NIGHT LIGHT
It's three in the morning and I can't sleep. I sit up and scratch my head before standing up to go to the bathroom. After finishing with the toilet, I extended my arm and turned off the light, but it wasn't quite dark, In the mirror I saw a very small light out my window that seemed to be emanating from a car across the road that was a deep red and very slowly moving up and down and side to side. I turned around and moved to the window and put my hands on the windowsill, I peered out of the second story at the ominous light beginning to feel different like everything was getting lonelier, and more anxious, my senses started to heighten, and paranoia was setting in which made my eyes dart around the room. The house seemed dead, almost more silent than usual, as if someone was about to burst in.
I slowly moved over and opened the door to the empty hallway, all of a sudden I could hear the ever-faint sound of the television I left on along with the small draft coming from the opened window in the spare room. I felt myself calm down and I remembered what time it was, I decided to go to bed and not worry myself with a random light it was probably just left on by the neighbor.
I awake the next morning and get out of bed before beginning my usual morning routine and while brushing my teeth I remembered last night and casually glanced out the window to find the light gone. So it must have been a dream or something, I laugh to myself. I finish my teeth and continue to get ready for work till eight forty-five to which I walk to my car and leave for the day. Upon returning home around five-thirty I open the door and exit my car and while I close the car door I gaze into the woods again in search of that red light, the day is turning to dusk, and the appearance of the red light, if it is real, should stand out…
But after a few focused moments, it appears I was imagining things. I walk inside place my keys and essentials in their proper places and proceed to get changed into something comfortable quickly as a television program I enjoy starts soon. I dart into the kitchen, grab a bowl of food as fast as I can, launch myself onto the lounge, grab the remote, and press play. As the show goes on, so does the afternoon, the sun disappears behind the hills and trees before letting the nighttime set in…
My eyes catch something and slowly drive up the wall behind the television only to see a red hue warming up the top of the wall. My mouth hangs open long enough for me to drop my food and snap back into myself to which I then get up and race to the windowsill. The light is closer… much closer.
Dancing ever so slightly just behind my front yard fence, it taunts me almost telling me to come outside and join whatever it is. During my thoughts my body becomes frozen, I can't move my hands, a chill rides up my spine, and like a small hammer hitting me at the base of my skull, fear shoots through my mind to my eyes as they become bloodshot. My teeth clench and slowly start to grind on themselves sending nerve shuddering sounds to my ears. I faintly hear footsteps coming up the hallway, but my body won't let me turn to meet them. I start getting images flashing through my mind sewn together by hatred and the sudden compulsion to become violent. One of my back teeth cracks under the pressure as a ringing in my ears starts beginning to wage war on my sanity. The footsteps begin to run up my hallway and just before they open the door my leg breaks free and with it, I release myself from the paralysis and turn around violently to… An empty, silent room… My fast heavy breathing is all I can hear over the breeze outside and a dog barking in the distance. I look back and again there is no light. I started becoming very unsettled.
I run to the mirror to check my tooth and it's not cracked to my surprise. I swear I felt the whole thing, I began to entertain the fact that I might be going insane. I call my sister over and over till she answers the phone to which I beg her to let me visit this very moment. She agrees and tells me to calm down and drive safely we can talk about it all when I get there. I get in my car and begin to drive to her house.
Traffic lights and brake lights had me on edge the whole time but although panicked, I just focused on getting to my sister's house. I arrive and she lets me in to which I ask her to make a cup of tea and start to talk. After I explained everything she said I just needed to rest, and it would be fine in the morning. The next morning, I woke feeling less than perfect, the sleep wasn't horrible, but I missed my bed already. I walk down to the kitchen and make myself a small breakfast seeing as everyone else has gone either to school or work and join my sister out the back in the sunshine.
We go over everything that I have experienced and try to make sense of it, I explain that it's the second time now and it seems to be moving closer, Not fully believing me, she begins to go along as if it were true to try and help or at least make me feel better.
