Grief and A Fractured Reality

GASP! SPUTTER!

The man arose from his mattress, spitting black coagulated blood out of his mouth. Violently coughing, writhing in pain, and jittering uncontrollably, he staggered off the bed, still shaking. He began to spit foam out the mouth, his nose bleeding. Everything around him was zooming out, changing into shapes they shouldn’t be. But it was fake. It was all fake. The walls were still. But it all looked real, too real. The man could feel the presence of tall, shadowy, elongated figures glooming overhead his flesh with outstretched tendrils for arms. They whispered unintelligible things, from incoherent languages to cursed testimonies.

COUGH!

The man erupted in a spasm, falling to the ground, and an ear - piercing scream broke out of his mouth. The walls continued to shift. Emerging from the ground were dark figures that taunted the man. They saw exactly what was happening to him, the suffering he was going through, and they laughed. Laughed. The stirring cacophony of noises, looks, and dread had pressured the man to curl into a ball, praying for everything to be over. The man couldn’t think properly. He banged his head against the floor until it had been bruised. In a crazed frenzy, he had managed to holler the words ‘Stop!’

Everything ceased at once, leaving the deafening sound of flickering fluorescent lights and the echo of the man’s voice. The man, in disbelief, looked up at his clock. It was about 5:00 AM in the morning. Panting heavily, the man looked around the room. The man’s antipsychotics were still on the nightstand. The blankets were still on the mattress. The closet was empty. He was alone. It was just another hallucination. And while everything was normal, something felt off. He could feel an undaunting presence crawling around the place. He soon reached an epiphany.

Something is in my house.

The man got up. The bedroom was cold. So, so cold. Frigid, you could say. The hallucinations had disappeared, fading into the ceiling. The man touched the walls. They were rough, rigid, and frozen to the touch. After reassuring himself, the man wrapped his arms around his body and walked out the room. The man’s vision immediately transitioned into an outstretched mess of changing doors, ceiling lights, and floorboards. The man stumbled his way through the hall, nearly tripping due to his poor sight. After a painstaking effort to cross the dreaded hall, he had reached the sitting room.

It was quiet, dark, and murky. Almost as if the man had been completely submerged in deep water. The man hesitated to turn on the lights, and flicked the switch. He flinched at the brightness of the light.

A drop of blood fell onto the man’s palm.

I don’t feel good.

The man walked his way to the kitchen and washed his hands in the sink. Then, he made himself a small glass of water using a tap. Taking slow and heavy swigs of the drink, he reinvigorated himself and continued to walk around his house. One step. The floorboards collapsed into a void below. Two steps. The man’s skin turned dark red, resembling blood. The third step. Someone in the voice of a woman spoke behind the man. He turned around, nervous.

Hello?

Susan?

Dead silence.

I’m so sorry, Susan.

The air grew colder around the man.

Don’t leave me.

…

Susan?

I’m a pitiful idiot. You were never there for me.

The hallucinations were fake. They were fake. They were all fake. Always were, always will be. But they were starting to get more real. More…disturbing. They looked like things not even God would have claimed to have created. An unholy presence was in the house, and the man knew it. It was hard to distinguish what was reality and what was an illusion. The man checked out the windows. It was still a bit dark out. He checked his door. It was thankfully still locked. He let out a sigh of great relief, and went back to his bedroom to fall asleep.

A bit later that day, the man had dressed up and gone outside after eating a small breakfast. Passing by ordinary folk, a vivid woman appeared, standing within a crowd of bustling people. The man squinted, looking at the woman - then she vanished into thin air.

Sometime after the encounter with the mysterious woman, the man arrived at a local hospital in hopes of salvation. He felt a bit queasy, and multiple things at the corner of his eye would blink in and out, from things like the woman from before to the dark figures from his early morning episode. His eyes twitched, and he would make excessive and repetitive movements from time to time. The apparitions soon began to grow before they had all disappeared at once when he was called down to his doctor.

Doc. There is something wrong with me.

“Have you been taking your antipsychotic medications?” the doctor asked.

The man hesitates to speak, opening his mouth, and he lies.

Yes.

“Good. Have you been getting sleep?” the doctor asked.

I’ve been trying, doc.

“You need to rest. It’s hard, I know. But it will help you. You can still lead a normal life.” the doctor said. He jots something down in a piece of paper. “I am terribly sorry. That is all that I can offer to help for now.”

The man does not respond. His focus is directed to something far, far worse. He looks out the open door in extreme concern as a black arm (almost resembling a vine of some sort) reaches into the room.

“Hello? Excuse me, sir. Are you okay?” the doctor questioned, waving his arm in front of the man’s eyes. His voice is quickly muffled out by the loud noises.

I need to escape this trap.

The room grew dark. Outstretched arms groped at the man as if they were blood thirsty beasts, and screams of terror zipped across the walls of the room. The man muttered incoherent sentences. He began to shake in fear as the arms strangled his neck, and he desperately fought for his life. The doctor, visibly distressed, immediately bolted out of the room, yelling for help before everything faded to black.

…

The sun slowly set below the horizon, hanging just barely to cascade the streets of the town with a beautiful orange hue. Stars dimly flickered in the sky, with outreached streaks of clouds slowly fading as the dark, purple space settled on the earth. The cold winds began to close in, eventually, dancing with the leaves on the trees and the windchimes on the porches. In a slow, continuous march into darkness, soon, it was clear that day had gone to rest.

It was now the dead of night.

The man set down food at his dining table, alone. Sitting down on an uncomfortable and rough wooden chair, he assessed his dinner. It was a humble meal of steak, mashed potatoes, peas, and water. On the tablecloth were common silverware utensils, which the man grabbed in order to cut his food - but he stopped momentarily to look around the room before eating. The room was empty. He stared at the empty seat on the other side of the table from him.

He blinked. Nothing happened.

The man blinked again. A woman was sitting on the opposite side of the table with pale eyes.

He blinked again. There was blood, too much blood on the opposite end.

And he blinked again.

The black figure appeared, staring at the man with white eyes - and the blood remained.

He blinked. The figure remained. It was getting closer.

I did nothing. Please stop.

The figure remained. It inched closer, and closer, and closer.

Just go away. Please.

What do you want from me?

There was way too much blood now, oozing down the ceiling, dripping onto the man’s neck. He tried to wipe it off his face, but it put more blood everywhere. Blood. Blood! The man felt as if he was suffocating.

Go away, damn it!

The man fled into the kitchen, breaking into a sprint where the illusion followed him. It tripped him, where he reached for the kitchen knife on the counter. He grabbed it, firmly gripping the handle on his right arm, intending to retaliate by stabbing the creature before he turned around and discovered that the black delirium had evanesced. The man stared down at the knife, panting.

If I do it, no one will notice.

The man exited the house with the knife in his hand, under cover of night.

…

Later that week, a mysteriously dwindling population had been recorded in the area, which authorities had correlated to the disappearances that had occurred in that same week. Multiple missing persons reports, stories on the news, and rumors from the public began to stir the people in the area into a state of absolute hysteria and growing worry.

The bodies were never found.

Insanity drives people to do crazy things. Insanity will make people do anything. Insanity will lead to worse things, such as calamity, terror, chaos. It paves the road to madness - and insanity has claimed another victim.

Ultimately, the man was able to flee the case of the disappearances unscathed. It would take a while for the police department to discover the cause of the disappearances being centered around grief - and a fractured reality.

The End