another problem I've run into are hideous whiteheads just appearing overnight. It's never good to pick at your skin, so I don't, but they grow so large over the course of a few days, they pop on their own. I'll be cooking dinner, and a large, white chunks of pus accompanied by fluids will just eject from my face and land right in the middle of the mashed potatoes. Have you ever tried eating around pus in mashed potatoes? It blends in, and you really can't tell until it's in your mouth and it's too late. Not a very fun experience.  

Along with the discoloration and whiteheads, the smell is nauseating. I can't even go into public without making people gag. My face smells like roadkill left alongside the road for a few days under a Florida summer sun. Or the way my mother has been smelling these past few months, although I think it's starting to die down. Not totally sure what she's been using, I'll definitely ask her next time I see her.  

I try so hard to keep my skin fresh, but after a few days, it just deteriorates so quickly. I travel and do various jobs, so I can find many donors without raising suspicion if need be, but everyone is so up tight lately with those clown sightings. My current face is on the edge of complete decomposition and if I don't find someone soon, I'll be in huge trouble! I've found that young skin works best. Young donors are also sooooooo much easier to come by, and you can store many of them at once since they're so small. Candy and some simple scare tactics are all I need to make sure everything stays quiet, too. It's just the process of stretching the skin in a pain in my behind! Ice also helps a bit, but I'm not a fan of having a cold face. I mean, who is?

I must admit, the look of pain and terror and the knife separating my new skin from my donors' skulls are huge incentives to me. The feel of clean, new, supple skin underneath my finger tips and the cooling interior of drying blood pressed against my own scarred face is what dreams are made of. I just wish I could make that dream last longer. Any suggestions?

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

Always Follow Directions

I looked up from the box to the older lady in front of me, gray eyes drilling into me. The directions were simple enough, but the simplicity caused doubts to surface and I wasn’t about to pay this price for a piece of shit. “So you’re sure this will work?”

“Yes, yes,” her thick accent almost obscuring her English, “it will work. Follow directions and all will be fine.” She bobbed her head up and down, her thin white hair catching wind and slightly rising with each nod. Peeled back lips, her attempt at a smile revealed horribly yellowed teeth and breath that would put a rotting carcass to shame. Hunched over, she was still a good three inches taller than me, probably six feet tall if her spine had not contorted so gruesomely with age. When I asked her about a specific ware, her vertebrae jutted out as if trying to reach me as I followed her to the back of the store. With her height, the Russian accent toned with millions of cigarettes and unholy amounts of vodka, and those lucid gray eyes, she was quite the unsettling old woman. Kind, but very unsettling.

I glanced down at the box one more time. The instructions were painstakingly painted in gold lettering on glossy dark wood, the contrast making the letters appear as if they were glowing. It weighed no more than a phone and nestled perfectly in the center of my palm with a black latch holding the lid down. I wasn’t sure what it contained as it had a lock on the latch, but the woman had an honest air about her and I had exhausted all other options. Closing my fingers around it, I looked back into those eerie eyes. “Okay, I’ll take it. Where’s the key?”

She gestured towards the front and I followed her to the register. As she rang it up, I winced at the price and paid with a wad of cash I’d taken out of my account just for this. I didn’t want this showing up on my bank statement.

She continued bobbing her head to an imaginary song as her fingertips deftly handled the trinket and wrapped it in paper. Grabbing a small, plain key from some shelve below the counter, she wrapped twine through the hole at the top and around the now-wrapped box. It was almost ritualistic as she encircled the box seven times with such care, I thought that perhaps whatever was inside was extremely breakable. As she finished and held out the package, I went to grab the package from her hand, but she pulled it back and stared at me with an uncomfortable intensity. “You understand this item, yes?”

Remembering what she had told me before, I nodded.

“Everything will be fine if you follow directions. Everything will be bad if you do not. Okay?”

“Yes, I know,” I mumbled. I eased the package out of her hands while trying to avoid her gaze. Unwarranted panic and the need to get out of the store and away from this woman took over my body. “I will follow the directions exactly. Thank you.” I all but ran out the door, rapidly blinking as my eyes adjusted from the dim lighting inside to the sun. I fumbled with my keys for a moment, finally finding the right ones and damn near peeling out of the parking lot in my little 1998 Ford Escort. It wasn’t until I was almost home, a good hour away, did my heart slow and muscles relax.

…

Walking through the door to my apartment, I was greeted with Kanye blaring out of my roommate’s stereo system and the smell of burnt popcorn. My roommate was standing in the bathroom plucking her eyebrows.

“You do realize we’re not going out tonight, right?” At the sound of me yelling over the music, she let out a scream and flinched.

“Don’t fucking do that!” She threw me a look on her way to her room to turn off the music. “You know how jumpy I am.”

Maybe tonight wasn’t a good idea. Kallie couldn’t watch Criminal Minds without being afraid of someone shattering her bedroom window and killing her, even though we live on the top floor with no balcony. If she can’t make it through the original Poltregiest, how did she expect to make it through tonight?

I rolled my eyes. “And tonight was your idea. Are you sure about this?”

“Of course I am,” she snapped and went back to plucking her brows. “Did you get the board?”

I glanced down at the box still clutched in my hand. She wanted a Ouija board but the woman made this sound much more effective. “No but I found something like it. The store owner said the chance to have contact was much higher than with a board, so I got it instead.” Kallie didn’t look away from the mirror as she mumbled a careful “okay” and pulled out a few hairs. “Seriously, you don’t need perfect eyebrows for a fucking demon.”

The word “demon” made her pause and turn her deer-caught-in-headlights eyes. “Do you really think it’ll work?” She sighed when I shrugged my shoulders. “Whatever, these things needed to be tamed anyways.”

Your eyebrows are too far apart, I thought as I studied my roommate. Five foot ten, barely 115 pounds, and all leg, she was usually the one who attracted the men with bright green eyes and perfectly straight teeth. She could live with slightly screw up eyebrows.

I shook my head at her and sat on my laptop, waiting for night to fall. I kept the box right next to me, key up, as I browsed Reddit and did my Neopet dailies (hey, don’t judge) whilst the box absorbed my body heat.

…

Right at 1:00 AM, Kallie poked her head around my doorway with a mischievous yet slightly cautious smile. “Ready?” Her voice came out in a high squeak, cracking with the anticipation of doing something potentially dangerous. I couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah, let me get the box and whatever we need for this and I’ll meet you in the living room.” I grabbed the package from beside me, handling it as if it were a delicacy and undid the twine and paper around it. The key plopped into my hand with a surprising weight, yet the box weighed next to nothing. In the incandescent light of my room, the gold writing gleamed even brighter than it had in the store, the dark wooden background smooth and reflective. I ran my fingertips over it and savored the feeling of no imperfections on the surface of this small wonder.

Done with the ceremony of opening the package, I read the instructions.

1. Gather hair of the subject and matches. 2. Place bowl on a tall table and put hair into the bowl. 3. Concentrate on your deepest desires, think of nothing else.

“Well that’s simple enough,” I muttered to myself. With the box’s near weightlessness, I wasn’t sure what kind of bowl might be inside. My eyes traveled to the outer edge of the box to a warning that I hadn’t seen in the store. In the same gold paint, it read:

WARNING: FOLLOW DIRECTIONS PRECISELY AND EVERYTHING WILL TURN OUT FINE.

Remembering the words of the old women, I shuddered. I could almost smell the strong vodka on her breath as she warned me of what would happen should I not follow the instructions. Everything will be fine if I follow the directions. Everything will be bad if I do not.

Taking in a deep breath of air, I felt a sense of doom as I went out to the living room where Kallie was sitting on the couch with her nose millimeters from her phone. She looked up as I began dragging our small dining table to the middle of the room. “So what exactly did you get?” She asked without making an effort to help.

Struggling with the weight of the table, I managed, “The lady said it was a summoning bowl of some sort. It needs a high table and a lock of hair, and then we’re supposed to burn it and concentrate on our deepest desires.” I grunted as I finally scooted the table the last few inches. “She said if we follow the directions, we’ll be fine and whatever’s supposed to happen will happen. I don’t think she was fluent in English, so I didn’t make her elaborate. But she did say it was better than a Ouija board.” Not the complete truth, but close enough. I didn’t mention what she said about not following the directions. From the look in Kallie’s eyes, she was already thinking about backing out.

“A lock of hair? Does it matter who’s?” She ran her fingers through hers, which she had just managed to grow back from a horrendous pixie cut. I knew she was near traumatized by the incident, so I volunteered to cut off a bit of mine. “No, no,” she protested, “it probably needs healthy hair, and yours is fried to shit. I’ll get the scissors.” As much as I love my pastel pink hair, she was right; bleach had definitely taken its toll.

As she moved to the kitchen for the scissors, I took the key and unlocked the tiny black latch. I paused before completely opening the lid. Did I really want to do this? Would this even work? What if I somehow fuck up the directions? What would happen then? Questions riddled my mind, but it was too late to back out now. I knew Kallie wouldn’t want to try something like this again if I stopped. Exhaling, I peeked into the box.

Inside was lined with a rich, maroon velvet that cradled a rectangular bowl. Compared to its flawless container, the bowl was dull and warped. One of its sides slightly caved in while another bulged out awkwardly. The wood was dark, almost black, and didn’t look to be sanded down. I ran my finger along its edge and earned myself a microscopic splinter. I was dismayed at how primitive it was considering the amount of money I paid for it. This better fucking work, I thought. Scooping out the bowl, I gingerly set it on the table to avoid any more splinters.

“Is that it?” Kallie came up behind me, scissors in hand. “That looks pathetic. I bet that woman ripped you off.” She walked to the other side of the table and began choosing which piece of hair to sacrifice.

Glaring at her for a moment, I felt anger well up inside of me. She was always somewhat demeaning towards me, but these past few months have escalated. Ever since she began talking to her “mystery man,” I was worth less than a pile of dog shit. Whatever.

After a minute of fussing over her hair, she quickly snipped a lock, placed it into the bowl, and pulled a lighter out of her back pocket. My heart rate increased as I realized how close I was to possibly getting what I desired most. I don’t know what Kallie had in mind, but I knew exactly what I wanted, and I prayed to whoever was upstairs that the old woman was as truthful as she seemed. Kallie’s green eyes meeting mine, I gave a quick nod and she struck the lighter and brought the flame to the hair lying in the bowl. As it caught, an acrid smell permeated through the room, a mixture of burnt hair and sulfur. Kallie closed her eyes in concentration, but I focused mine onto the hair curling and disintegrating under the flame.

