27/08/2023
๐๐๐
โAre you reading tonight?โ
โNo way, Iโm running on fumes right now.โ She tied her hair back and slumped into bed, cursed, and then leaned far over to turn off her bedside lamp.
He smiled to himself, watching her shuffling about, before turning off his bedside lamp and wriggling under the covers himself.
โWas that you?โ He asked later after the shuffling had tapered off and they were comfortable.
โWhat?โ
โNot you then. I thought something touched my foot.โ
Silence.
โSomething cold too.โ
โOk, enough,โ she said, trying to sound groggy and bothered, โItโs probably just static. Fresh beddings, you know?โ
โHm.โ
She didnโt know what to say. She knew the sheets werenโt to blame, they had never been staticky.
She didnโt like how genuine the concern in his voice felt when he described ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ญ๐ฅ.
She could feel the night deviating from normal and she dreaded how helpless she felt.
She didnโt want to be afraid but somehow, fear was leaking in like water through a rotten ceiling.
First a dribble, soon out of hand if not addressed.
She forced herself to focus.
All this for what? A brush against a foot? It was probably her leg. Right?
๐๐ช๐จ๐ฉ๐ต?
He was probably asleep already. This is stupid. This fear is irrational. She raised her head slightly off her pillow.
โFound your boogeyman?โ she asked, trying to sound sleepy and not afraid.
Silence.
โJohn?โ
This time, she clearly heard the tremble in her voice. Still, silence.
When she turned around, she realized her hands were shaking and a pit had grown in her stomach so big it threatened to push her supper right back up.
โJohn?โ She squeaked.
โDonโtโฆ Lookโฆ a, donโt!โ He croaked.
John was seated up, one hand holding the beddings up and another clasped at his throat. His eyes were wide and bloodshot with terror, and his breath was coming out in ragged, pained rasps.
She could see the veins on the side of his neck pulsing on his skin, slick and moist with perspiration, and even though she wanted to leap over to him and help, she was frozen still, watching his neck muscles twitch as he fought himself.
It took a moment for her to process the sudden and dark change in direction the evening had taken, but she still kept enough awareness to know that John had been trying to tell her something.
โJohn, Oh God!โ She could only whisper now, her voice left her mouth hoarse and empty.
She couldnโt help feeling immobilized by more than just her fear and her thoughts were getting heavier and heavier and slower and slowโฆer.
โDonโt look atโฆ Nancy, donโt!โ
Any sooner and she would have. The only sane part of her wanted to see what it was that was doing this to him. ๐๐ฐ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฎ!
But John was trying to tell her no.
And she could feel her head turning toward it, almost against her control like a stubborn cat.
๐๐!
She turned her eyes away. Away from the magnetic pull of whatever lay under their sheets trying to claim her sense and sanity.
Turning away from it, she had to look at John.
His eyes had turned blood red. His nails had dug into his skin and trails of blood were making their way down his pajama shirt, smearing against his skin as he je**ed back and forth choking the life out of his own body.
It wasnโt until her vision blurred quite severely that she realized her whole shirt was wet with tears, and more was still gushing out of her eyes.
She was using all her might to try and avoid looking and didnโt know what to do when forced to watch John die right there.
At least her eyes knew to cry.
John, seemingly aware of his fate, gasped his last and tried one last time to give word to Nancy.
But Nancy was having a difficult time grasping the workings of her quickly deteriorating reality and only registered a hoarse, pained gurgle.
Her mind was wading through tar trying to function and her body seemed reluctant to obey her, not to mention having to watch John violently, yet unwillingly, squeeze the life out of himself.
The voices seemed to screech in her mind. She didnโt remember when they started, but it seemed like they had always been there. Always loud, unhappy, and scathing. Screeching, hissing and impatient. She found it deafening.
Please, be quiet. ๐๐ญ๐ฆ๐ข๐ด๐ฆ!
John clasped his throat with both his hands before finally keeling over and collapsing off the side of the bed, drawing the covers with him and unveiling the horror that lay there.
