I really do hope the teachers won't actually be analyzing this, since I basically unleashed my utterly sadistic side on the paper ("Why, Omnia, you have a sadistic side? I never would have guessed!") and let it run wild.
Anyway, enjoy!
It was a dark and stormy night. A shot rang out.
I cursed my stupidity as I unbuckled my seat-belt and grabbed the windbreaker off the passenger's seat. I had only gotten the thing last year, but the service light had been blinking at me for weeks. I should have gotten it taken care of before attempting a three-hour drive back to my parents' house. How could I have been such a complete idiot?
I've never been much of a mechanic. Staring down at the slowly-cooling engine, I couldn't have begun to tell you what had gone wrong with the car.
So much for leaving work early, I thought as I slammed the hood shut and shoved my numb hands into the pockets of my windbreaker. Now I would never get there in time. I had been so looking forward to dumping my stuff by the front door and curling up on that familiar couch with a mug of my mom's cinnamon hot cocoa. My mom makes the best cocoa.
As I leaned against the icy hood, I took out my cell phone. It powered on with a series of melodic pings, showing the humorous quote that I had set as my wallpaper. I wasn't expecting there to be a signal, since service is always spotty on this stretch of road. I wasn't wrong. Still, I wasn't about to bounce up and down like an idiot, holding my mobile up to the heavens and praying for a signal. No point.
I was about to go see if I could get the engine to run again, thinking that maybe it had just been the deep gray slush dampening the whatever it was on the underside of a car that you shouldn't get wet, when I noticed a light down the road. The kind of warm, mellow light that comes from Christmas lights shining through curtains. Aha! If there was a house, then there must be a phone. If there was a phone, then I could call a tow truck, call my parents, tell them I'd be late. Maybe I could get to my parents' before midnight after all. Hey, a guy can dream.
How wrong I was. How very, very wrong.
I should have known what to expect just from the front walk, overgrown with ropes of dark green ivy that snagged at my pants. It was just the sort of house in which Johnny McKillemall murders his victims to draw some shrieks from the audience. Unfortunately, I only had eyes for the towering emerald Christmas tree in the front window. The light glistened off of silver tinsel, creating a magical effect. Sure, I thought it was a little odd that the slippery steps were overgrown with weeds and the driveway hadn't been shoveled; sure, I noticed the dingy, cracked windows on the second floor, like the dull eyes of a Lovecraftian monster; sure, I wondered at the general eerie feel of the place. But I was cold, exhausted from work and driving, and more than a little upset about my car. That stuff really didn't matter to me. I finally did realize that something was wrong when the front door creaked open at my knock, letting out an odor of ancient mildew and cats. My overbearing curiosity got the better of me, and I stepped inside.
When I went into that house, I wasn't thinking about all the bloody slasher movies I'd seen. I wasn't scared of dying in that place. Why should I? I was just wondering why they left the gosh darn door open. Had something terrible happened to the people who lived in the house? Could I do anything to help? As soon as my eyes adjusted to what little light there was, I saw why the door had been left unlocked. No one was left to lock it.
I stood motionless for several long seconds, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. Soon, I could see vague shapes, which then began to form solid objects. To my left was a gaping black space, a doorway that led to the room where I had seen the tree. No tree there now, and not a speck of light. To my right was a wall hung with faded photographs. A young girl in a flowery sundress and silken hair ribbons smirked at me. A tall boy in a yellowing tux leered nearby as he leaned against the hood of a white limo. An empty silver frame next to them stood out from the dark stripes of the wallpaper.
Shuddering, I looked away from them, towards the center of the room. A wide staircase dominated the center of the space. In front of that was a gaping patch where the floorboards had rotted away, leaving the oubliette down below out in plain sight. Tiny snowflakes spiraled out of a matching hole in the ceiling and drifted down, down, down… I was mesmerized for a minute.
Well, this was a huge waste of energy. Time to go.
A noise behind me made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was a high-pitched giggle that swung down the register to a hearty guffaw before returning to spasms of shrill giggles. It stabbed into my soul like a knife. It was a noise I had heard before. I knew that laugh, and the person that belonged to that laugh.
"Hi, friend."
I froze, too scared to respond. How had he gotten to me? The medication was supposed to work for twelve hours, and I had taken some as I left work. Two hours. Just two. Then again, it had been less effective lately. I'd been meaning to ask the doctor if he should up the dosage.
But that voice.
"Go away, just go!" I said without turning around, unable to keep a squeak of hysteria out of my voice. "You're not real. You can't be here."
He giggled again. I flinched at the sound.
"Stupid!" he said in that nasally, sing-song voice as he wagged a finger at me. "You shouldn't have come here tonight. I thought you were smarter than that, friend."
I grit my teeth before replying, "I had no reason not to come." Luckily, no one else would ever again hear me try such a stupid comeback. Not that that was preferable. He snickered at me, and I felt my face grow hot with embarrassment and more than a touch of anger.