Putting forth all my thought into what I wanted most, memories of him were conjured and floated before my eyes. His hazel eyes gazing at me in adoration, the way his short dark brown hair felt between my fingers, promises of forever whispered into my ear, the feel of his smile against my neck. Old sensations flooded through me, bringing me close to breaking down as I went through each and every moment that had pained me for the past three months. But I couldn’t lose it, I needed whatever this bowl could give me. I powered through the emotions and continued directing my thoughts.

Memories of better times continued to pour in, but they were beginning to be tainted with the present. Him always on his phone and never letting me look at it, him staying out all night and not coming home, spending less and less time away from me, not sharing the same bed as we had so many times before.

And then it happened. As soon as images of him kissing her, holding her hand, fucking her, cuddling her as they slept slid into my mind, a loud scream sounded throughout our apartment and reverberated against the walls.

My head snapped up to see Kallie’s wildly terrified eyes as she jumped back from the table and covered her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut, but I wanted to see what was going to happen. I needed to see.

The screech reached a higher pitch before suddenly breaking off, and the bowl seized and shook the table underneath, causing the legs to squeak as if the bowl was a heavy burden. The shaking grew more intense with every second, I couldn’t tell if it was warping or if my mind was just playing tricks on me. The odor from earlier was chokingly heavy now although the hair was nothing but ashes. My ears were stuffed with the heavy thuds of wood on wood and my skin tingled with anticipation. Kallie might have been terrified, but I was exhilarated with the hope that I was indeed going to get exactly what I desired most. The dread of this backfiring was there, but it only added to the raging fire. Adrenaline surged through my blood and my head spun in the same velocity that the bowl shook. I have never felt more alive than I did in that moment, caught between the elation of a dire wish granted and the fear of everything falling apart.

I was seeing everything in circles and my heart rate had reached its peak when it all stopped. No warning, nothing to indicate why it had stopped, it just did. Silence fell and I held my breath, barely registering Kallie’s hyperventilation. I strained my eyesight to catch any movement, but there was none. I had begun to believe it was all in my head, that my desire had gotten so high that I had imagined the whole thing. Did I hallucinate? Did the old woman really give me a dud? If so, why was Kallie so damn terrified?

My doubts were broadening but quickly dissipated with a long, black claw reaching out from under the table.

It was robed with writhing shadows, unintelligible and distorted in shape. That made it hard to really see what exactly this bowl was birthing, but I could vaguely see what resembled two hands with elongated, spindly fingers make their way through the bottom of the table, grasp onto the edges, and pull the rest of the monstrosity through. The rest of the arms made their way through, preceding a spherical form I guessed to be a head. It paused. The features were impossible to distinguish, but it twisted, and I could feel it studying me. Air caught at the back of my throat as I felt something dark invade my thoughts and probe into the compartments I reserved for my lowest moments. Images began flicking by, and I realized that it was searching for the wish I was concentrating so hard on. I met its gaze with wide eyes as it rummaged through my mind, bearing memories of them together again for the second time in a matter of seconds. I didn’t want to, I longed to shut out this thing and bar it from my mind, but I knew that if I did, all hell would break loose. So I just stood there.

It was only half a minute that it tortured me, but shadow creature shifted once more and my breath whooshed out of me as my muscles released their tension. I knew its glare had left me, seemingly satisfied with whatever it found, and had settled on a new subject. Glancing across the room where Kallie had huddled on the floor, I could tell she knew too.

Her green eyes shone with a primitive terror, mouth open as if trying to trap flies. Her knees were hugged to her chest, arms tightly wound around them as if she could ward off this thing by becoming as small as possible. It was plain that a scream wanted to escape her lungs, but the creature held her in silence. Everything was still again. If I had blinked, I would have missed the sudden lunge of the shadow as it captured Kallie by the hair and leapt through the ceiling and onto the roof.

Luckily for me, I am an undefeated master of staring contests.

In one fluid motion, the creature shot its long, emaciated body out from under the table, grasped the length of her hair, and shot out into the night with her in tow. Bits of plaster, wood, and shingles rained onto the floor. A THUDshook the apartment when it landed and the scream finally ripped from Kallie’s lips and echoed through the night. High pitched and filled with pain, I cringed away from the sudden hole in the ceiling but did not dare turn my eyes away. I couldn’t see what the creature was doing to her, but the screaming continued, piercing my eardrums and shrouding my thoughts. There were no words or pleas in her shrieks, just pure, unadulterated terror and panic. It only stopped with a THUNK and the roof shuddering under pressure.

THUNK.

THUNK.

THUNK.

It wasn’t under a piece of the ceiling plaster fell a few feet from me that I realized the noises were Kallie’s body being slammed over and over again against the roof.

THUNK.

THUNK.

The rafters began to peak through and shingles gave away to give me a glimpse of detail. The shadow had a hold of her hair and was slinging her limp body into the roof. Blood was already covering her and had begun to make splatters inside the living room. I couldn’t make out her face in the darkness, and the movement prevented me from seeing if she was breathing. I could have been watching this thing repeatedly smash my roommate’s dead body against the roof. Or my alive roommate. I didn’t know which thought was worse.

THUNK.

THUNK.

More plaster had fallen, giving me a better view and allowing more blood to shower down. Her torso had turned into a bloody pulp, skin, muscle, and intestines crushed underneath the force and bits of viscera flying with the blood. Her legs flung in awkward angles, white becoming more and more visible through the disappearing meat, and her arms flapped like featherless, rubbery wings in rhythm with the creature’s slamming. Her face was still in shadow, but her scalp was beginning to separate from her skull as the shadow continued its rampage. When pulling her back down to the roof, I could hear the skin of her head tear away. Blood was beginning to mist rather than splatter, collecting on my upturned face and dewing on my arms and legs. I wanted to run away in revulsion, but I was paralyzed as I watched.

THUNK.

THUNK.

THUNK.

THUNK.

With one final rip, Kallie’s body flung down onto the rafters and dangled between then, limbs mere floppy tubes of meat attached with strings of muscle and tendon. Her face was drenched in red, the white of her skull showing where her skin had been yanked off. Eyes open and lifeless amid the swollen skin and broken facial bones, I presumed she was dead. The creature stood over her, nothing but a deformed shadow still clutching her separated hair and scalp. Again, silence. Blood dripped onto the floor, but the noise was cushioned by the soft carpet. My own breath was shallow and noiseless. A spell fell over me as I stared at the broken form of Kallie. My mind rejected the sight of so much gore, I felt like I was stuck in a dream.

It wasn’t until the creature bent to pick up what was left of my roommate was the silence broken when Kallie shifted her eyes to me and whispered, “Please.”

With that, she let out an inhuman shriek as the thing took her head between its hands and pressed. It took its time building pressure, letting the blood run out of her eyes and nose before ending it with a sickening crunch and a spray of brain matter.

And with that, it disappeared.

Kallie’s body fell, snagging on the rafters before landing right next to me in a puddle of her own blood, covering me further. There was nothing but a flattened mess of bone, brain, and blood left of her head. Her scalp hung from a nail on one of the beams of wood. Her arms and legs bent under her and at unnatural places. Her torso was nauseatingly curved with her spine being completely obliterated by the vicious beating. Skin clung to a few places but was gone for the most part, exposing a mixture of tendon, muscle, veins, bones and others that I couldn’t distinguish. The creature had reduced her to a meaty pulp in the vague shape of a body.

Studying the gore, mind reeling from the sight, nose flaring from the stink of iron and copper, skin tingling from adrenaline, I smiled and repeated the old woman’s words out loud.

“Everything will be fine if you follow directions.”

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

My Favorite Blanket

During this time of the year, blankets are seen as an enemy down in Florida. The air already clings to you like an uncomfortably tight sweater, just leaning against a blanket slung over the back of a couch is enough to invoke ungraceful amounts of sweat. I am a lover of cuddling with a cup of coffee, my favorite pastel pink blanket my grandmother gave me, and a good book filled with swords and death, so I loathe when the nights become too hot to be covered by much of anything. It always saddens me to pack up the multitude of blankets I keep around the house and set them in the attic until winter. However, there are times when storms bring sweet coolness rather than clawing mugginess, and last week, it got all the way down to 73 after the rain. Seeing my opportunity, I started some coffee, raced to the attic for that familiar pink, and made myself comfortable on the wooden bench on my patio with A Feast for Crows.

My blanket has two distinct sides to it. One side is a soft light pink fabric that is beginning to tear and become thread bare and the other is a vibrant pink shag-like texture that feels as if small feathers are brushing your skin every time you shift under it. So of course, I always put the shag side against me, loving the way it tickles when I move.

I swept the blanket over my legs, tucking it around me for maximum warmth, and began getting lost in twisted plots of incest and murder. I tend to lose track of time when I read, letting the hours pass as I explore different worlds and get emotionally attached to fictional characters. I enter a trance like state and the only things I perceive are either A) whatever the characters are perceiving or B) something in reality that’s too annoying to disregard. Reading has gotten me yelled at several times by teachers when I didn’t hear them tell me to put my book down. This ability to block nearly everything out combined with the properties of my blanket, I didn’t think anything was amiss when I felt a slight tickle against my shins.

Greedily soaking in the scandal of Jaime and Cersei, I barely registered the feeling of feathers brushing against my shin. It caressed the skin as the blanket moved.

And then it occurred to me that I hadn’t shifted since sitting down, and the tendrils of the blanket were moving of their own accord.

Suddenly thrusted into panic, I let out an ugly screech and tossed the blanket aside. It landed with a quiet thump, forlorn and wrinkled. The porch light casted odd shadows through the fabric and it crawled every time I danced around it to avoid any hidden spiders and insects. I took off one of my moccasins as a temporary club and crept closer to inspect. No longer circling it, the shadows stayed put and proved to be nothing more than that. I pounded my shoe against the lump of pink for good measure, but there was nothing.

“You idiot, it was the wind,” I whispered to myself and let out a nervous laugh. I was grateful for my husband being at his parents’ so he didn’t witness my frightful outburst over a damn blanket. Feeling like an idiot, I sat back down. Still, I put the pastel pink side against me to avoid any more false alarms. I began my reading again, trying to ignore the fact that I hadn’t felt any wind. I was reading, I just didn’t notice, I thought.

