(_) = Imagine it's your name there.
You couldn't remember how you got here or why you were here. One minute you were settling in for the night, shifting to comfort beneath the covers and staring into your ceiling, waiting for sleep to take you. You weren't sure if it had come or not, but it must have because you didn't remember the room spinning in a dark vortex. The walls moved like an army of sped up slugs, each one racing against another to some pointless destination. Moonlight that fell through your bedroom window was gone and replaced with long, stretching shadows that swirled about your floor.
You hadn't been sleeping well, plagued by nightmares you couldn't understand. A dark man with a killer smile and beady eyes were locked on you for some reason. You swore you had seen that face before, but you couldn't recall where. It was as if you've known that face for as long as you were dating your boyfriend, Mark Fischbach. It had only been a month or two since you both fatefully met at an arcade. He was playing a retro shoot em up alien game and his character had just died. He was short on reviving himself. You offered to pay for him as long as you got the blue gun. He grinned and thanked you, allowing you to join in on the fun.
You weren't living together yet, but it wouldn't surprise you if you moved out in the next few months to his place in LA. You didn't live too far from him, at best a half hour away. Tomorrow you were both going to go to a food truck festival in town. He would pick you up around noon and you two would walk a few blocks over to the center of town. Your town was small, nothing to write home about. It was a place to live and that was all you knew it as, but they had some fantastic eateries. Mark had eaten at a few of them with you before and knew how your town could craft the perfect homestyle meal. Though the festival was free and open to anyone and everyone, the idea of endless food beneath a summer sun made you both grin.
"I know you're in there,(_)."
That voice again. That dark, voice that came off as a friendly stranger reverberated in your room. The shadows intensifying with every syllable it spoke. You had trusted that voice before when you first had that nightmare, but now you knew better. You knew not to trust those smooth tones, knowing what they belonged to.
The doorknob shook as though it were left out in the cold, the black vortex stopping, clinging to the walls like glue. All shadows in the room seemed to stop breathing, not moving at all, as if recognizing the other presence. Eyes widening you tore from your bed and leaped for the door, pressing your weight against it. Staring into the darkness before you, you swallowed hard, trying to eliminate the thought of what awaited you behind that door. Those white dots staring through the darkness, that eerie silver moon smile that made your blood run cold. Even his hair seemed to distort into uneven and unruly curls that appeared to be a mound of writhing black snakes. What was even stranger was the fact that he seemed to wear whatever clothes Mark had. You were uncertain as to how this foreboding figure had raided Mark's closet and wondered if your thoughts were merging with the nightmare. Mark wasn't a nightmare, if anything he was a complete sweetheart. This dark demonic being on the other hand though made your very blood crawl and slow to the point where you swore your entire body had grown ghostly white.
You tried to find relief in the darkness. The comfort of hoping that at any moment you would awake. The moment wasn't coming quick enough and you could hear your heart pounding in fear and need for you to awaken. Maybe the thrumming, panicked sound would rouse you from your slumber. You would rise and come into contact with the sunlight spilling into your bedroom, illuminating everything with a soft glow much like the moon. Any minute now that would happen, or so you quietly told yourself as the doorknob rattled furiously.
"You should come out, (_). I've missed you since our last meeting."
The door knob struggled. You felt it writhing in the small of your back, sending shivers down your spine as your rammed against the door, pushing it back. From beneath your feet, the shadows that once spun the room began to slither away. Darkness dropping from your bedroom walls, revealing posters and pictures you had adorned on the walls. The void that once drowned your room slunk into the corners of the room, the little niches and cracks absorbing the abyss. Only now were they apparent, the moonlight shining on their curvy little lines that penetrated the walls. That shining silver light tore through your open window in uneven rivers, the tree just outside your home blocking some of the glow. Its branches rattled in the wind, knocking on your roof and prompting the dark figure behind the door to start knocking. Each knock sent vibrations down your spine, shivering it with fear. You debated rushing to the window and closing it, in case the mystery man could sneak in. But that would leave him to open to door and your fate would be sealed.
