We tell stories to ourselves with the most convincing narrative that is most appealing to our senses.
I remember the long dark hall that led from my bedroom down into the large split house that had been swollowed by the gaping mouth that stopped at my door. It would devour me if it ever figured out how to get past the threshold and into my soul. But mine was the last room standing tucked away to the back of the house and the rule is that one piece must remain where the shadows can still dance along the brim of their top hat. I was lucky.
Still, when the lightning flashed so did the shadows smiles beam back at me somehow noticing me from their world, somehow they could see past the veil to see me sitting there alone in my bed. Each time the lightening flashed, they appered closer than they were from the last strike. Perserverence. I had to remember to breathe for I could not escape the closterphobic sense, the pressure that came from seeing and knowing it was as real as anything else.
I hid my head beneath my pillow, pulling the sides down tight over my ears but then I dared look up.
Nothingness. The absoluteness of a blank canvas is there is nothing. I imagined I could make it whatever I wanted – even draw on it.
But then there was more there in the pitch black that overloaded my sensory data causing me to freeze.
I became paralyzed, gripped by fear knowing the demonics were there too.
My count had reached 25 seconds when another flash of lightning illuminated them, leaving a sizzling impression of how they were sitting there on the brim staring back at me with interest.
In the seconds that followed, their silhouettes lingered, taunting me to look, straining to see them disappate back into nothingness.