But when the blanket began tickling me for a second time, I detected the sensation immediately.

Throwing it with more force this time, it snagged on a splinter and I cringed as its delicate material tore. The blanket landed a little louder and seemed to deflate into the floor. As the lump sank, black leaked out of it, leaving me confused. They were so close together at first, I immediately thought that a black demonic liquid was oozing from my beloved blanket. But as it began to separate, I saw it to be something much, much worse and a scream ripped from my vocal cords.

Thousands of tiny black spiders leaked out from the inside of the blanket, finally free from being trapped between the two fabrics. There was a barely audible scurrying sound as they spread like a plague, their hairy feet scraping against the wood. Their bodies were two dots attached to eight spindly legs that blurred with motion as they dispersed in all directions from the blanket. They crawled with astonishing speed, almost reaching me before I snapped out of my paralysis and took off for the back door.

Still screaming, I yanked the sliding glass door open and slammed it shut behind me with such force, the glass quivered and threatened to break. I twisted the lock into place and took a step back. They spread behind the glass, across the deck, over the railings, and into the yard. They were a black wave that washed over everything, emanating from my blanket. A few made the trek up the door, falling when I pounded my fist on the other side. Chills rolled down my spine as I realized that only a thin layer of material kept them from enveloping me with their horror. I could almost feel them creeping under my clothes, spreading themselves everywhere and poking me with their little legs.

I stood there occasionally hitting the door until the last wave of spiders made their way from their prison and scuttled off the deck. My heart pounded rapidly and adrenaline surged through me, shaking me, as they disappeared as quickly as they had come. Just like that, it was over. But my mind kept imagining them tangled in my hair and trapped underneath my bra.

Calling an exterminator to examine the house crossed my mind, but it was 2:30 AM and I was not in a state to talk to someone without shrieking. I would’ve called my husband, but I knew my only answer would be fits of laughter as he finds my fear of spiders hilarious.

Thinking of what to do, I stared at that blanket, watching for movement of any kind. I studied the folds of fabric and the surrounding area for shifting bodies but stillness was all I could see. “Well, fuck,” I murmured when it was clear there was nothing I could do in that moment. I took one last glance around the deck and resigned to bed.

I stripped off my clothing in case any spiders did find their way onto me and thoroughly checked myself until I was satisfied. Crawling under the comforter, my hands shook as they pulled it over me and I quietly dispelled my anxiety with Pintrest and Twitter. After an hour, I began to give up on getting any sleep, but exhaustion hit me like a train and tugged at me with the promise of nihility. I willingly accepted and snuggled into my bed.

On the verge of slipping into sleep, something kept calling for my attention. My brain, too tired to deal with anything else, ignored the feeling and I continued to fall asleep. But that sensation persisted, and I realized too late that the soft cotton of the duvet cover had been squirming around me.

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

The Children’s Crusade Account

In the late eleventh century, the Roman Catholic Church initiated a sort of pious pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a total of some 100,000 armed men, clerics, elderly, women, and children. The First Crusade began in 1096 and ended in victory in 1099 due to Islamic states’ lack of preparation for such an attack. From then until the Trial of the Templars in 1312, multiple crusades were sent off as Jerusalem was overpowered by the Muslims or the Turks. Despite thousands upon thousands dying in their wake, the Church believed that they were doing God’s work and that the land was theirs by rights due to being the birth place of Jesus Christ. However, as all humans are easily corrupted, many began using the crusades as an excuse to pillage and plunder, raiding for land and wealth. Blood was shed in the name of greed rather than God, twisting the Church’s mission to support their own causes. Realizing that these men had strayed from the path, a new crusade was created in an attempt to refocus the mission of possessing the Holy Land: the German Children’s Crusades.

Children are generally seen as purity and innocence in human form as they have not yet been ruined by the world. That, and the prospect of “fortune and glory” attracted children to this quest of conquering Jerusalem. Around 20,000 children and adults from the lowest classes of society set out, quickly dwindling down to 7,000 as the group was plagued by exposure, robbers, and wild beasts. From there, the group disbanded as they encountered cities where some stayed while others attempted to cross the Mediterranean only to be sold into slavery. Very few even made the perilous journey home to tell of places with strange foods and customs. There are only six European written accounts of the events of this tragedy, but I believe my father found a seventh.

There was a priest who returned to Europe, claiming that he had accompanied approximately 100 children that had set sail on two ships without being heard from again, but a recount of the events was never heard from him. Up until now, we have never been able to locate his testimony of events, the fate of the children a mystery.

My family’s last name is Goodyear, which is derived from Gutjahr. My 5th great-grandfather changed it in the latter half of the 1700s, but it was my 7th great-grandfather who emigrated here from Germany. Being a family of historians, we have always kept our history with us, and we can trace our roots back to the western Germanic tribes of the Franks, Angles, Saxons, and etcetera. Although we have kept much of our history in excellent condition, much of the archaic files were lost when Johan and Margaretha Gutjahr came over from Germany. So when I was shifting through my father’s study for breakfast reading material, I was well beyond astounded when I came across photos of an original account of those lost children who were last seen on those two ships leaving Europe. And luckily, my father had just finished translating the priest’s Latin, giving me all the permission I needed to swoop it up and scuttle off to my room.

I’m sorry for the brief history lesson, but I felt like it was necessary to for you to understand the context before diving into this nightmare. The following is my father’s translation of what happened to those children from the words of the priest who went with them. His name was never mentioned.

Day 1

I have decided to number this account by days as we have lost all sense of time as we made our way across the land. Yesterday, we boarded two ships, I along with 129 of God’s purest children. The men only agreed to take me along due to Alexander crying when they began to sail without me. Such a sweet child, he is. I would ask the men the day, but their looks are solemn and dark, intimidating the children and me into tense silence. I suppose it’s sometime late spring, but there has been a constant fog over the waters, obscuring the sun and stars, so different than the sun-filled sea I’ve heard about from travelers.

Since there are so many of us, the men split the children into two groups, 87 on the larger of the ships, 42 and I on the smaller. I would much rather have us all together to comfort one another as we have throughout this entire pilgrimage, but these are not our ships and these Holy men are kind enough to carry us across for nothing but the promise to retake the Holy Land. I do believe we shall, who can claim what is ours by God’s purpose if not the most pure and innocent of men? Spears will do no harm to these precious children, and the gates will open before them just like the Gates of Heaven will when we all pass. The Pope may not have believed in them, but God does and therefore, so do I.

Day 3

The winds have not blown since the first day. I know nothing about ships, but the nervous pacing of the crew tell me it is not a good sign. I was soothing Francis while he was sick over the side of the ship when I overheard a few words exchanged from two of the sailors. The words “no progress” and “never this long” peaked my interest, but “cursed children” gave me the realization that I was eavesdropping so I shut my ears and filled my head with the words of God.

The captain informed me that we have enough food and water to last until land, but the rations are to be made smaller to make that possible in our current situation. The children won’t complain, it’s still more food than they saw whilst trekking across the land. I daresay it is more food than what was offered to us when the Pope voiced that this crusade was folly and the children needed to go home. Would it be immoral of me to claim that the Pope, the voice of God, is wrong? I am devout in every way, but I believe politics cloud Innocent III’s mind and smother his connection to the Lord. Last night, I dreamt of a land bountiful with fruits and meats, fresh water and sweet wine available to all, the children running and laughing throughout the streets. It was a vision from Above, I was blessed with it to keep my mind in the right direction. His direction.

Day 6

We have lost the other ship. The fog is wrapping around us, shrouding us like a swaddled babe. Just yesterday, the children were waving and creating faces at each other from across the water, yelling greetings. How could we have lost sight? There are no sounds being carried across the water, only hushed whispers of the sailors and soft whimpers of the children huddled together. The absence of the lapping of water against the hull hangs heavy in the air, the silence is overbearing for many of us. This must be God’s test of our devotion to him to see if we truly are his purest children and worthy of claiming the Holy Land for our home.

Day 7

There is still no sound of water, but the ship still rocks. Francis is constantly hanging off the edge of the railing, spewing into the inky depths. He has not been able to keep water down for a full day now and he is beginning to struggle to get up so his body can purge into the water. He sleeps beside me for comfort, so I am constantly waking to him moaning and stirring. If we do not find land within the next week, I am afraid this child will dwindle to nothing and pass before his time. A few of the other children are periodically sick, but none to this degree. The sailors are beginning to murmur about the boy, I have heard them speak of separating him from us in case his sickness can spread. I hope God sees that this child needs the healing of his Holy hand and touches him with His light.

The other children are beginning to become more frightened. Francis terrifies them with his loud retching and gagging, and the days grow darker a little more each passing day. Night seems to fall quicker and last longer than when we first began our crossing of the sea. We cannot see the sun due to the mist, but it filters through the grey and warms the air. But once it grows dark, the children shiver together, near vibrating the whole ship with their chills. The captain has provided us with furs, but they have little meat on their bones and freeze anyways.

Lord, please lend us your strength to get through this test. We are forever in Your hands.

Day 10

Francis passed the night before last. I meant to record the events sooner, but more children are with what seems to be the same ailment. Retching is now an ever-present sound even below the deck where the healthy children are kept. Most of the sailors stay down there as well, only a few staying above to man the ship. My duties belong to God and therefore, His children that are in need of me. I try my best to comfort them and sooth their cries, but they saw what happened to Francis.

I am not familiar with this illness that plagues the children. The night Francis died, he had not gotten sick in a few hours, but he felt hot and his stomach bulged. He claimed to have felt fine and even managed to laugh with the others, but not long after the sun fell and we slept, I awoke to his screams as he writhed next to me. The few lanterns scattered on deck allowed me to see Francis. Clutching his torso, he was rocking from side to side as he squeezed his eyes and let out short shrieks between breaths. Blood seemed to bubble out of his mouth and it clung to his lips and chin. He did not seem aware of me as I laid my hands on him in an attempt to calm his movements and pray for his pain to stop. I closed my eyes, but I could hear the other children waking and reacting to the horrible scene. Soon, the sailors came out below the deck to see the commotion, standing at a distance and offering no help. I kept praying, knowing God is merciful and would only make Francis’s pain last as long as needed.

