ONE
This morning I woke up to the sound that I usually hear silence. When a scuffle in the corner that i think is the normal. My rabbit is always making a ruckus however I hear things that i thought was no longer normal. As the sun creeps up and my eyes start to steady finally i know that things have changed. Sitting very still and rub the night from my eyes suddenly a crash and the morning comes alive. A shutter and groan suddenly a blast from under the desk across my room, splinters fly. I didn’t know what to do. I froze. As debris hits me, covering my face instinct to protect my most vulnerable parts. Reacting without thought and saving my life from debris. Before the shards and detritus crashes into me still paralyzed. Looking through my fingers and in shockwave of unknown force. a white spot fly’s past me. Wondering if I saw it or if was just a figment of my imagination.
Finally settled I’m awake, really not knowing what had happened. In my head not knowing what to do I say freeze, please stop this is not real. However, when the words not spoken, just brief thought in my head. I notice the room is still and sitting before me amongst the now quite chaos that is now held in place. What seems and eternity but happening in seconds, there before me was a small white figure. It was cylindrical and appendages seemingly growing as I stared. Ripples all over its body from leg to limb. Within seconds this world no longer seems the same, deep inside a feeling of despair comes over me. The world is turned around I must be dreaming. This cannot be real what the hell is going on. I pinch myself hard and it doesn’t change. I slowly stand up from my bed there is wood, pens, paper, clothes plaster and anything you could think of flying towards me and slow flames growing from all the small pieces in the air. The small white figure starts moving as if unfazed from the flames around him. I know that there is no time. I must be quick. Scurrying as spryly as I can, I run out the door and slam it shut.
As I process this and try and figure out what this thing was. I stumbled down the stairs. I fell over the shoes I left lying on the steps. Landing hard on my side with a thud that drew the breath from my lungs. Terrified and bewildered I try to gain my feet. I smacked my head on what I thought was a chair or table. As my senses came to be and slowly getting the air back in my lungs I looked up and see next to me standing upright in the middle of the room was my walking stick. I carved this walking stick years ago and really couldn’t process what I saw. Yet without thought I grab it. It was standing on its own. In the middle of the room. Feeling a jolt of electricity through my body. I was able to get to my feet with the staff allowing me to purchase myself and pull my feet under me and stand. What the hell just happened??
I felt a calm come over me. In sense a my thoughts and breathe became solid and was able to get my ass out of there. Slowly letting out the carbon from my lungs I felt an immediate sense of serenity. Though I could have stayed there forever it was so warm like a blanket on a winter’s night. Suddenly I see a man with no face. He was trying to speak to me, I felt a gripping fear, my bones went cold as ice. it’s as if I just saw death in life and his words ate through me like maggots on a corpse. . I keep on moving. Something inside of me knew if I stopped, I wouldn’t see the next minute, let alone the next hour. Let’s be real expecting to die.
Running out the door and gripping my walking stick tighter and tighter making me feel more and more at ease. I crashed out the front door not even reaching for the door handle. In the yard. Feeling the grass on my bare feet and sprinting as fast as I can I spun hearing a piercing scream, like a bobcat possessed. the crash from above…. My window from my room is pouring over me. Fire and destruction falling all over my body. Feeling the cuts from the glass and other bits of wood. My home is burning, through the sight I see a silhouette of something I could comprehend. A small white spot crashed into me. Thinking it was just a blast and concussion knocking me to the ground from something in my home exploding.
Winded burnt and bleeding I struggle to roll to my back I try to speak but I’m no longer able move.my staff just a few feet from me. I’m being choked. My body is held to the ground by an unknown unseen force.
In my mind I start to thrash my body and scream. However, in some way I know I am not moving. Slowly watching this 5-foot-tall thing walking towards me. All I can explain is a marsh mellow? A walking marshmallow? Watching parts of him burn and char and flicker away in the wind. Still unable to move I am panicking and at this point praying to wake up this cannot be real. Over and over in my head I’m repeating… I’m screaming wake up but to no avail. This thing keeps coming towards me.
Cut and burnt moving like I was in slow motion I reach my walking stick. There is a slow yet gradual feeling deep in my stomach. It felt like I was being lit on fire myself, yet it woke something in me. I finally grab my stick as he was now standing over me. With this marshmallow beast who looks almost like the Michel man. Now burning red eyes are cutting into my soul. His skin or whatever was falling all over me dripping and scorching my naked body. I finally broke free, I had to destroy this being. As he began to fall upon me, I screamed, and it came out Noooo!!! Moving faster than I thought I could. I was released from the grip of this unseen force. I no longer saw the man with no face… still thinking is that a man? Scrambling from under this demon, this monstrosity that has ruined my home, ruined my serenity. From my core all I said out loud was Burn you mother fucker! In a rush from my stick that was still clutched in my hand… a torrent of fire that I have never seen flew from the tip of my walking stick it stuck this being square in his chest. With power that I have never seen watched it fly through the air. 40 feet into my house and in an uproariously loud and blindly white explosion it was gone and so was my home.
I lay there naked burnt and bleeding feeling drained and still uncertain whether this was real… but the pain and blood and smell of flesh cooking and taste of copper in my mouth I realized something has just changed. So many questions as I slowly faded, hearing the faint sounds of sirens and people yelling finally only seeing black.