Just try to focus on something else. Take a deep breath and focus. That'll work, won't it? It have to think, think…. Christmas! Christmas trees, candy canes, neatly-wrapped presents…family, my parents, my siblings….
"You won't get rid of me that easily. Come on, friend, just have a look," he coaxed.
"No! You're not real! There's absolutely nothing there!"
"Look at me."
His voice didn't usually have that tone to it. I couldn't help myself; the voice got into my head and compelled me to obey. I kept my eyes on the floor, however, studying my shoelaces for as long as I could hold out. With another command from my hallucination, I let my gaze slide up.
A hallucination. That's all he—it—could be. A misfire in my brain. But to look upon him was to know true madness. Despite his eyes—heavily-lidded pools of deep darkness unlike my blue ones—and the snappy tux, which I would have avoided like the plague, we could have been twins. The same dark hair, the same stocky frame, the same freckles and the same anemic skin tone. That's what scared me most of all. Was this sadistic madman a part of me? Could I be capable of what he'd done?
Was he me?
"Hullo, friend," he said in that impossible-to-pin-down accent. French? Russian? Scottish? There's another difference between us.
He grinned, raising his eyebrows.
"I'm not your friend!" I spat. "Just leave me alone, you sick clown."
He lowered his head slightly but still kept his eyes on me. I felt my heartbeat quicken. He meant business this time.
"Make. Me."
A dare. He wanted me to try to defeat him, almost win in time for him to bounce back and strike me down. He had done it before, but he hadn't managed to kill me—yet. Until now, I had never beaten him. Still, it never hurts to try. Perhaps today would be my day.
Stupid. How stupid.
I dipped my fingers into one of the pockets of my cargo pants and drew out the orange capsule, the vessel carrying the round white means to my life and sanity. I popped the lid off with my thumb, while not looking away from his face. He nodded encouragingly The lid fell to the floor and skittered several feet before slipping over the edge of the dark breach in the floor.
"One, two, three," I whispered, tipping two pills into my trembling left hand, "four, f—"
Mere inches away from my mouth, my fist opened without my consent, letting the pills slip to the floor. I flexed my fingers, horrified at what I had just done.
"What did you do?" I demanded angrily, curling my hand into a fist, ready to strike. "I swear--"
He giggled again, cutting me off.
"Threatening violence, my friend?" he said. "Ha! You can't do anything to hurt me."
Something inside of me snapped then. I lunged forward, ready to rip his throat out…then stumbled and fell to the ground. He shook his head condescendingly as he placed one foot on my chest, pinning me to the floor. I gasped for air, but he pressed his foot down harder.
Oh, this is gonna suck.
"You stupid, stupid, stupid little boy. You just don't get it, do you? I've always been the dominant one. The one in control. I can make you do anything. Don't you see it now, friend? You're just a puppet to me. Someone to be manipulated, forced into submission, and then dealt with most elegantly. Heh. I've spent the past twenty-three years working on step one. Finally, I've completed step two. Now, on to step three—dealing with you. With elegance."
With a sharp shove and a snigger, he sent me rolling across the floor. I only managed to stop myself just in time. Had I rolled any farther, I would have gone off the edge of the dark pit. As I scrambled to my feet to face him yet again, he looked up at me, grinned, and tapped the floor gently with the toe of one shoe. Almost instantly, the floorboards beneath my feet gave way, sending me down, down, down, screaming like a banshee…I felt like I would fall forever. Like I would fall through the center of the earth and out the other side, and continue falling past stars and planets in an endless voyage across the cosmos that would make Carl Sagan jealous. It felt so peaceful, just falling, falling, freezing air burning past my face...so peaceful, I could almost fall asleep if I had the time.
But my fall was not destined to last. It must have only been seconds before the breath was abruptly knocked out of me. There was a terrible cracking sound and white-hot searing pain shot through my spine, my shoulders, the back of my head. How could I have let this happen? I was so stupid. So stupid, stupid, stupid.… Disembodied laughter floated down from above, adding gratuitous insult to egregious injury.
As I stared up at the patch of gray sky I could see through the hole in the roof, I began to laugh with him. Our giggles mingled in the cold December air, drifting out the roof and into the night. In the end, I've heard it said, all you can do is laugh. How true. Tiny snowflakes swirled through the air, melting as soon as they touched my body. But then they stopped melting, and I was slowly covered in a thin blanket of ice. The laughter had long since receded into white noise in the background. I was alone, all alone. No one would find me, not for years. Perhaps some young ragamuffin hoodlums would come across my remains someday. I would be long dead and decomposing by that time.
No one was coming. No one would save me. No one could comfort me. I was all alone.
May I rest in peace.
[WARNING: Contains egregious in-jokes.]
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