His cries did quiet soon after, but his body shook in fits, and vomit and blood covered his chest and my hands. The shaking continued for much longer than I had anticipated, his stillness came suddenly and without so much as a sigh of a breath. I am ashamed to admit this, but I did wonder if this was God telling me that we took a wrong turn, that we were not intended to reside on the same land as Jesus Christ once did. My faith wavered when it mattered most, when I should have kept my religion solid in the face of evil, and now the other children are getting sick. They are being punished for my failure for it let the Devil onto this ship and amidst us.

I may have failed that trial, but God has given me a chance to redeem myself. 26 of the children are now in my care, the other 15 with the sailors inside the ship. None of the sailors have showed any signs of this disease, but they have kept well away from Francis from the beginning and now avoid the others that are sick as well. I am the only healthy man who has interacted with them, but I have felt nothing out of the ordinary, but the sailors avoid me nonetheless. When I speak to the captain, it is from a far distance and our shouting shatters the cacophony of the sick children.

The captain has been shrinking our rations every day, and the sailors have not been able to catch any fish from the black sheet that is this motionless sea. If we do not land soon, we will run out of food and fresh water.

Day 11

We put Francis to rest under the wave today. It was only the sick children and I, but the crew gave me a large piece of metal to weigh his body down so he would sink into the water. We sang hymns in Latin as I hauled his body over the side of the ship. I had attempted to close his eyes, but they wouldn’t stay. His glazed stare was unsettling as he splashed into the water and sank into the depths. May God watch over his precious soul forevermore.

Day 12

More children have come from the hull to join the sick ones. My heart hangs heavy as I watch their small frames shudder from exertion and exhaustion as they lose their food over the side of the ship. They shiver constantly as the presence of the sun is seen less and less. Night is now vanquished gradually but falls with sudden fierceness, cold right at its heels. I have given them my furs and I hardly sleep, shuddering myself into wakefulness. But I keep my faith alive and God rewards me with warmth and immunity from the satanic disease plaguing the children. I recite prayers and preach of his love to the children and we sing of his greatness together. At least 5 children had to run to the side of the ship in the middle of prayer this morning.

The fog still surrounds us. There is no sight of land or the sound of sea gulls. The captain says that supplies are dwindling and we will soon have nothing. I must keep my faith strong.

Day 17

Many of the children have succumbed to the disease much as Francis did. The past days have been a hell of agonizing screams and blood. Everywhere I look, there is a child spilling their insides and crying out for the mercy of the Lord, but he does not answer. I do not believe he will answer, he has shut his ears to the dying of innocent children. Where is the merciful God I have preached of since I was a small boy? Why are the purest of men suffering such a great amount while I can do nothing but observe? Is there no god who will end this?

The sailors sent the last of the children to my care yesterday morn, when night was still lingering. There seems to only be a few hours of light filtering through the mist now. All of the men stay below and only the captain will briefly come up to deliver us crumbs of food and drops of water. I do not blame them. The deck of the ship is coated in red and body fluids, slippery and horrid. It takes everything in me to care for the children and not run from this nightmare.

We ran out of metal to sink the bodies, so many float around the ship, releasing sickening odors into the air. Only 13 children remain, and I know it’s only a matter of hours before Alexander and Constantine pass. I’m already dreading the screeches they will make whilst their bodies flail, but at least their suffering will be over.

Day 18

5 children died throughout the night, and I unceremoniously threw their bodies overboard. There is no Heaven for them to go to, no God to welcome them into the afterlife. Alexander and Constantine passed before the daylight was gone. The other three were not long after, and there were a few hours of only quiet moaning. I was relieved for the rest from screams for a while. I managed to sleep some despite the cold reaching into my bones. The captain did not come up with our rations this morning, so I went to the barred entrance of the hull and called out. I was met with silence. The door is locked from the inside, and I am much too weak to force it open so I must assume that they are either dead or simply pretending they cannot hear me.

The consistency of moans are grating on my ears, wearing my mind thin. At times, I believe I hear a voice, but I know none of the children can talk through their pain and vomiting. It whispers of ways I can stop their agony and spare them from a painful death, but these ways would condemn me to Hell. But if there is no God or heaven, how could there be a Hell? I wonder what became of the other children. Did they experience the same fate or did they pass through the sea and to Jerusalem? Were they met with pain and death or salvation? As these questions and thoughts run through my head, I cannot claim to be of the papacy any longer. No cleric should question God, and I would shame them with these cruel ideas this voice is putting into me. Oh, how their noises make me grind my teeth and tense with anger!

Day 20

No more children have succumbed, but they still moan with pain and now hunger and thirst. I tried to speak with the captain yesterday and again today but silence was my only answer again. I pounded on the doors until my hands bled, and now they are swollen and tender to the touch. I will not be comforting any children with them until they heal.

My stomach is gnawing at itself, my hunger is getting to me. That voice has gotten louder and more persistent, filling my head with terrible suggestions. It tells me of how I can fill my stomach with food, but it is monstrous and nauseating. I am appalled when my mouth waters at the thought of teeth sinking into soft meat, but my throat is relieved as I have something to wet it.

Day 21

This is the 4th day I have gone without food or water. 3 children passed yesterday morning, but I feel too weak to put them into the water. The remaining 5 huddle together in a pile of furs and vomit, their stench and whimpers assault my nose and ears. I sit on the other end of the ship, but I cannot escape their presence and misery. I wish I could believe again so I would have some hope, even if it was false.

Day ?

I have lost all track of time, I do not know how long I have been on the ship or how long it has been since it became silent. I remember having a terrible, terrible dream. I was on the ship with the last of the children, but there was something else with us, this presence of sorts that sounded like that voice that I hear inside my head. In the dream, it was with me when I was checking on the children, but it kept slipping into me, possessing me momentarily. I had been successful warding it off until I was covering Lukas with a fur and it took over my hands, forcing the heavy blanket onto the poor child’s face, covering his mouth and nose. I watched horrified and helpless as my hands resisted Lukas’s feeble attempts to get away. His struggle did not last long, but the others were screaming and crawling away. The presence was outraged at the sight of them, and I could not fight it out of me.

The dream became a blur, I only remember mere glimpses but that is atrocious enough. Writing this, my hands tremble as they recall the feeling of ripping out Henri’s throat and clawing into Eliza’s and Elsie’s stomachs. Stephan was the last one, the one I remember wholly and with such vivid detail, but I cannot admit to what the being made me do. I did not think my mind was capable of that sort of imagination to dream of tearing a child apart in such a fashion.

I woke up shaking from fear, taking note of the silence that had replaced the moans. I knew I had only dreamed it, there was no blood on my hands or cloak, and the children were still buried beneath their blankets. But I could not see or hear them. I prayed for the first time since I began doubting God. What could that presence be if not a demon from Hell? I could not have created such a scenario on my own, the Devil himself has visited me whilst I slept and whispered malice into my ear.

I have done nothing since, only sat near the end of the ship and prayed out loud. The fog still surrounds the ship and the days are still short. I have not eaten or drank in many, many days. My frame is thin and frail; moving brings dizziness to my head.

I have been praying sitting near the railing and speaking out over the water. This morning, movement caught my eye, and I looked down to discover a small row boat with two oars. I have been praying here since the dream and have not seen it before, but I believe God put it there because I have come back to him and I am worthy. I will have to go past the bloated bodies of the children in the water and into the mist, but I believe God does not intend for me to stay on this ship. I think I shall leave after I have finished writing.

There has been no movement or sound from the children. After the dream, I have avoided looking towards the lump of blankets and bodies. Sometimes I feel as if it did happen, but I know that it did not for there was no blood on my hands when I woke up. The feeling of my body being invaded by the presence lingers at times, but I turn my thoughts to God. Although I cannot see the children, I feel like they have passed and are now in the hands of God.

I believe it is time for me to leave now. I shall let God guide my journey home, else he take me into his kingdom.

When I was done reading, I stared at my wall trying to comprehend what I had just read. I've thought about discussing it with my father, but I think I would rather put this out of my mind for awhile until I can wrap my head around it. I cannot even begin to imagine being in those children's shoes or witnessing an event like that, and I question whether the priest killed the last five children due to the voice he hallucinated. Or perhaps he didn't hallucinate it? I'm not religious, but this document makes me consider the possibility of the supernatural being involved. The disease only affected the children, and it is unheard of for a fog to descend for that long. And what happened to the crew that was below deck?

My thoughts kept creeping back to those helpless children, and my vision swam. Eventually, I silently crept downstairs to set the translation back on my father's desk so he would not find it missing when he came home from teaching.

The account does not include his journey home, but other accounts claim it took him close to a decade to return home. It's sickening to read what these children went through. They went through many hardships, only to end up on a stranded ship with an illness that ended horribly. While this provides insight on the mystery of what happened to some of the children, what happened to the other ship is still unknown.

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

Mamma’s Little Girl

My father recently passed away, leaving my sister and me to sort through his belongings. Born in 1929, he had collected quite the variety of useless shit that he held onto, picking the habit up from the era he grew up in: the Great Depression. In his attic, we found everything from yellowed, illegible newspapers from WWII to flower arrangements he kept from our mother’s funeral four years ago. There was even a small stash of canned food hidden away in the corner along with a few gallons of water.

About a week after his funeral, I was shifting through boxes when I came upon a worn, leather bound journal filled with flowing cursive that was neither my father’s nor mother’s handwriting. On the front page, it read “Christina’s Story.” Dad had mentioned he had a sister named Christina, but all he would ever say about her is that she died at a young age. I remember asking my grandfather about her when I was too young to realize I was prying, and the only response I got was a long stare that conveyed grief and anger. Realizing this was my chance to finally know some secret family history, I carried the journal downstairs, plopped down on a chair, and began reading.

I was always Momma’s favorite. Growing up with eight brothers, she began longing for a daughter at a very early age and after birthing five healthy baby boys much to Daddy’s delight, I came along. Kicking and screaming, the doctors said I had torn up Momma’s insides so she couldn’t have any more babies, but that didn’t bother her one bit. She had finally gotten her lifelong wish and sacrifices were to be accepted. They took me home to our old, rickety farmhouse and smothered me with attention. I grew up being the apple of Momma’s eye, dressed up in all the pink hair bows and pastel dresses my parents could afford. She would constantly parade me through town and show off my rosy cheeks and pale blue eyes to anyone that would listen. She soaked in the attention as she was the one who had made such a little beauty. I was constantly surrounded by affection and learned to love it. I was her pride and joy and she was the best Momma in the whole wide world to me. Until the end of last winter.

