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The body that broke him

Alex was never afraid of the dark until he first moved out. The trailer he used to live in, with its thin wall where the voices of his mother and stepfather, seemed so safe. It wasn't until his second year at college, when he rented his own little house only ten minutes from campus, that he realized how frightening the night was. He thought he saw things in the darkness when he was lying in bed, trying to sleep. He thought he heard noises behind him and under his bed and in the hallway. He thought he saw shadows move just after he clicked the light off at the end of the day.

After a few months of being too terrified to get a good night sleep, he went to the local pound and adopted a puppy. He was the runt of the litter, pushed to the side of the cage by his siblings, and Alex immediately fell in love and picked him. On the way home, Alex named him Rocky.

For the first few nights, Rocky did not leave the kitchen area, so Alex set up a blanket on the floor next to his food and water bowls. And he felt safer, knowing there was another living thing in the house with him. Rocky barked when the neighbors were too loud, or when someone came to visit, though it was mostly Jay or Brian, and the dog seemed to take a special liking to Jay.

But after a couple weeks, Rocky felt safer in the house, and took to sleeping in Alex's bedroom. Alex, who still did not feel comfortable sleeping with his bedroom door open, worried the dog might want out in the middle of the night, but he didn't. He took to sleeping in the corner to the right of Alex's head against the headboard. And as the dog grew, Alex sunk lower in the bed to accommodate the dog. And as the pup grew into a dog, Alex grew braver, and felt safer alone in his house.

It was junior year when he started feeling scared again. Rocky began barking in the middle of the night for what seemed to be no reason, and Alex was too afraid to move, afraid that if he moved, whatever Rocky was barking at would find him, huddled under the blankets.

Late one night the summer before his senior year, Alex was taking Rocky for a long needed walk late one night. All Alex wanted was to go to bed after a long day of scripting and shooting for his senior project, a full length movie he was making for his film class. He needed this movie to be perfect so he could be guaranteed to graduate. He felt like he had been neglecting Rocky lately, out almost all night filming or out with his cast and crew, so even though it was late, Rocky got a three mile walk in the middle of the night.

Just before Alex was going to turn Rocky around to head home, they saw him, if it could be called a him. There was a tall guy standing under one of the street lights, and Alex was afraid. His heart started racing and the hairs on his arms stood up on end. Rocky let out a low growl at first, but the man moved (Alex thinks it was movement) and Rocky began to whimper instead.

Alex tried coaxing him away, but Rocky wouldn't move, wouldn't take his eyes off the figure under the street light. Alex bent down and tried to comfort his dog, but as soon as he touched Rocky, the dog jumped and began to back away, belly low to the ground. Alex looked up and the guy was gone, but neither him nor his dog could shake off the feeling of being watched, and they hurried home.

After that, weird things began happening. Rocky started having accidents on the rug in the middle of the night, and Alex was having a harder and harder time sleeping. He couldn't stop looking over his shoulder. Each morning, there would be a dead animal on his doorstep. It started off small; a bird or chipmunk, but after a while, the numbers grew and the animals did as well. Cats, dogs, and the occasional deer ended up on his lawn. His heart ached for them, but he was anger at whoever was doing this. It wasn't funny, and he didn't know what to do.

Things started happening. The man he saw a few months ago seemed to be everywhere he looked. Each night he braved the dark house with a camera. Sometimes Alex saw him, sometimes he didn't. Alex couldn't tell which one was worse. The knowledge that he was always being watched made him angry, and most of all paranoid, and he started blaming his friends, his cast and crew, for what was happening to him. Because they could see the man too.

The one girl, Sarah, was stupid enough to try to approach him, to get him off the set. Later, Sarah disappeared, and Alex couldn't remember how it had happened, but he didn't care. One less voice to irritate him. Tim seemed to be purposefully be acting like an asshole, trying to get to Alex. He wished Tim would disappear, and he did eventually. Alex was glad he was gone.

It happened one night, in the early morning. Alex woke up and his bedroom door was open. His lamp beside his bed was on, so he felt safe getting up and closing and locking the door.

When he next woke up, he turned to his door and saw that it was open again. He closed his eyes and reached up to pet Rocky. He grabbed his camera and got up, running his hands through his hair, and closed the door again. His heart was pounding. Something had been in here with his last night.

He lay back down and scratched the side of his face, feeling something warm touch his fingers and when he drew them away, he saw they were covered in blood. He looked up, surprised. He felt his head, and it didn't hurt. He was confused.

And then the idea hit him. He set the camera down on the desk at the foot of his bed and turned to Rocky. Alex shook the dog, but even through the fur, he could feel that Rocky was cold, and stiff. How long had he been sleeping with his dead dog?

The thought that someone had been close enough to him to hurt his dog, his only friend in the last few months, made Alex sicker than the blood drying on his face and neck.

Alex couldn't believe this was happening. He sat there, turned away from the body of his dead friend, and stared at the camera. Something inside of him snapped, and he didn't care anymore. This wasn't going to stop, and there was nothing he could do. He would just give up, and let whatever happened to him or those around him happen. It didn't matter to him anymore. He never thought he would care about the loss of an animal's life more than a human's. It was Rocky's body that broke him.

A while later, Alex didn't know how long, his alarm went off, reminding him to change the tape in the camera in front of him. He finally moved, his body stiff, and took the tape out. He tossed it to the floor and didn't bother putting in another one.