As I tossed beneath the sheets, my mind was entrapped within a vivid world: a place made from the inert conjurations of the indolent mind. Standing at the smashed-in entrance to the supermarket once more, I wandered through a supermarket frozen in time - as particulates of sparkling blue luminescence fell upwards from the supermarket floor, like rising snow. That lumbering daemon, the konglet, stared at me with the same vicious malice: snarling, watching, waiting for its chance to move. As I stood there, I could see a body on the ground. Heavily mutilated, with flesh torn from bone and blood soaking his coat, a massive chunk was missing from the side of the man's body - the dead man's body. And yet, as the daemon stood there breathing down at me, the man with the bloodied chest turned to look at me - with fright, horror, and a sense of disdain stretching across a face all but soaked with his own blood and guts.
"You would have left me behind," he chanted. "You would have left me behind. You would have left me behind...."
The chanting voice of the man continued. He shambled toward me, dragging himself across the ground through the viscous crimson, his bloodied face barely recognisable through bloodred gore; the old man. Human ichor dripping from a horrific bestial scar stretching the length of his face. His eye, torn viciously from its socket, dangled like a pendulum, swaying, swinging, ticking with each passing second. In the one eye that still remained, a look of terrified panic seemed to clutch him, as he desperately clambered forward toward me with what little energy I could muster.
"Don't leave me," he chanted. "Don't leave me. Don't leave me..."
A hollow desperation filled his voice, his throat catching as he coughed up scarlet fluid and guts, the claret butchery leaving his body disfigured and desecrated. Agony-stricken, torn apart like roadkill, tears mixing with blood in an ocean of pain. He screamed.
"Don't leave me!" he cried, shrieking in horrific agony. "Don't leave me! Don't leave me!"
I couldn't take the horror of it any more. I turned tail, running through the supermarket doors and out onto the street - and as I did, the world around me began to shift. Pushed to my knees, the cries of a hundred voices filled my ears, deafening yells nearly incapacitating me.
"You let it in!" The voices screamed. "You let it inside!"
Laying prone on the ground, I was tormented by the discord of their voices, their shouts rung through my head. The cacophony of their cries raked at my eardrums, and as their words echoed - I recognised the voices. They were my own screams.
"Their blood, your hands! Their blood, your hands! Their blood, your hands!" They repeated endlessly, droning voices of my own creation screaming at me as I curled up into a ball on the ground. It was my own guilt that plagued me. If only I hadn't come back inside, if only I hadn't wanted to run... if only... if... I screamed to the sky in anguish, as the tears streamed down my face. The screams in my head only grew louder. Impossibly loud. Like some choir, a desperate chorus. It was a song of pain. The pain I'd caused... the pain I truly was!
Their blood, my fucking hands!
The voices stopped. As I lay on the floor of the supermarket, sitting on my side as the ringing cries of the chorus faded from my ears, I could see the bloodied corpse of the daemon. I'd killed it; it was over. Lying on the floor, tears still streaming uncontrollably from my eyes, I stared across at the daemonic husk - lying against the ground, its black coagulated fur dripping with its own maroon fluid. I cried as I stared at it, as the screams started to fade.
The daemon twitched.
With that sudden motion, still horror overtook my being. My breathing stopped for a moment as the figure of the monster began to rise, and - immobilised with fear, I could barely move as the ghoulish beast lunged toward me. Staring up at the horrific figure, motionless, all I could think was to fade-step out of the way.
Closing my eyes, I felt myself drift through the space, casting myself away from there - floating endlessly through the void of that ghostly realm. It was a visceral world, one of spectral colour that seemed at odds with the grey, white, and red of that supermarket environment. However, as I drifted - still sitting in place against the ground, I watched as spiritual matter coagulated before me - taking the shape of a boy in a suit jacket. Wayne.
Not you too, Wayne...
As his ghostly form bent down toward me, we both drifted together through the spirit realm. His usually quite affable face was laced with a look of disgust and derision, as if he were staring at something subhuman: something far beyond redemption.
"You wanted to run," he said. "You wanted to run so badly, that you let it define you."
Sitting, with my head against the ethereal floes, I stared up at the ghostly figure of Wayne - his features gaunt as he seemed to tower over me, seeming to stand miles tall as he towered over me. I felt like an ant as he gazed down upon me, staring daggers into my very soul.
"You wanted to leave us behind," he stated. "You wanted to leave us for dead, you just didn't have the guts to go through with it."
The towering figure loomed over me, staring down at me. I was a pitiful wretch to him: to them all. Standing above me, I watched as his towering figure began to fade, slowly becoming transparent as his eerie form began to crumble - like an eroding statue, weathered by the passage of time.
"Goodbye," he concluded, that look of contempt dissipating with his face's dissolution.
As he disappeared, the vagarious realm seemed to shift once more, as I was thrown forward into the pitch-black parking lot: skipping like a stone across the concrete. With each collision against the asphalt, a searing jolt shot through me, and as I came to a halt - I slid across the ground. Scratches from the surface of the road tore up my arms, and bringing myself to my feet, I tried to dust myself off with my hands. Instead, as I dusted off my sleeves with my hands, I coated my arms with blood.