I was only about twelve when the older boys started showing an interest in me. I guess they liked the gangly limbs, not quite developed breasts, and innocent eyes from which I saw the world. They would constantly compliment my dresses or hair or even how light my voice sounded, hollering, “Your golden locks look magnificent today!” My brothers never said a word about it to me, so my first reaction was to be flattered and bat my eyelashes as I swung my hips a bit more. As I got older, their comments turned crude and rash, causing my face to light up like a furnace, my heart racing. “Your dress looks lovely today” turned into “That dress looks good, but just your panties would be better.” Last year was the worst of it. It makes me shudder to think of the hungry look in their eyes as they followed the movement of my hips. With their mouths salivating as if I were a piece of prime steak, they would loudly proclaim that I was “the best piece of ass in this town.” I did my best to hurry along and ignore their comments, but some would take offense to my blatant rejection and would be brash enough to storm up to me and grab my arm in bruising grips. When it got to that point, one of my brothers would intervene and push the boy away. They really weren’t too protective considering I stole Momma’s attention from them, but they would never let me get hurt. Or so I thought.

It was the beginning of this past December, and school had just let out for our long winter break. The freezing temperatures had set in about a month before, blanketing our little town with a foot of heavy, thick snow. That particular day had been unforgivingly cold with a wind sharp enough to cut through the layers of wool Momma had bundled around me. My breath seemed to hang in the air as a little cloud of crystals before dissipating into nothing, every intake of atmosphere causing my throat to burn and eyes to water. Trying to walk quickly to stay warm, two of my brothers and I hurried our way through the outskirts town, towards the promise of a warm fire and dry clothes. I was concentrating so much on not slipping on the icy ground, I didn’t even hear someone shouting my name until their large hand closed around my upper arm and spun me around. I came face-to-face with a bearded man my oldest brother’s age, breathing hot whiskey into my lungs. His sharp whiskers scratched my delicate skin as my face whirled past his. My shoes slid against the ice, but his grip kept me from falling. As both of my feet steadied, his hollow, red-rimmed eyes bore into mine, delirious with crave and lust. I tried to jerk away, but he clamped an iron arm around me and pressed his body against mine. His other hand found the side of my face and forcefully stroked it. I could feel his heat through my coats, and the taste of bile flooded over my tongue.

Without another word, he pressed his mouth to mine, forcing his slobber onto my lips. His arm tightened its grip around me and his hand pressed into my face as his chapped lips mauled me. Surprise slowed my reaction, but my brain eventually processed what was happening and I screamed hard enough to bloody my throat, beating my useless fists against the man’s broad chest. I kicked at his shins and threw my body against his, eyes rolling around and limbs flailing. I slipped multiple times, but he held me trapped in his arm. My thoughts were a constant scream, filling my head with ringing noise while my physical cries were absorbed by the man’s moving mouth. Panic seethed in my blood and I began to hyperventilate, but my breath was still blocked by the man’s cruel lips and beard. His tongue pushed itself through my lips and teeth, a rotten chunk of meat exploring the back of my throat. I could suck in little air as I was smothered, my head dizzy with the lack of oxygen. Blackness was weaving in and out of my vision, threatening to take over when he was suddenly jerked away and my airways were cleared again. Falling to my knees, I heaved in air and clarity started to come back to me. I looked up to see that my brothers had finally caught on to what was happening and had knocked the man down into the street, holding him there. The police took him away after some questioning and escorted my brothers and me home.

A few weeks later, the fever and vomiting began. At first, Momma fretted over me with worried eyes, believing that I had a bad cold and would be cured with hot soup. She hand fed me her best chicken-noodle soup and read me poems and fairytales about fairies and true love. Her voice changed with the character speaking, light and charming for a princess, deep and commanding for a king, throaty and sincere for a frog. She painted pictures of pink castles and silvery ball gowns in my mind, staunching the nausea for a while. Every day, three times a day, she would feed me and read. After a week of vomiting, I noticed a change in her. Her voice was monotone and lifeless, no longer varying with the characters. She rarely ever met my eyes, and when she did, I would tell myself that I didn’t see disappointment in them. Her visits cut down to two times a day, but I couldn’t stomach much of anything so I accepted it without concern.

After months passed, my muscles grew stiff and slowly began to shrink. By then, Daddy brought me all of my meals, and I would be lucky to see Momma once a week. She would only come to change my bedding and silently stare at me from across the room. I saw no more love in her eyes, just two dead circles planted on her face. The change terrified me as I no longer had the love of the one person who meant the world to me. * *As my muscles slowly grew smaller, I saw Momma less. Daddy finally called a doctor from a nearby city and used up all of his savings just for him to come out here, take one look at me, and mutter one, awful word.

Polio.

He said that one simple word with an apologetic look that let me know that I would not simply get over this illness. I asked him to explain what exactly would happen to me and why it was happening.

“Well, Christina,” he sighed, “With the advanced stage that you are in, you will never be able to walk again.” He paused, judging my reaction and deemed it safe to continue. “Eventually, you will lose the ability to swallow and won’t be able to eat. As for how you got it,” he shifted and cleared his throat, “The only ways that we know of are through the ingestion of infested feces or oral-to-oral contamination.” Noting my confused look, he added, “By eating the stool of someone or something infected with polio or having someone who is infected spit in your mouth one way or another. A common way of getting it is through kissing.”

Kissing…that last word rang in my head like a siren, circling all other thoughts. The incident in the street that occurred months ago began reeling through my mind, and I felt like I was drowning in that horrible man’s whiskey again. That bastard, I thought, I am here because of that drunken bastard. Rage surged through me, clouding every other thought in red. It masked the fear and grief of the progression of my disease, making me numb to it. I kept my exterior blank, not wanting to expose this anger. I must have gotten lost in it because the doctor was suddenly repeating my name. Snapping back to the world, my eyes met his. “Oh I’m sorry, Doctor. This is all quite a bit of a shock and my mind ran away from me. What were you saying?” I colored my tone with innocence to conceal my true state of mind.

Clearing his throat, the doctor went on, “I was saying, I can’t really do anything further for you. There are no treatments for polio at this time, but if I hear of any experimental medicines, you and your family will be the first to know.” He gave me a reassuring smile as if that could put my mind at ease. Squeezing my bony knee, he gathered his coat, gave me a curt nod, and walked out of the room. I could hear him consoling my parents before he left, reassuring them that as long as I was comfortable, then I’d be okay until the end. I could only hear Daddy’s response.

After the front door slammed shut, the house fell under a shroud of silence. For the next couple of months, that silence stretched on and only Daddy bringing in my meals broke it. Momma never came back in, and I never asked for her. I was only a trophy to her, something she could show off and gain attention from. I tried not to let it get to me and have that diamond exterior, but tears of rage would sometimes leak out when Daddy would walk in instead of her. I’m not sure why I always held onto that hope, I knew she couldn’t look at me without disgust glowing in her eyes. On Daddy’s part, he did always hold me while I cried and would sing me lullabies until I slipped into a dreamless sleep. He became my sole anchor and the reason I didn’t give up on life. Two times a day, he would come in with a hot meal and a glass of milk; sometimes he would bring new books from town or a doll to keep me company. He’d tell me what all was going on in town and how my brothers were doing. But he never brought up Momma, knowing it would just send me into hysteria.

It was the middle of spring when he didn’t show up at his usual time in the morning. For hours, I sat up staring at the door, riddled with worry and hunger. The sun had passed the eastern window of room, signaling it was afternoon when the door finally began to creak open. I had fallen asleep but snapped into alertness when I heard that familiar groan of wood. But what met my eyes was almost incomprehensible because it was not Daddy who stood in the doorway. As the scent of her rose oil tickled my senses, I drank in the sight of her leaning against the doorway. Her eyes were hard and unforgiving, and they locked onto mine. The sweet smile on her lips did not reach them, contrasting her face into a warped smirk. Shiny mousey hair flowed halfway down her back, curled into ringlets. Her pastel blue dress was cinched right above her belly, accenting the small bump that she was gently caressing. I gasped, realizing what this meant.

“Momma,” I whispered, not able to manage anything louder. “Momma, you’re pregnant!” Despite my anger towards the woman who was supposed to love me, I became elated with the possibility of having a little sibling.

The hardness left her eyes as she gazed down at her belly. “Yes, I am,” she murmured and looked back up at me with that smirk again, “which is why you and I are going into town.” Her smile widened turning more into a feral grin and she began picking out my outfit.

My only reaction was a small intake of air. This woman had not cared enough to see me once in two months, and here she was, whirling around my room with her usual grace and grabbing my favorite pastel pink dress and worn black boots. My eyes followed her and scrutinized her every movement. “Why’re you doing this?” spewed out of my mouth and I lifted a frail hand as if to stuff the question back inside.

She barely glanced at me while she straightened out the wrinkles in my dress. “Because I want to.” And with that, she dressed me with ease and scooped me into her arms. She held me away from her body as she carried me out of the house and to a small wagon attached to a horse. When she dropped me into the seat, she let out a gasp, not out of exertion but from holding her breath. I barely noticed her climbing in next to me and getting the horse moving as I was too entranced by the outside world.

Amazed with being out in the sunlight, I gazed around wide-eyed, trying to keep my suspicion. Warmth reflected off of my pale skin, quickly becoming pink in the bright light. The air was filled with scents of freshly tilled earth and new beginnings, drowning my head with hope that this was my new beginning. The prairie grass was still dead from the snow, but even that seemed bright in the golden sunlight. The sky seemed to stretch into eons of blue, speckled with soft cream clouds. A slight breeze stroked my face, convincing me to close my eyes, breathe in that wonderful spring air, and listen. The creaking of the wooden wheels could not block out the songs of the blue birds and chittering of the prairie dogs. Insect calls kept in time to the mild whooshing of the wind, and the horse’s hoofs made plip-plop sounds against the dust. Everything seemed right in the world and for the first time in what felt like ages, I truly smiled and let out a quiet giggle. I temporarily forgot about the heartless witch my mother had become and rested my head on her shoulder as she drove and closed my eyes in content.