Where you once stared into the darkness for any solace, you now found your reflection staring back at you. A nervous, horrified wreck of pajamas and terror looked back at you. Swallowing hard, you used your reflection to try and peer through the thin door crack that led into the rest of your house. A narrow line of suffocating shadows waited for you just outside your bedroom. Your house was submerged in the darkness of night without the graceful gleam of moonlight other than what spilled onto your floor. For a moment the shadows broke, giving way to a beady dot. He was watching, waiting for you to make a move.
"Please don't be long…."
That friendly voice suddenly gained a sing song like quality, mocking you, tempting you to open the door. Opening the door would have allowed him access to attack you, if not worse. That was far from your objective and pressing even harder against the door, you tried to focus on something else that wasn't his voice. Turning your thoughts to your wardrobe you attempted to plan your wardrobe for your date with Mark. Jeans and a blouse, that seemed good. Maybe a loose shirt that you wouldn't mind getting dirt if some food accidentally splashed on you. Sneakers would be better than heels – a lone, shrieking sound like nails on a chalkboard broke your thoughts, causing you to throw your hands over your hears.
It was as though the demon knew what you were doing and he couldn't allow any attention to be drawn away from him. The sound tearing through your ears as you tightly pressed your back to the door. Head bowed, you stared at the dark floor beneath your feet as the sound slowly died. You knew this wasn't the end and suddenly regretted hanging a little chalkboard on your door. You always used it to write quirky little messages or to remind yourself to do things, but now it served as the demon's instrument. Talons raked along the chalkboard once more as you unleashed a deafening scream that made him grin. Satisfied with what he wanted, he continued to strike his sharpened claws along the material, his other hand working at the door.
Claws scratched on the door, embedding the wood with marks that would haunt you forever. Pressing your back to the door, you swore the door was invisible and those long, sharpened talons were digging into your back. The prominent scent of fresh blood wafted into the room from beneath your threshold. While it was what he always smelled like, you found it rather odd and alarming that only now did that creepy cologne seep in. Eyes widening, your hand hurried to your back.
"Please don't you be very long…."
Nothing was on your back. No scars, no marks, no blood. Sighing in relief, a temporary moment of solace overcame you, but not once did you drop your guard. Nightmare or not, your goal was to make it to the break of light, to awake without being attacked by this darkly demon. More chalk screams emerged as you did your best to not give him satisfaction, digging your teeth into your lip you attempted to refrain from making any sound whatsoever. This only coerced him as he grunted angrily and proceeded to make that dreaded noise with his talons.
"Please don't be long…."
His voice seemed to echo from within the room, jolting your heart into panicked beats. Your eyes darted, searching for any trace of the dark, nightmare figure in your room. When you couldn't find him, fear engulfed you even more as you hurriedly gave the room a once over again, thinking you had missed him. What worried you even more was the fact that the chalkboard screams and the clawing at the door stopped. It wasn't like him to give up. He was a persistent nightmare, always reappearing night after night just to get some sort of scare out of you. Why, you didn't know.
Your eyes roamed every crack, every shelf, and every single piece of furniture. From a distance you examined your wardrobe, no clothing swung to show any signs of movements. Your eyes once more fell upon the mirror and the world grew tense. At the sight of what rested in the mirror you felt your skin crawl, changing like a chameleon into an ivory ghostly shade. Your brain stopped functioning, forgetting to pump your heart and force you to breathe as you watched the glass on your bureau.
The darkness had thrived around your door, reaching into your room like thousands of hands searching for someone to latch onto. While the rest of your room was adorned in moonlight, only the space around your door seethed with shadows. The mirror held your horrified expression and the man that had been reappearing in your nightmares for the past nights. Black jeans clung to his frame as a dark shirt depicted a large, red 'D'. What this 'D' stood for you didn't care in that moment too paralyzed with terror. His silver moon grin put the moon to shame as he slowly cocked his head, your body frozen to the spot with shock and horror. Leaning in, he whispered, his long, snake like tongue just brushing against your skin and snapping you into a level of terror that you had never known in your entire life.
"Or you may be asleep."
