~Short Story~

*Graphic Content Warning*

The sky was mostly clear, though a few clouds rose over the horizon. They caught the last rays of a setting sun and illuminated a deep blood red. I sighed out in the chilly autumn air and continued kicking a pebble down the heavily cracked sidewalk. Doing my best to keep my mind occupied; though in all honesty doing a fairly poor job of it.

Round and round circled these tormenting thoughts. Images flashing in my mind’s eye on repeat. Slowly filling my body with a flood of painful emotions. Again and again, I could see her, the times we had shared, all those intimate moments together. A sharp and sudden cringe squeezed all of my muscles.

“Shake it off.”

I spoke aloud.

Doing my best to focus on other things I continued my walk home. In the last moments of daylight, the air felt cold. I was in no mood for the chills that tickled my spine sending sneaky little tendrils up into my shoulders which tensioned in response. Everything was annoying me, more and more. Even being annoyed was a further annoyance.

As I walked, a full moon was rising up into the now-darkened sky. Its cold rays of light seemed to further the chill pulsing through my flesh. Goosebumps raised the hair on my neck and arms. I blew into my hands and rubbed them together. Having not sufficiently warmed them I shoved my fists in my pockets. My arms tense against my sides in an attempt to thwart the shivers threatening to take hold.

By the time I made it to my street, shivers would rack through my body at random intervals. Resentment towards everything I was experiencing ached and throbbed within me. I just wanted to get home and go to sleep. There I could try to find escape in the sweet nothingness of sleep. That’s all I wanted to escape this tormented state I was in. If I could only just escape.

When I finally made it home, I headed straight into my bedroom. There was no energy to make food, and no appetite to insist upon it. My stomach felt a cavernous pit with a large pile of heavy stones at the bottom. On top, twisting writhing snakes coiled and fought one another violently. Occasionally stirred by the still persisting shivers quivering throughout my body.

I sat down on my bed, exhausted, defeated, broken. The room was dark, though not in a complete pitch. The cold moonlight spilled in through an open window past curtains that gently moved in a cool breeze. Even though my eyes were adjusted to the low light I could make out little more than vague shapes and shadows. The torment of my thoughts was ever more unbearable. Those images flashed and flashed, over and over. I could chase them out for a moment, but again they would flit past my minds eye. There I could see her, I could see him, another cringe gripped my whole body. I turned my head into my shoulder and fell back on the bed. I groaned a long deep guttural sound as I curled into a fetal position.

“I can’t, not another moment, I can’t.”

I spoke into the bed which was quickly moistening with tears. Then in the moment when I could absolutely take no more there was a bang heard from far away, a brief flash of light, and then the darkness resumed.

My breath was now heavy, haggard, and seemed to come in raspy gasps, only to be released with a constrained whimper. I sat up on my disheveled bed, gulping to replenish the breath I had spent. With my knees folded to my chest I sat rocking back and forth. Trying in growing desperation to relax my increasing hyperventilations. Tears gushed in my eyes and spilled past my cheeks, but I made no motion to wipe them away.

I started to laugh, though not in a joyful approach. It came out in a sickly croak that cracked and broke amongst my vocal cords. It was a terrifying sound that wasn’t immediately recognizable as human. The terrible noises that scrapped and tore their way out of my mouth slowly filled the room with such dread as I had never before imagined. Yet I could not stop the awful convulsions. On and on the sound tortured me greater than my deepest darkest fears.

The pauses that could be heard in between the cackles began to cease. Slowly the laugh morphed and twisted into a scream. I sat rocking, no longer clutching my knees but now clawing at my face. Oh the agony of that sound, I wanted it to stop, more than anything to stop. Though to my horror the sound slowly intensified. Searing pain boiled in my throat, burning and ruining, yet still the sound persisted. That terrible sound, Its haunting pitch echoing in the darkness of my room. A blackness now consuming all of my mind.

My lungs now fully evacuated ached and spasmed to be allowed new breath, yet the scream would not allow. The sound was now rushing out of my stretched mouth as a terrible putrid stream of bile and rot. It forced its way past my lips, pulling and tearing the flesh. Spreading its evil into the freshly opened skin, infecting and corrupting. All the while pouring out and filling the empty dark voids of my room Lurking within those darkest voids, I noticed movement. So subtle at first but then more and more noticeable. Shadows dancing and flickering within the dark. More and more I could see them, dancing along. Shadows within shadows appearing to creep nearer and nearer.

Still, the atrocious scream poured out from within. Now defiling all that it passed over. Filling the void of my room with a putrid smell of death and sulfur. When the most terrible voice I’ve ever heard spoke over the sound of my screams.

“Welcome home”

A disgustingly cruel laugh echoed through my now empty room.