She offers for me to stay one more night just to get fully recharged before I head back so I shadow her for the day as company and help around the house and with shopping. She thanked me and reminded me that we don't see each other much these days what for work and other things. I want to see her more… I do… But she knows why I don't visit like the old days, and we are at peace with that for the most part.
Her partner never really liked me but when I accused him of being unfaithful during their relationship after I caught him red-handed, we refused to get along for quite some time before coming to a civil arrangement for my sister's sake. But history is history either way, so I chose not to dwell on it. The nighttime looms over and daytime parts ways for tomorrow. My sister hugs me goodnight and puts her son to bed. I retreat to the spare room for some much-needed rest after the normal bathroom routine, change into pajamas, and turn off my phone. WWWWUUUURRRR… My eyes open like headlights as the faint rumble of a low horn burrs in the background. plastered all over the roof of my room is a deep red hue. I get up and sit on the edge of the bed, arms planted to lift myself… I freeze… Eyes fixed forward towards the light sitting at the windowsill baring down on me like a strait jacket, I feel like clawing my eyes out as they begin to well with tears. My legs flex almost bursting my veins, again my teeth clench, my head turns to the left violently as if I broke my neck, and I start getting flashes in the back of my eyes like snapshots jumping forward in time. Each one is of me walking into my sister's room putting my hand over her mouth grabbing the back of her head with my other hand and beginning to bash her skull open on the bedhead.
I push her limp body onto the ground and stand over her, I put both hands in her mouth and grab her jaw bone and her skull before reefing them in opposite directions till they are broken in two. I start crying and pleading for this torture to end but it persists further. More flashes swoop in but this time of me entering her son's room and dragging him out of bed as he cries out for his mother, his cries are cut short by my foot as it stomps relentlessly on his head till it is smashed into a mess on the floor. The lower half of the body still twitches while I stare down at him. My sanity begins to break as the siren screeches its way into my brain till I almost can't take it anymore and then!.. I wake up in a violent flash panicked and screaming, after a few moments I gather myself and look around the room realizing it's over. I slow my breathing down and wipe the sweat from my forehead, my head pounding in pain. I get up and slowly walk to my sister's room to confirm it was a dream. I knock on her door and call for her name, midway through the second call the door cracks open... I go into shock…
Lying in the middle of the room brutalised is her body. I immediately vomit and fall to the floor. I say her name repeatedly, avoiding eye contact with the body but as the shock wears off I know she won't answer. During the horror, I remember the rest of the nightmare and frantically get up off the ground and run to her son's room before pushing the door wide open. The site of her son brings me to my knees and I break….Staring into the ceiling in shock with tears streaming down my face it comes again…
WWWUUUURRRRR… Floating down from the ceiling the light comes to me. almost comfortingly it moves right up until it is face to face. There is a long silence… I start to feel the beauty of it, I start feeling weightless. I feel it talk to me, it wants me to open my arms and embrace it… I fall for its curse as it moves into my body, light emanates from my chest as I feel my feet leave the ground slowly pulling me into the air. I feel cold creep up my spine and layer itself around my mind before a sudden wave of searing flesh blasts itself across my body and then black...
My vision slowly focuses as I blink repeatedly. I feel weightless as if I’m floating. There is no sound, nothing... I can’t even hear myself talk. A black void surrounds me with infinite space but there is a light looking down at me. It begins to widen until I see... This void seems to be in my mind looking out of my eyes. Something else is controlling my movements. My eyes close and reopen with a new landscape and it happens again and again. I get glimpses of the world through my eyes like two small television screens flicking channels that contain nothing but chaos, destruction, and torture. Bodies piled on bodies surrounded by fire and hatred. Whatever is happening I can’t stop it. I feel like I’m in the driver’s seat of a car but the steering wheel and the brakes don’t work and I can only see out of the front windscreen...
What did I become...?