We were only driving for about ten minutes when Momma suddenly stopped, causing me to open my eyes and study our surroundings. Nowhere near town, we seemed to be on the northern edge of our property, where the fields met the woods. I looked behind us to see the speck that was our home. Worried, I looked over at Momma who was already climbing out. “I thought we were going to town. Why’re we way out here?” She got to my side and began to lift me out and got that hard look in her eyes again. Her voice dripped with hatred she had managed to hide before, “Because I’m pregnant. And everyone’s saying it’s gonna be another girl. After you disappointing me and whoring around kissing men and getting what you deserve, I’m gonna get the chance to start all over again. And I don’t need you ruining it.” With that, she began walking towards the trees.

I struggled to understand. She couldn’t have meant those words, she was my momma. Yes she had turned cold, but she was never cruel. She couldn’t be planning what she was, could she? I studied her face through teary eyes and saw the set of her jaw, her eyes pointing forward in an icy glare, the rigidity of her movements and arms around me. And I realized yes, yes she did mean those sharp words that sent stabbing pains to my stomach. And there was nothing I could do about it. My limps had little mobility and I struggled to chew food. I could do nothing but stare at this woman who I had adored a long, long time ago. The urgency of my situation hit me like a train, and I began screaming for the only person I knew I could trust: Daddy.

Yelling over my cries, she chastised me, “Now you quit that right now or I will make it a lot worse for you.” Believing her threat, I quickly shut my mouth. Satisfied, she went on, “I knew your father would not be happy with my decision, so I sent him to the city this morning to pick up a baby blanket for our new little girl. He can’t hear you now, Christina,” she spit out my name like it was poison.

With my lips trembling, I whispered, “He’ll know what you’ve done. And he’ll find me. And punish you.” I prayed with all of my heart for my threat to be true. I knew my disease would eventually kill me, but I didn’t want to die alone and abandoned at the hands of this thing my Momma had become.

She never replied, simply staring ahead as she weaved her way through the trees. She jerked to a stop, looked around, and suddenly dropped me on the forest floor. I landed with a quiet thud on my side, sending jolting pain everywhere. The ground forced all air out of my lungs, leaving me breathless and lightheaded. Looking up, I could see Momma peering down at me with a sickening smile and a hue of delight in her eyes. “Girl, I’ve been wanting to do this since you became a disease on our family. You have brought nothing but hardships and disappointment to us. Coyotes have been plentiful this year, so you should be picked apart before you starve,” she leaned down close to my face so I could clearly see her insanity and whispered, “I hope you’re alive while the birds take your eyes and you suffer half as much as we have because of you.” And with that, she was gone. She quickly bustled back to the cart, and I could hear the wheels groan back to life as she took off for good.

I was alone. The birds still chirped and insects buzzed, but they sounded much more sinister than before. The sun poked out of the swaying leaves, playing with the shadows and making them dance; every snap of a twig sent me into a panic. The only coherent word running through my wild brain was “why?” Why did Momma leave me to this terrifying fate? Why did I have to be infected with this incurable disease? Why did God let this happen? Why wasn’t Daddy there to stop her?

I slowly descended into a quiet madness as these questions circling around me while the sun slipped towards the west. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t get up and walk back, my legs were useless. My arms couldn’t drag me all the way back to the house, I had to be at least a couple of miles away. Praying to God was obviously not going to work.

As I laid in the dying sunlight, my hopes of Daddy finding me shrank to nothing. The darkness was closing in and I was merely a small lump of skin and bones hidden between the twigs and leaves. Tears leaked out of my eyes, and I didn’t try to stop them as they streaked my hollow cheeks. The smell of salt and rotting earth stung my nostrils. I simply stared through the branches at the indigo sky and cried. When the first stars peered out at me, my eyelids stooped low and I knew. “This is it,” I said to myself, “If I fall asleep now, I’m never waking up.” The sound of my own voice was comforting, confirming I was still alive even if only for a little while. I started humming a lullaby Daddy would sing me, only getting halfway through before slipping into a deep sleep.

Much to my surprise, I woke up. Opening my eyes to an unfamiliar, stark room with bright light, I believed I was in Heaven at first. I was wearing a clean white gown in a bed with cream linen sheets. Then I looked over and saw Daddy slumped in a wooden chair, head resting on his hand. “Daddy,” I squeaked, not being able to raise my voice above a broken whisper.

Eyes springing open, he searched the room until noticing me, wide-eyed and confused. He jumped up and ran to my bed, instantly crying out “Doctor, she’s awake! She’s awake!” Soothing my hair as the room filled with strangers, he kissed my cheek and whispered, “Christina, oh Christina.” Emotion swam in his eyes as he continued, “These people are going to help you. You’ll be okay, Momma can’t hurt you now.” And with that, he was pulled away by a woman in a white dress. The doctor and three nurses surrounded me, attending to my wounds from being dropped in the woods and asking how I was feeling. After those first few moments of waking up, everything else for the next week was a blur.

Although there’s no cure for polio, they healed me up as best as they could. I was fed at least three times and day and constantly sipped on water when I was awake. Medicine for the pain made a zombie out of me, but I do remember Daddy being with me every day. I never saw any of my brothers that week, and he didn’t mention Momma at all. After they deemed me healthy enough to return home, Daddy told me what had happened after Momma abandoned me. His voice shook the whole time, but he managed to coherently get through the story.

When Daddy had gotten home from the city with the blanket, Momma and I were nowhere to be found. My brothers told him about seeing her head to the north side of the property with me a half hour before he got back, but had not seen either of us since. He hurried up the northern road, eager to find us before night hit. He discovered Momma first.

He found the wagon tipped backwards, as if the horse had reared up and managed to flip it. The horse was nowhere to be found, but Momma got caught between the side of the wagon and the ground, crushing her. He didn’t describe her to me, but I could picture her body in a tangled mess, blood pooling around the tops of her thighs. Her arms folded unnaturally under her and legs skewed apart, I could see her twisted form underneath that cart, more deformed than mine. Half of me wanted to ask if the crows had picked out her eyes yet.

Not seeing my body with hers, Daddy frantically called my name and continued walking the road north. He searched for hours, scrutinizing every acres of our fields until he finally got to the woods and discovered me long after night fell. Exhausted, he carried me back to the house, loaded me into our other wagon, and wheeled me into the big city.

I’m home now, confined back into that room with the eastern window, but Daddy tries to take me outside every day. A nurse named Ellen came with me from the hospital so I’m attended to at all times, which helps out Daddy. I know he gets tired of running in here to calm my screams when I have nightmares, so they’ll take turns soothing me back to sleep.

I’m shrinking every day. I can’t even pick up a pencil, let alone form letters, so Ellen is writing my story down while I struggle to whisper it. She says writing about what happened will help relieve some of this horror and sadness out of me. But my mother tried to kill me without so much as batting an eyelash. And when I dream, I dream of her torn body, dragging itself towards me whilst clutching a lifeless little girl.

At least it won’t be long now. The end is near.

After my eyes scanned the last two sentences, I set the book down and wept. My own daughter passed away from cancer years ago, my grandfather being the most supportive and always there when I needed him. My wife had left me a few months after Chrissie was diagnosed, claiming she couldn’t handle an ill daughter and a weak husband, leaving my little girl with only one parent to smooth her hair and tell her everything was going to be alright. My family came and visited as much as they could, but my grandfather was the only one who would stay with her on sleepless nights and then with me once she passed. I was beyond grateful he was always understanding, but now that I’ve read this, it pains me to know he knew exactly how I felt.

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

The House in the Field

I used to be a thrill seeker, I would proudly admit it. From sky diving to attempting to out run the cops to standing at the very edge at the top of a skyscraper, if it gives me that sweet, head-spinning rush of adrenaline, I would do it. Sometimes it was all I can do to feel alive.

Five years ago, I became obsessed with trying to scare the shit out of myself by exploring supposedly “haunted” places. Now as much as I want to say I was tough due to my habit, the reality was far from that. Scary movies have always freaked me the fuck out, and I tend to peak through my fingers while plugging my ears (which is pretty entertaining to see, according to my friends) during suspenseful moments. But that feeling of being wound tight like a spring, my heart racing and my pupils dilating, adrenaline rushing through my arteries was like a drug to me. I had made it through just about every decent scary movie to date, so I decided to move up to the next level: searching for the supernatural side of reality.

I started out with the local myths, visiting the cemetery off of 700 N, parking my car on Cry Baby Bridge, and exploring the old abandoned school house in the middle of the woods near town. Although I did walk through some cold spots and screamed over a couple of startled rabbits, there wasn’t anything substantial enough to satisfy my craving. I just about gave up on the thrill of otherworldly beings when I overheard a couple of the farmers from the surrounding area talking. The town I lived in was pretty small, so I knew who they were and knew they were the no-nonsense type of men.

My friends and I had met up at the local coffee/donut shop to discuss my recent failures when I picked up on their conversation. Being the nosy bitch I am, I slightly turned my good ear towards them and concentrated on their words. The names are changed for anonymity’s sake. Warning: they cuss up a storm.

Bill: -full of shit. There’s no such thing as a fucking ghost, are you out of your goddamn mind? You’re just a bitch and got scared of the dark, that’s all.

Trevor: I am not fucking with you guys, I swear. I really did see a-

Chris: Just please stop. We’ve heard so many of your damn stories, we’re not falling for this one. We both know you get antsy being in the fields at night. Remember that time you saw a coyote and you took off, screaming some shit about a demon? I mean fuck, Trev, if you really believe that shit, maybe you need to get your head checked.

Trevor: Would you guys just fucking listen to me for once? You remember the stories from middle school, how that lady killed all those people in that house. We even saw the newspaper clipping! There’s no way it couldn’t have been her, I saw her clear as day like she was lit up or some shit. There was blood and sharp teeth and she didn’t have hair an-and look exactly like that picture! I swear to fucking Christ, I saw her!

Chris: Alright, buddy, chill. If you really believe that, I won’t argue.

Bill: I still think you’re bullshitting us, but whatever. Did you hear about the McTurnen’s clearing their-

And with that, their conversation turned to farm shit. I was a bit skeptical because Trevor was known for having an overactive imagination, but his tone of voice had me thinking. There isn’t much unknown to me as far as town history goes, so I was curious. I had never heard of such a thing happening here. As soon as my friends and I finished up our coffees, I headed to the library to look for the mentioned newspaper.

I spent five hours scanning everything that I could, and I had nothing but a headache to show for it. I asked the librarian about it considering she had been there since the dawn of time, but she just shrugged her shoulders.