Gone.
๐๐ฐ๐ฉ๐ฏ! ๐๐ฐ! She tried to focus. Now more than ever. ๐๐ต ๐ธ๐ข๐ด ๐ณ๐ช๐จ๐ฉ๐ต ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ!
All she had to do was let her eyes fall on it and she could feel it calling them to it.
She couldnโt see John now.
The last she saw was the pained look leaving his face as he gave up the ghost, his glassy eyes rolling up into his head as both despair and relief washed over him.
But he had said something first.
What was it?
She tried to remember, past the hissing in her head.
The hissing that had begun from her ears was quickly filling up the spaces in her mind, growing a purpose of its own, spreading like tendrils and intercepting her thoughts.
She tried moving her hand to throw some covers on ๐ช๐ต, but she was shaking too hard her elbow buckled under her, turning her body in its direction.
Oh no!
๐๐ฐ๐ฏโ๐ต ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฆ ๐ช๐ต! Heโd said, but it was too late.
The hissing persisted. ๐๐๐!
It was taking over. John had saidโฆ
๐๐ข๐ฏ๐ค๐บ๐บ๐บโฆ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฆ! ๐๐ฆ๐ฆ!
Yes, ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฆ, heโd said. See.
Her brain caught fire when she looked at it. She threw her hands to clasp her mouth but they clasped her neck instead.
The inky dark pulsating blob with two pinprick-like eyes, floating formlessly at the foot of their bed, stared with its chill, icy gaze through her eyes and into her very soul.
It appeared black like a pot of tar in a dark room.
Darker than the darkest night, reaching deep into the parts of her mind where even she didnโt explore.
It gripped her gaze like a vice and she knew it would never let go.
She could feel it scratching the back of her skull, a cloud of nails and talons trying to dig through.
Or maybe that was her essence trying to flee.
Its hot dark and humid aura quickly and fully enveloped her, clouding her senses, and leaving her feeling uncomfortably displaced.
The throbbing pinpricks pulsed to the surface to meet her eyes, burning her gaze as the tendrils in her mind seared into her brain like hot tar seeping into her deepest thoughts burning away all that made her herself.
๐๐ฆ๐ฆ! ๐๐ฆ๐ฆโฆ๐ฎ๐ฆ, ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฆโฆ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฆโฆ
No more! She wanted to scream and call for someone, anyone, but her hands were at the throat and she could spare no words.
Even her life was almost entirely out of her as she realized her shirt was covered in blood from her neck as well.
Her nails were longer than Johnโs after all.
She felt like an empty pot, hollow and fragile.
A drained, empty shell that would break if it fell onto the floor. She could not hold on to herself anymore, she didnโt know how much of her was left.
The empty blackness pulsed hypnotically toward her, closer and closer, those pinprick eyes seeing more and more, reaching further and further, occupying more room and squeezing her out until she felt exhausted and dried like kindling.
She tried to think but no thoughts came.
What was this? What was happening to them? It felt like a lifetime ago that they were just trying to go to bed. Now for as far as she could think, she had been losing this arm wrestle to the unknown extradimensional horror that had manifested in their bed, stealing away her mind and being.
But that hardly mattered, her thoughts sounded like echoes from someone elseโs experiences now.
Her voice, her scent, the smell of Johnโs acrid aftershave, it was all leaking furiously out of her no matter how hard she tried to retain any of it. It was starting to feel inevitable like anesthesia kicking in.
Letting go would be such a relief.
๐๐ฆ๐ฆ!
She was falling into it now.
Pouring out of her body like a thin stream of scrambled consciousness into the great gaping void with its empty eyes and persistent burrowing influence.
She didnโt know where she would fall if she would at all. Perhaps she would join John on the floor if she could remember where he fell.
Aside from a few whispers, she could hear the silence.
Finally.
She could ๐ง๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ญ it too. Heavy and dense and empty.
Like a weighted blanket that keeps on sinking.
๐๐ฆ๐ฆ!