Something's off. The air around me is thicker and colder than usual. The Television speakers have a hint of static lining the audio. I’ve spent the last three weeks sitting in this house away from everyone. At one point I felt like I was approaching the end of my sickness, but then I was hit with even worse pain. I forget how long ago that was, but as time goes on I lose my lust for food more and more. It hasn’t affected me all that much yet but it’s adding to the off factor I feel around me. 

Regularly at about this time, I would be cooking food and enjoying a mindless movie to pass the time. Now, well I don’t feel really up to the task. But I have been filling the cooking time with music. I’ve been listening to Bon Iver on repeat for some time, it really fits my mood and it’s quite easy to listen to on repeat. There’s always something about each listen that makes it feel so different. I enjoy my time blissfully listening to folk tunes playing through my speakers because it keeps my mind at bay. I’m not stuck in my mind thinking, which can sometimes be a horrid drag.

As time passes and my stomach eats away at itself, it's right about time for me to find a movie or television show to stall my mind. I slowly get up off my couch to go flip off my record player cause that and the television at the same time is a bit overwhelming. As I stand a wave of nausea hits me like a brick flung from the heavens. It’s become usual for such things to happen, but it still has a kick every time. It feels like my brain is taking an electric shock, it’s not a wonderful feeling. But I continue towards my record player, switching it off and leaving the vinyl sitting in its place. I’ll move it or switch it out later, don’t really feel like it now. 

After that riveting event, I sit right back down on my couch, already reeling in boredom. I find a movie to put on, it’s some action flick I hardly remember the details of the minute I set the remote down, and just try to shut myself off. But it never really works so I sit there thinking. I think about my friends and our times out. I’ve since silenced my phone because seeing them hanging out and talking just kinda hurts me. I thought I’d feel better by now but hopefully…

Hopefully, I won’t be here too much longer. 

…

…

No, something’s really not right. A sense of fear and danger runs through my body with urgency. My heart starts to pound at an astonishing rate and my breathing picks up at a sprinter's pace after finishing a dash. My vision blurs and water starts to build up near my eyelids. What the fuck is happening?

I cannot move.

My body is in a state of shock blocking me from taking any control. 

I’ve felt this before, recently. It’s a memory I’ve had looming over me for the last few weeks. But it wasn’t real, just a spooky dream amplified by my experiences.

As panicked thoughts flow through my head, an inky slushing sound emerges from my immediate right. I can barely move my eyes toward the noise through my hysterical body. Slowly I make my eyes focus on the sound, I look to my immediate right near my window and find the source of my trepidation. 

Sitting there near my window is the horrid creature from my dream so many nights ago. When I notice it my neck is freed from its stiffness, giving me the ability to fully absorb the entity and its features. The sight of it releases the tears building on my face. As a new fear I’ve only experienced in this very moment sinks in, I gain control of my body. Within a second of this happening, I launch my body away from the room. With all the energy I can muster, I propel myself toward my stairs. At a speed I’m sure I’ve never achieved before I make it up my stairs and into the bathroom, without looking back or losing any time. I slam the door shut and lock it with vitality. I cower in the corner of the room, fearing my life may meet a devastating demise.

What in the name of God is that? No, no God would unleash such evil onto this plane. I cannot even comprehend what I’ve just seen, but slowly it pieces itself together in my head. As I remember from the dream, its head is reminiscent of a person, but its jaw is much longer, and its smile is pressed onto its face. Elongated and uneven. It lacks ears and a nose. Its face is mostly covered with broken parts of seemingly two separate masks. Unlike the dream, I now notice many other features. The skin covering its head is twisted and wrinkled, it looks aged with an ashy texture and colour. The masks have eye holes but no eyes in them, just two dark voids. While the masks are a pure nauseating white, they have details on them, like masks you’d see on a puppet or clown. On one it has a line of blue coming from the eye, clearly representing a stream of tears. On the other, it has two red blocks above and below the eye. It didn’t have lips, but where they should be were marks of lipstick, similar to the style of a clown. 

All my thoughts are clouded and controlled by that- that monstrosity! Now as I revisit that revolting memory, I remember more about it. It didn’t have a typical body, from what I recall the head was attached to an inky blob. The shade of which was incredibly dark, so dark I barely captured any detail. It had no real shape, just constantly oozing and shifting. God, just having the image in my head is rotting my brain. 

I sit there in that restroom for what feels like days. The impending threat of what I’d just witnessed sits with me. I cannot go out there. That abomination lurks. However, it hasn’t come for me. I haven’t heard any sort of noise. In fact, the silence has been extraordinary. 

I still will not risk any sort of danger.

I will sit in here as long as I have to.