Well fuck it, I thought, I’ll just go searching for it. I had a general idea on the whereabouts of Trevor’s land, so I packed a bag full of snacks and water, grabbed my 500 lumen flashlight (it’s bright as fuck), and started with the outermost fields. I parked my car along the road near where I thought his fields were and started making my way along the perimeter of them. I thought I was going to be walking around all night, but I found it within the first hour of stomping around in the tall grass that bordered the knee-length corn.

The house was a tall, skinny building with two windows on each floor in the front. The white siding was stripping off, the windows all busted in. Chipped and covered in dust, the front door hung from its hinges, occasionally swinging in the breeze but producing no sound. Walking around the house, I discovered that there were no other windows or doors, which raised goosebumps along my arms despite the summer heat. Circling my way back to the front porch, the windows and door gaped at me, blackness swimming behind the shards of glass. Shining my flashlight through them, I discovered that the near blinding beam of light wouldn’t pierce the darkness lurking inside. “What the actual fuck” was all my brain could think. I stood there for a good five minutes, listening to the crickets and squinting into the window, but there was nothing. This just escalated my excitement.

Eager to explore and find out why my flashlight wasn’t illuminating the interior, I gingerly tested the decrepit stairs and quickly ran to the door. I turned off my light for a moment, letting my eyes adjust before peering around the crooked door. The inside was as normal as any abandoned house could be. The wallpaper was peeling like skin from a sunburn, and a couple of the floorboards were broken, sticking up like jagged teeth. The overwhelming smell of dust moths invaded my nose as I surveyed the dust-covered furniture. As far as I could tell, the living room was to the right of the door, the kitchen across from it, and the stairs leading upstairs were right in front. I attempted to get a look at the top, but a thick blackness obscured the landing. Glancing around the field in front of the house, I took a deep breath and wiggled my way past the door.

Silence. Suffocating, overpowering silence.

My breath caught in my throat as I strained to hear the slightest noise, even if it was just a mouse scurrying around. Nothing. “That’s okay,” I muttered to myself, “I’ll just sing.” I started my shaky rendition of Blood in My Eyes by Sum 41 and made my way to the living room.

“I don’t believe in the secrets you keep,” I half sang, half whispered as I stepped over pieces of wood. I looked out at the field from the front windows, being able to clearly see outside. Why couldn’t I see in then?

“But I do wanna know, how do you sleep at night?”

I turned around, glanced around a tiny kitchen, and noticed a door along the wall holding the stairs. My heart beat wildly at the thought of exploring a basement, and that sweet, tingling feeling entered my limbs.

“And I’m over you, congratulations.”

I raised my voice slightly as I made my way towards the door. My breathing turned rapid, my lungs sucking in air in short, quick bursts. Thoughts raced and I could barely concentrate on remembering the lyrics.

“And thank you for all the pain.”

I approached the door, my hand reaching for the knob. The cold metal cooled my sweaty palm as I grasped it, preparing to turn it.

“Cause you made it be so much more fun.”

My voice grew louder as the adrenaline began to take full effect. Nearing hyperventilation, I violently twisted the knob and jerked the door open. I lost track of the song as I peered down into the basement. I could only see past the first couple of stairs before there was nothing. Turning my flashlight on and gathering my thoughts, I shined it into the abyss.

“There’s nothing to say now, feelings are al-“

I paused as a gripping terror seized me. The light made no difference. It was as if the dark was a living thing, swallowing the light and hiding whatever atrocities were inside. Staring wide-eyed down the stairs, I picked up a new feeling. Eyes. I felt eyes staring at me not from the bottom of the steps but boring into the back of my head. Attempting to slow my increasing panic, I forced myself to take deep breaths and continued singing.

“Already dead.”

I had barely finished the last syllable when I felt hard shove from behind, sending me careening into the unknown. The only phrase running through my brain was “fuck, fuck, fuck” as I bounced rolled down the stairs like a tire. Every hit shot pain throughout my body, clattering my teeth together. I fell for what seemed like an eternity, increasing my speed. As I made my last flip, I caught a glimpse of the doorway above me and a looming figure staring at me. A scream built in my chest, but I hit the bottom a split second later and immediately blacked out.

I wasn’t out for that long, maybe five or so minutes. I opened my eyes to pitch black and that same suffocating silence met my ears. I slowly sat up, groaning at every muscle movement. My right wrist felt like it was on fire, and I let out a string of cuss words as I propped myself against the wall. Sliding myself along the floor using my left arm, I felt sharp stones that crunched as I put my weight on them. They dug into my palm, drawing blood in a couple of places and causing me to whimper. I may love adrenaline rushes, but I cannot handle pain for the life of me.

Leaning against a cold, rough wall, I tried to adjust my eyes to the darkness, but no matter how long I stared, I couldn’t see shit. Someone had closed the basement door. I hesitantly felt around me to discover that I was still at the foot of the stairs. I knew how to get out. As I tried to drag myself up, a soft chittering echoed behind me. You know in World War Z where that zombie clacks his teeth together rapidly? Yeah, that’s what I heard.

Paralyzed, I tried to will myself to crawl but my bones felt like lead weights. As the chittering continued, a crackling noise joined in and it moved closer. Whatever it was, it was moving towards me. Dread gripped me by the balls and held on tight. A moan escaped my lips as my bladder let go. Time froze as I listened to that terrible sound creep closer and closer to me. Fright scrambled any possibility of coherent thought, leaving my brain in a panicked frenzy. It sounded to be only a couple feet away when it let out a high-pitched, gut-wrenching shriek. It rang in my ears, vibrating through my brain and snapping me out of my frozen state.

Heart pounding, breath ragged, my flight or fight reaction finally kicked in and I took off up the stairs. The thing let out another shriek and gave chase. I took three steps at a time while I could hear it clambering up on all fours. The sound brought horrible, terrifying images to my mind, and I pushed myself faster. “Left, right, left, right” I heard in my head, a habit I learned from my pole vault coach yelling at me. It’s odd, the things that enter your mind when you’re scared shitless.

I couldn’t see the door, so it was a surprise when I crashed into it. Thank God it was rotting and gave away, or I would’ve bounced right back down those stairs towards that…thing. Taking no risk to stop and rest, I bolted to the door and hurdled over it, landing on my ankle funny. As pain shot up my leg, I scrambled back to my feet and flew down the stairs. I sprinted in the direction of my car, only glancing back once to see if the chittering creature was still in pursuit.

A bald woman with black eyes and a wicked grin glared after me. Her skin shone red in the moonlight, and I swear I could make out the little points of her teeth. She stood naked at the top of the porch stairs, waving a delicate hand at me. More adrenaline surging through my system at the sight, and I whipped my head back around and did not stop sprinting until I made it back to my car. I was still struggling for oxygen when I started my car and sped off towards my house. I really don’t remember driving home or even getting into the house. All I can remember was collapsing on my bed and passing the fuck out from exhaustion.

The next day was filled with misery and pain as I jumped at every little sound and winced in pain. I went to the hospital, the x-rays confirming that I had shattered my carpals. My ankle was only sprained. I was prescribed pain meds and rest and sent on my way. Right after the hospital, I went to the police station. Now I know the police get a bad rap on here, but I had to let someone know about that house. They took me seriously despite the ridiculousness of the story and promised to check it out within a week. I knew one of the officers pretty well, and I pulled him aside to let him know the urgency of the situation. He simply nodded and promised me he would be there himself to search the house.

Well, within a couple of days, he contacted me to let me know that they had found the house and searched it. What they found…fuck, I hate thinking about it even now. Those little stones I had mentioned in the basement? Those were bones. Some animal, but mostly human bones. The floor was covered with them, and a pile up to the ceiling was in the corner farthest from the stairs. After getting the FBI involved, an investigation team swarmed the house, discovering bones from at least 127 individuals. There were gnaw marks on every single one, as if something had eaten every scrap of meat from them and scraped off the visceral left. After I heard about that, I quit asking. I didn’t want to know what else they found.

And the worst part? They didn’t find the woman or thing or whatever it was. They found petite human footprints leading to the field behind the house but lost the trail after a mile. So that fucking thing is still out there.

This happened about five or so years ago. I’ve since dropped my adrenaline habit, moved into an eighth-floor apartment in a big city, started a job I love, and got a cat. So why am I just now writing about this? Chittering. I can hear chittering coming from my window. Fuck.

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

January 14, 2016

I race to gather all of my knives as a pair of FBI agents pound furiously on my door. They’ve been visiting me, asking questions about a series of disappearances all week and I think they’re closing in on me. My door frame shakes every time the male agent slams his fist against the wood, my ears reverberate with “MISTER GEORGE WILCOX, WE KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!” They must not have a warrant or else my door would already be busted in and I’d be in hand cuffs. They’d see all of my perfect sharp friends lying about my counter and kitchen floor, some freshly cleaned and others still encrusted with blood. I was in the middle of cleaning them when the pounding began, startling me enough to sweep a handful of them to the floor.

With every slam against my door, my heart leaps. I know they can’t come in, but I don’t think these agents are above going against procedures. As I bend to grab my small peeling knife, a particularly loud slam causes me to jump, sliding my index finger along the sharp edge of the blade. Deep red immediately rushes to the surface and gathers at the entrance of the wound, surface tension holding it there. The sight stops me in my tracks, fascinating me as images of my artwork flitter across my head.

A twenty-two year old female carved with intricate vines, the cuts exposing organs and bone. Her screams echoed through my head and I felt myself harden with excitement. Her porcelain skin was unmarked with any flaws, providing me with the perfect canvas and blood readily poured as I worked.

A boy just barely seventeen who had drunkenly stumbled into the woods had met his end with my meat cleaver. I remember being particularly angry that day because a lady had cut me off on the highway, and it showed through the zigzag pattern my incessant hacking had created.

My latest, a six-year-old girl who became the little monster all children really are. The cuts extended her smile, much like the Joker of Batman, and her ears hung on with mere skin. Her hair was too perfectly curled and gold to belong to a monster, so I scalped her and exposed her pretty white skull. Limbs were twisted, bones broken to manipulate her into the screaming image of a nightmare. I believe it was my best.

There are at least twenty or more victims across the country, I can’t ever keep track. They tend to all blur together after a while and the only memory is the one of motion. I can still feel myself dipping my knife into my first victim, recreate the feel of it in my head. As I stared at that drop of blood on my finger, my hands desperately wanted to grab a knife and create artwork out of the assholes still pounding on my door. I could see myself carrying out the actions, knowing exactly what to do with both of them. But there is no need for me to get caught, I’ve been doing this for decades!

