December 7, 2009

I hear students faintly laughing as I from some distance.

Children's voices

Reverberating around the school halls

Gradually growing into a crescendo.

Shadows pace glossy paned windows on classroom doors

Footsteps, voices, laughter,

Getting louder,

Closer,

I can feel it…

Figures and shadows twisted on hallway walls, staring me down

I feel their eyes on my back, tickling my spine.

My heartbeat pounds—faster than a speeding bullet—and it seems like eternity

To walk to the nearest door.

Restrained screams find their place in the back of my throat.

When I reach the door-handle,

My foot slips.

Suddenly I'm falling,

Crashing,

So fast…

In an endless dark pit, like the bottom of a well, cold, damp and pitch black.

And those children's voices echo in my head—they laugh at me—demented now, like voices of demons, recreations of evil; a darker evil, twisted, sick and rank with the smell of fresh blood.

They taunt me.

Flickering shadows, blacker than black dancing around my hopeless self

Tears well up in my eyes, blurring vision

I scream for help, but to no avail.

No sound from me is heard.

Only children laughing—demons cackling.

Whispering their evils to each other.

A throat-tingling scream comes out of me, still no sound.

But their voices are too loud

Pounding in my head

So loud I couldn't hear myself.

Just shadows in the dark,

Screaming at me—screaming at myself.

I let out another shriek,

At the top of my lungs

And I thought my vocal chords would rip out of my throat,

But soon my eyes envision a bright white hallway

I am scrawled in a familiar corner,

Screaming my head off, shaking furiously as if from some epilepsy

Hands, clammy and cold, my heart pounds like a drum

And my own screams ring in my ear, sending blood-curdling tingles down my spine.

Recognizing the school hall, all is calm.

All was but my own imagination.

Until a small giggle comes out of my parted lips.

So identical to the laughs of the demons,

And a scent of fresh blood once again roams my nostrils.

A shock of fear and terror sends electricity running through my veins.

And I realize with the little remaining sanity I have

The demons reside within me.