Staring down at my hands, they were covered in that visceral liquid - a thin veneer of atrocity lining my palms. I wasn't sure whether it was my own blood or someone else's. I looked around, to see if I could try to find anybody that might be injured - but instead, all that stood there was a set of maroon eyes, glowing horrifically through the midnight.
Reaching into my inventory, I grabbed out my baseball bat, and gripped it with my bloodied hands.
I̷̟͋t̸͓͌̍ͅe̸̼̍͑m̸͙͛̾s̷͍͑̏ ̷͖̥̈R̷͔̄͠e̵͑͜t̸̡̃ř̵͇͍í̴̪͎̾e̴͍͊̾v̵̢̘̒e̶̢̨͂ḍ̶̦̍́.̶̲͘.̵̖̃.̶̟́͂?̸̪͝
̷̟̪̈1̶̣̔̚ ̸͙͊M̶̳̤͝e̶͓͒͠t̸͎̿a̷͕͛ĺ̸̬ ̵͇̔̉B̷̩̄̄ȃ̷̱̒t̶̘̟͌̐
The grip seemed to slip in my hands, and as I held the bat before me, I stared at the daemon. The creature growled, charging. As I stood staring it down, I gripped the baseball bat, and as the daemon took a swipe at me - I ducked back, sending the baseball bat squarely into its arm. As the daemon looked at me, unfazed, a little damage indicator rose from its skin.
A zero fizzled from the wound.
Pummelling the daemon again and again, each strike seemed to do nothing to the horrid creature. Zero, after zero, after zero. As I landed my fourth blow - the baseball bat seemed to crumble on my hands, metal dust drifting from my hands, taken up by the cold night wind. Left defenceless and alone, there was nowhere left to run to, as I stared up at its vicious teeth. All I could think was to punch it, to hit it, my fruitless blows almost like a toddler having a temper tantrum. Doing little as I limply attacked the daemon's leg, I stared up of it as it gnashed its fangs, salivating, its mouth watering as it opened its maw. I screamed, horrified, as the beast's maw grew closer... closer... enveloping me.
***
I woke up with a horrific shout, jolting up from the bed with an intense sweat pouring from my forehead down my face. I huffed and puffed as I sat in my boxers with the sheets strewn across the bed, the cold night had done little to keep me from feeling febrile. The fears that my night-terrors conjured had caused me to sweat like a pig. As I sat there, in the cold night, I looked across at the old alarm clock by my bedside table. "5:49 am," it read.
As I sat upright, breathing heavily, I heard a faint knock at my bedroom door.
"Who's that?" I asked in a wiry voice, still coming down from the paranoia of that horrid nightmare.
"It's me," Leo replied. "Sounded like you had a bit of trouble sleeping."
"You can say that," I replied. "You can come in, if you want."
As Leo opened the door, I pulled across the sheets - making sure to hide my body beneath the covers. Stepping toward me, that fear still lingered, and as the door opened - I felt as if reality would warp beneath me again, making way for some other form of obscene terror. The door opened, Leo wandering in with a night-light and a soft smile stretched across his face.
"You okay, buddy?" Leo asked.
"Never better," I replied halfheartedly. "The nightmares pack a real punch, don't they?"
"So do all the daemons, I guess," Leo shrugged.
With that, Leo sat down on the bed, and I put my head back against the pillow as I stared up at the ceiling - the night-light gently illuminated the room with a soft golden glow. It helped me to feel a little calmer.
"Do they always hit you like that?" I asked.
"You mean the nightmares?" Leo said.
"Yeah," I replied.
"Not always," Leo answered. "They'll get slightly easier to sleep with, but they never truly go away. That's just how it goes, I guess..."
He sighed, clasping his hands together as he sat against the bed. I could see the sombre expression on his face. He looked dignified, but wearied, the night-terrors still lingering, the stress making its home in the crevices of his face. The horrors hadn't left him quite yet; I wondered if they ever left anybody.
"You still want that card?" Leo asked.
I sat up for a moment; it was a tough question to answer. I didn't want to endure that hell again, and yet, I felt that I needed to. I knew that I needed the strength to face whatever horrors lay in the night, and I wouldn't find the strength to overcome this hell by working as a gas station attendant or some bag boy. I wanted to do something, so someday - I could help myself face the horror that I wanted to escape. However, the answer that passed my lips wasn't nearly as eloquent.
"We've got to pay the rent," I replied. "Figure I may as well do something useful."
A melancholic smirk crossed Leo's face as he heard those remarks. He took the card from his pocket, chucking it on the bed with an exasperated sigh.
"Geez, your stubbornness is going to get you killed," Leo goaded.
"I think we're probably in the same boat there," I replied with a smile.
As he sat up, Leo chuckled a little at that.
"Yeah," he replied with a sardonic smile. "You're probably right."