The need to get away snapped me out of my trance, and I quickly picked up the rest of the knives, stuck them in the dishwasher, and began a cycle. I walked towards the door, taking a deep breath and combing back my thinning hair. Feigning sleepiness, I opened the door and greeted my guests with a smile…

And then I woke up. I am a 20-year-old girl who’s in college and I have been plagued with nightmares for years, but this one? I’ve never been someone else in a dream. I’ve always been myself or I’m watching it play out like a movie. And the…feelings. I can still feel an ache in my arms to slash and stab, not necessarily other people, but anyone including myself. My skin crawls with that need, and I’m at a loss as to how I’m supposed to handle this. I need to sleep, but the image of all those knives and the love I felt when I looked at them remains a perfect image in my head.

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

Awakening

I gasp awake from my dream-filled sleep, shivering despite the heat of the summer night. I scramble to a sitting position, surveying the room around me. It radiates a feeling of familiarity yet I cannot place where I am. A lamp to the right of the bed I lay in glows a soft peach light, not quite illuminating the stark blackness of an open door to my left. A rapid whispering emanates from beyond the doorway warning me to stay put, beckoning me to investigate. It has the deep baritone of my father’s voice with a hint of hoarseness worthy of a black-cloaked ghoul. I strain to hear the exact words but meaningless muttering is all it seems to be. My thoughts spin like a carousel in my petrified mind and I grip the edges of the bed in anticipation. Without another hesitation, I leap off the bed and pad to the doorway.

I peak my head into the darkness and tilt my head to hear the voice more clearly. Its pace is repetitive yet garbled like a warped record. It definitely belongs to my father, exhilarating and terrifying me all at once. Tentatively, I call out to him.

Silence. The sudden change makes me frantic, desperate to hear that whispering again. I yell into the abyss, screaming out to him, begging him to say anything. But I am only met with silence.

I wake in my own bed, surrounded by the warmth of my heavy winter comforter and the piercing sound of my alarm. Rolling over, I catch a glimpse at the black outfit that awaits me. I bury my face in my pillow in an attempt to hide the clothes I’m wearing to my father’s funeral.

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

I Could’ve

I'm a smoker, I'll admit it. I'm not proud, but whatever. 20 years old and a smoker isn't too bad, is it?

I didn't think so. Until I saw the things only a smoker on a balcony would see. A woman who could barely walk. A robbery of a mother trying to support her three children by herself. A homeless person being attacked for asking for help. A rape of a fourteen-year-old girl. A murder of a young child escaping her father. All while I was perched up high on my smoking throne.

When I was denied entrance to the pearly gates and sent back here, I asked, "Why?"

The answer was simply, "So you can experience all the things you could've stopped."

[hunllefauwriting-blog]

March 29, 2015

I woke up tangled in a variety of pillows and blankets, my heart pounding in my chest. A soft light illuminated a strange room that had a familiarity to it. It surely wasn’t my room. The walls weren’t plastered with posters, the bed was much too comfortable, and unread books didn’t lie about on the floor. “I must be dreaming,” I thought, getting out of bed to explore whatever world my brain had constructed for me. My feet met a luxuriously soft carpet, signaling a feeling of warmth and safety. Containing my excitement of finally having a normal dream, I padded my way towards the open door of the room. A soft beige hallway extended on either side with three closed doors to my right and an opening to some room on my left that radiated a cold light. Beyond that, the hallway ended with another door. A dim, warm glow radiated from a small, crystal chandelier in the middle of the hallway. A relatively normal scene, but something felt…off. I couldn't place my finger on it at first, but my instincts picked up a sinister air thick enough to cut through.

Then, my ears picked up a soft yet frantic whisper coming from the left. The voice was moderately deep, a mixture of guttural and raspy. It seemed to sound normal…with just a little bit of something else underlying the humanity of it. I couldn’t quite make out what was being said, yet I knew I should immediately lock myself in “my” bedroom until I actually woke up. Goosebumps rippled across my arms, and I couldn’t help but physically shudder. I internally groaned at the idea of another nightmare, not wanting to deal with the anxiety that the one earlier in the week provoked. I yearned to wakeup amidst my comforters and pillow pets, to be able to turn and huddle into the back of my sleeping boyfriend. Seeing that this was not an option at the moment, I willed myself to block out the whispering and crawl back into the bed I woke up in. But, because of that stupidity that takes over your mind in dreams, I made my way to the large room, peeking around the edge of the doorway.

I should’ve locked myself in my room.

The room was larger than I had originally guessed, about the size of a small car dealership’s showroom. The vaulted ceiling shot up at least twelve feet and was adorned with gold intricate vines, leaves, and flowers. Each minute detail stood out, creating a sense of realism to the plants. They shined in the cold light that seemed to be radiating from nothing. My eyes traced each vine to see that they all ended somewhere at the top of the walls, extending into golden roots that ended at the white marble floor. Veins of black weaved itself around the floor, shining in the light. There seemed to be no tiles, just a whole slab of marble. I searched for a source of light, finding nothing. The cold bluish light seem to be coming from the air itself, creating no shadows. I could have been mesmerized by that room for hours, if the abrupt stop of the whispering hadn’t snapped me back to the contents of the room.

A black iron fireplace sat flameless on the wall opposite of me with a matching bed on the adjacent wall to its left. The size of the bed was almost inconceivable, taking up over half the room. How had I not noticed that when marveling at the floor? The head board depicted the same kind of detail as of the gold vines, twisting up five feet from the mattress. Black satin sheets flowed so elegantly over the bed, it gave the illusion of a calm, dark sea. On the sheets sat a man who I recognized as my father. Except he wasn’t… He was too thin, too many bones sticking out of the wrong places. His spine rose like a small ridge on his back, accented by the hunched posture of his body. I could individually count his ribs, including the floating ribs, from 20 feet away. His shoulders rose to his ears, arms awkwardly placed on the knees of his crossed legs. The tuffs of dark brown hair sticking out of his scalp contrasted the pallid color of his skin. His face was contorted, revealing a mouth with multiple rows of teeth, and his eyes…oh his eyes. They were too large to be the eyes of any human. Yet there they were, stretched wide open on my father’s emaciated face, practically glowing their solid color of fresh blood oozing out of a wound. They communicated such rage and hate, thick with the desire to revel in a massacre. Oh fuck, the eyes…

And they were staring at me.

Not blinking, he stared at me with the hatred I had thought existed. I wanted to run back into the bedroom, lock the door, and wait out this monstrosity of a dream. But I couldn’t. My legs were frozen stiff, my mind cowering at the sight of…this thing. I refused to think of it as my father. Just when I thought I could muster up the courage to run, its mouth started opening wider, wider than any human mouth should go. It reminded me of a snake dislocating its jaw to swallow large prey. The skin at the corner of its lips began to bleed, eventually ripping with the sickening sound of tearing wet paper. Blood freely poured down its face, falling into its lap.

“No, no, no, no,” my mind raced, briefly wondering what I did to deserve this. I didn’t want to watch this. I didn’t want to see this thing that looked like my beloved father mutilate itself. I didn’t want to feel those terrible eyes burning into mine, into my soul. I needed to wake up.

As if it heard me, the thing stopped opening its mouth and suddenly let out an inhuman shriek. The closest sound I can compare it to, is the sound of metal on metal, two cars slamming into one another. Covering my ears, I felt the sound resonating in my head, filling my heart with dread. The sound seeped into every crack and crevice of my brain, preventing all coherent thought. I crouched down to the floor, squeezing my eyes shut, attempting to wake myself up. I could still feel the eyes boring into me, as if they were keeping me in this nightmare. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t think. I was helpless.

I didn’t even realize I was screaming until the vibration of the shrieks and the feel of his eyes disappeared. I abruptly closed my mouth. There was…nothing. I couldn’t hear anything besides my own ragged breathes. Convincing myself that maybe it was over, I was awake, I forced my eyes to see what had happened.

Oh god, I shouldn’t have.

The grotesque impersonation of my father was still on the bed, but it was looking at a black mass in front of it. It appeared to be shrinking back, willing itself to disappear in to the sheets to get away from this new being. Its eyes were still wide, but they conveyed absolute fear and despair.

As for the black mass… I’m not sure I could even try to describe it to you. It didn’t give off an ominous feeling, so I felt a sense of ease. Every time I tried to study it, my eyes would blurry the being. When it was in my peripheral vision, the edges would be clearer, but I still couldn’t define the blackness. No other colors. No definite shape. Just black.

I was starting to edge closer to it for a better look, but it raised some part of it. An arm, maybe? There seemed to be a sickle shaped metal attached to a knobby black staff rising with the so-called arm. A scythe? There was a sudden flash followed by human screams. The sound seemed out of place after the inhuman shrieking that had reverberated off of the walls just minutes ago. I flinched, blinking in the process.

It was gone.

No blurry black mass. No evidence of its presence, except the thing writhing on the bed. Except…it wasn’t the thing anymore. The gurgling screams were completely human.

I sprinted to the bed, jumping onto its mattress and quickly crawling towards my father. When I got to him, my hands and knees became soaked in red. His face was contorted in pain, but his normal blue and green eyes stared at me, pleading me. His cheekbones no longer jutted out, and the emaciated body the thing had possessed was now gone. His hands clutched at the gaping slash in his abdomen, covering his exposed organs and attempting to staunch the blood. The wound stretched from his right ribs to his left hipbone, revealing his liver, stomach, and intestines. There was so much blood…its deep red poured over everything, soaking the sheets, soaking into my memory. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but immediately spit up a glob of blood. My mind blank with shock and terror, the word “hematemesis” skittered across.

My eyes did not stray from the face of a man I put above everything. Even when severed arteries shot blood onto me, keeping rhythm with his slowing heart. Even when he choked out the word “go,” his hand momentarily gripping mine, then coming to a rest. I stayed, held his hand, and looked into those familiar eyes until the light left them and glazed over. Numb from watching, I stayed like that for what felt like years. Maybe this wasn’t a dream. This horror and grief felt all too real.

But as all dreams do end, black clouded my vision, and I felt wakefulness begin to take over me. Relieved beyond measure, I closed my eyes and prayed that I would wake up in my own bed soon.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder.