I know it watches, but sometimes I think it breathes too.
When I came in here tonight it seemed to pull me into the room and close up behind me. My eyes blink slowly, struggling to adjust. The air is warm; the heating must have been left on. The thick curtains help to muffle the street noise. It’s quiet in here and I like that, but this quiet is expectant and is as aware of me as I am of it.
Hands outstretched I move forward and my fingers dance along the rail of the cot. It’s empty. My back is to the room and I pause suddenly too scared to turn around but terrified not to. My imagination runs riot and as thousand images from a lifetime of movies flash through me at breakneck speed. I conjure a demon, a silhouette that merges out of shadow to take a form only made solid from the sheer weight of its malevolence.
I can feel its need, its desire to possess, to unfurl within me, to play and then ultimately destroy. Resolutely I remind myself I am no longer a child and to indulge such thoughts is a slippery slope that I must not start down. I turn and clear my throat, the sound is strange and far too loud but it helps me find my reality once more.
With bold sure steps I leave the bedroom and move down the hallway. I do not run no matter how instant the urge. I am a calm, confident adult and the dark is just the dark. It does not breath, it is not alive, it does not watch me or want anything from me. But my steps quicken as I pass open doorways whose shadows are even thicker than those I walk among. Where is everybody?
I know all I have to do is flick a switch and light will come to my rescue. I’ve talked about it many times and in each of our discussions the solution is always the same; stay out of my head and keep firmly in a reality in which light expels dark. The problem is I also know that light does not vanquish, it does not obliterate, it cannot erase the dark permanently. It just offers a temporary reprieve, and there are some things that do not run from the risk of illumination.
A tickle at the back of my neck, the air moves ever so slightly and fear strokes my cheek in greeting. It’s here, so close it’s pressing up against me, begging me to turn and face it. It’s colder here in the hall and goose bumps chase a shiver up and down my spine as though trying to catch up to the hand, which began the chase. Where is everybody?
Once more I steady my resolve and begin to move forward. At the end of the hall lies the sitting room and my destination. The lights from there are muted and cast a soft glow across the doorway. I am certain that if I reach the threshold the presence behind me will be kept at bay. I cannot run, and I must not turn around, we are locked in a game, our little dance and these are the rules.
For the first time I realize my feet are bare. The floor feels cool and comforting under me, but I’m not sure when I took my shoes off. I crunch my toes and realize they are not just bare, they are wet. Curling them the liquid feels good, soft, not thin like water, but I don’t know what it is or why it is there. I must keep moving.
My tension begins to ease the closer I get. I’m starting to come back, to come down again. I know there’s no one there, no ‘thing’ there either. I know it’s just me here now. Something stops me as I reach the second hallway light switch, I shake my head and the last of my midnight cobwebs fall away. I flick the switch and keep moving. This house is different but a sitting room is a sitting room, there will be a soft chair and a television. I can take a break and relax awhile, I realize how tired I feel and step up my pace eager now and unafraid. I do not turn around and I do not look down. I do not need to see the harshness of the red against the floorboards, or the way the wood is absorbing the blood. The carpet in the sitting room will wipe my feet clean enough and I can sleep there tonight. I don’t need the bed or to see just how the blood pools into little puddles in the tangled sheet. I don’t need to see any of the destruction in that room or the others, and although at the time it was instinctual, I am glad now that I broke the mirror in this snug comfortable room. Placed just so like that, above the television, it would have annoyed me all night.