There was nothing to do but scream. You couldn't tell who was screaming, but it sounded like you. Your shrieking shattered the mirror as it exploded in on itself, the glass fading out of view and disappearing into some transparent black hole. As the shards flew you watched as the demon's grin grew like a weed, shadows flocked to him like children, making him grow and tower over you, an obelisk of darkness. Large, meaty palms with thick talons raced to snatch you up like a fish from a river. Trying to run was useless, your feet were grounded to the spot by either shadows or fear. You didn't take notice, there was no time.
Darkness enveloped you, the grip of the demon's hand growing stronger with the shadows that now slithered from the cracks in the walls and the corners once more. Each shadow that fed the beast made his heart pound as you felt it against your frame. Every beat made you sick as you fought the urge not to vomit from terror and the ungodly sound as your own heart's rhythm seemed meaningless. The taller he grew the more slender he seemed, growing one with the oncoming darkness around you both. Struggling seemed futile as you neared his face, that gaping maw, the silver moon smile now stretched into a deep, dark eclipse with only a silver lining. You swore you stared into the pit of Hell as the distinct scent of a bloody death rose up from the bottomless beast before you. Fear had drowned you in its inescapable feeling as your pale flesh stood out from his darkened body, making the tips of his lips curl upward, satisfied at the horror he inflicted.
Thousands of knives seemed to plunge into your ribs as you choked terribly, something crawling from the back of your throat and upward, like a demon sleeping within. Bursting out, blood dripped down your lips as you felt more coming, relentlessly torrents of your suffering. The more gore that spilled from your mouth, the deeper those talons dug into your ribcage, piercing every muscle and bone. Excruciating pain consumed you and yet you couldn't bring yourself to scream. Terror and shock locked together, in one culminated emotion, and dominated your body to the point where you couldn't even shriek.
The dark demon grinned, his beady eyes filled with content at the sight of your mutilation as your vision began to fade. Through the shadows in your head now clogging your eyes you saw those beady eyes once more, hair tumbling about his face unruly, wild curls. The silver living of his parted jaws revealed blackened teeth dripping with something red; it wouldn't surprise you if it was your blood or the blood of other victims he haunted. A dark rumbling emanated from his throat, tumbling down through the rest of his body and shaking your bones as the maw parted wide.
"MMMMMMMMMMMM-"
Eyes opening, you jolted from your bed. It was eleven o clock, sunshine rained through your open window, bathing your bedroom in a soft glow. No shadows were in sight and neither was the dark demon from your nightmares. No monsters hid in your closet and none dwelled beneath your bed. A sigh of relief escaped your lips, the very breath releasing from your lungs caused a strange pang in your ribs, as though you had endured some previous injury.
Your hands hurriedly rushed to your ribs, feeling them for any scars or distortions. Relieved to find you none, you figured it was just how you slept and brushed it off. Quickly getting ready, Mark would be here at any minute. You always liked to be ready before any company or date showed up. It was better to be early than late, though you didn't mind having the extra few moments to add any accessories to yourself. Finishing packing your purse, the doorbell marked that time was up and Mark was here.
"Please don't be long…."
Your spine stiffened as those four words quietly echoed throughout the halls behind you. Slowly turning on your heel, dread filled you, wondering what you would find once you turned your back to the front door. Your recent nightmare resurfaced once more, of gore gushing out from your body like a vampire's feast. Those beady eyes staring as the blood fell into his dark palm and gaping maw. That silver lining parted jaw that smelled like a thousand corpses carelessly abandoned for some grave digger to take care of. You felt your flesh pale and knowing you should merely ignore those lingering words, you chose to believe otherwise.
Staring into the main corridor, your eyes scanned the area. No dark demon stood in the arch way and no mysterious nightmare man waited for you in the kitchen. No towering beast appeared by your bedroom door and no monstrosity with a 'D' on his shirt reclined in the hall. Maybe you were just hearing things or this was just a symptom of your lack of sleep. You wouldn't let Mark know about the nightmare or terrible sleeping habit you obtained and play it off as nothing. Surely the day's events would take your mind off the nightmare and the demon that haunted your sleep.
