Chapter Four:

When he woke up the next morning, he was instantly hit with a feeling of dread. The house was too quiet; and not even the crickets were chirping outside.

Trembling, his throat contracting in fear, Johnny opened his front door and peered down at the steps.

No dead bodies.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Johnny wandered back into his living room. He flopped onto the couch, studying his surroundings and feeling oddly content. And then he noticed something about the staircase he hadn't noticed before. He didn't know how he had overlooked it – some of the wood underneath didn't match up. One large square of it was a darker color than the rest.

Johnny slowly rose to his feet and made his way over to the oddly-colored wood. He reached out an index finger and pushed on it. It creaked inwards – a door.

He knew it had to be a closet. What else could it be? After all, lots of older houses had closets under the stairs.

He pushed. What was inside was in no way a closet. Rather, the door under the stairs led to yet another flight of stairs. A basement, of course. All houses had basements.

But why was this one hidden?

Johnny carefully descended the staircase. It seemed to go on forever, unwinding. When he got to the bottom, he found himself in an empty, dimly-lit room. There were no windows or doors. A bucket and paintbrush were collecting dust in the corner.

Then, to Johnny's horror, he realized what was in the bucket wasn't paint, and neither was what was on the wall. It was blood, dried brown. There were thin, wire-like cracks running up and down the wall. It was almost breathing.

"It's hungry, Nny."

Johnny whirled around. On the stairs, cast in shadow, stood the figure of a man.

"You really should feed it again soon, or it might get angry with you. You have to feed it, Nny. It's your job."

Johnny backed away in shock, and soon found himself pressing his back against the bloody wall. What the man said was true, he knew. He could feel the blood chipping and the plaster cracking under his hands.

Johnny looked at the shadowed man. "Do I know you?"

Yellow eyes sparkled excitedly in the darkness. "Now, that depends. But there's no time for that now. You have a job to do."

"None of this ever happened!" Johnny cried. His long, tanned fingers wound helplessly through his hair. "I imagined the monster! There is no monster! And there never was! I killed people for no reason!" He paused, and then took a bold step forwards.

"You! I bet you're not even real, are you? Of course!" He took another step forwards, laughing maniacally. "Enough of this bullshit! I know you're only in my head! And I can beat you now!"

He chanted, 'It's not real, it's not real' over and over again in his head, but the man never disappeared, and the wall didn't cease to destroy itself.

And then, the man stepped out of the shadows, causing Johnny to almost scream. He was undoubtedly familiar.

It was…

Johnny fell backwards as tentacles wound around his legs from behind.

It was all a dream. The whole awful experience had been only a nightmare. It took Johnny a few seconds to realize this after he woke up soaked in a cold sweat. The first thing he did was leap to his feet and stand on his guard, waiting for something, anything to attack him.

Nothing ever came.

Johnny sighed and dropped back onto his bed. Feebly was nestled comfortably under the covers, and was sleeping peacefully. Wearily, Johnny glanced at the alarm clock on his nightstand – 10:23 in the morning. It was early, in his opinion, but something would not let him go back to sleep. He lay in bed half an hour, tossing and turning before he decided it was time to go out for a bite to eat.

He got into his car and began looking around for the nearest fast food joint, finally settling for the nearest Taco Hell. He picked up three burritos at the drive-thru window, and parked his car in the lot to eat.

While he was biting into his second burrito, he happened to glance in his rearview mirror – and noticed something interesting. A young woman, perhaps in her teens, with red hair, was chasing a slightly older man down the street. She was screaming after him and waving her arms about. Johnny raised an eyebrow and turned around to take a closer look.

"Oh my…god." He stepped out of the car.

"Angus?"

He swiftly followed the two down the empty sidewalk, unnoticed. Ahead, Angus took the first left turn he saw, and found himself in an alley. The woman followed, cornering him. Johnny, still unnoticed, pressed his back against the nearest building while he listened in on their conversation.

"Angus, why didn't you tell me you were okay? I thought you'd died!" The young woman flung herself at Angus, hugging him tightly. His body stiffened.

"I haven't heard from you in a week! Why didn't you call?"

"Listen," Angus said, gently prying the girl off of him. "I think you've got me mistaken for somebody else. My name is not Angus."

"Stop it, I know it's you." The girl ran a hand through his hair, setting a look of horror upon Angus' face.

"No, really, I have no idea who you are…I think you need to go home. You look like you're in high school."

Tears welled up in her eyes. "I am in high school! Angus, you know that. Are you breaking up with me? I told you, I don't care if my parents don't like that I'm seventeen and you're twenty. I love you."

This time, Angus roughly pushed the girl off of him. "Look, whoever the hell you are, I'm not your Angus. I don't even know who the hell you're talking about. Your little boyfriend – he probably is dead, in some alley somewhere. Either that or he just doesn't fucking like you anymore. Now go the fuck home."

The girl brushed herself off, sniffling quietly, while Johnny slipped back off to his car.