Robot Boy (Digital Nightmare)

I believe They came to me, in the dead of night, and turned me into a robot. Not immediately, but in intermittence. I am not even sure who 'They' are; no one is, not really.

First, They took my bones and replaced them with bionic, silicone based material. Next, they extracted my veins and attached a convoluted network of wires in their place. I could feel their rigid circuitry beneath my skin, alien and disconcerting. Then, They harvested my organs, one by one, and left complex machineries inside the empty cavities to support what little human life there is that remains, if there is any.

I could feel my self mutating, day by day, metamorphosing into something artificial, into some grotesque android changeling. I am scared to wake up someday to discover that I am no longer me, my memories eradicated, my consciousness digitalized. Are my thoughts still even mine, or are they a mere program, a bio-digital illusion mimicking my thought pattern? Feels like it. I had to do something.

I told my parents about this and they looked concerned. They told me to wait in my room while they discussed a few things. I could hear their muffled argument through the walls. Has my hearing improved? I believe it did. My senses feel more acute somehow. They have done a thorough job. I need to do something fast.

I sneaked out of the room and went to the kitchen. My dad was talking to someone on the phone from the parlor; must be the family doctor. They didn't notice me. I looked through the drawers silently until I found what I was looking for.

They must have called for me, my parents, but I was too absorbed to notice. Only when I heard my father's shrieks did I stop. I turned towards him and saw him rigid by the door, a look of horror and unhindered disgust spreading through his face. Good. Maybe now that he sees what They have done to me, he will believe me.

"Dad, quick, help me! We need to get these things out of me."

I resumed what I was doing and began hacking at and pulling my artificial guts out. Fluid crimson flowed out of me in torrents, forming a thick pool around me. This can't be blood. It must be a special fuel they use, or some mechanical lubricant. I have to remove everything they put in me lest I turn into a robot. I can't turn into a robot. Please, no. I want to remain a real boy.

The Disappearance of Ashley Morgan

--
TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual Violence, Child Death
--

It's funny what you remember as a kid. I don't remember my 5th birthday or my first day of school. But I remember very clearly the day my dog died. It's been 12 years now, and it's still the most vivid memory of my childhood.

My sister Ashley and I were typical twins. Always hatching diabolical plans and getting into trouble together. On this particular day, we had colored our cat, Pongo, blue. Even though my mom tried to punish us separately - me on the stairs, Ashley in the dining room - we were still making faces at each other and giggling. She was just about to scold us when the doorbell rang.

My mother gave us both a you-better-not-move-a-muscle look as she went to answer the door.

Standing on our stoop was a tall, lanky blonde man wearing a red tracksuit. I remember he had shifting, watery eyes. He noticed Ashley and I immediately.

What we noticed was that he was holding our dog, Rocky under one arm like a sack of flour. Ashley called to Rocky softly, but the dog didn't move. The man began to talk lowly with my mother. She cupped a hand over her mouth and I heard him say "Do you mind if I use your hose?"

My mother rushed us upstairs to our room and we watched out the window as the man rinsed off his fender in front of our house. It was our first taste of death and we cried for two days. We were six.

My parents, deciding to use the sad occasion as an opportunity to teach us about death, held a funeral in our backyard for Rocky. Ashley and I cried as we read a poem we had written together the night before.

My mother held us as my father hammered a white, wooden cross into the ground bearing Rocky's name. Even our older brother Eric was there, which was nice because he was almost always next door playing video games and smoking something smelly with the neighbor kids. I think I saw him tear up a little. We had loved Rocky.

That was only two months before it happened.

What I remember much less clearly was the night that Ashley disappeared.

My parents had thrown a going away party for Eric, who was leaving for a semester abroad in Japan. Ashley and I had begged them to make it a pool party and we'd finally worn them down after much pestering. The pool had only gone in three months before and it was our official christening party!

Oddly, I remember only bits and pieces of that night. My father was drunk. My mother was giving tours of our newly remodeled house to everyone, whether they wanted to see it or not. My brother was in the living room with his friends playing video games. And Ashley and I were in the pool playing mermaids, which was our favorite game.

My uncle Cliff gave us rubber bands which we used to bind our ankles together. We then swam around the pool pretending to be mermaid princesses. Just after it got dark my mom called us for dinner. We both jumped out of the pool and ran around the edge before my father yelled at us.

"Rachel! Ashley! No running, or you're going inside for the night!"

My mother handed us our burgers and people cooed and admired our matching bathing suits. We were always matching. Together we sat down on the pool deck to eat. Afterward, we got back in the water to play mermaids, again.

At some point my mother called us in to bed. We pretended to cry and begged her to let us stay up a little later. She didn't fall for it. We stomped up the stairs and went into the bathroom to strip out of our swim suits. I remember we decided to switch beds and dress in each others pajamas so we could play a trick on Mommy in the morning. It was our favorite prank and she deserved it for making us go to bed early when we weren't tired. Nevertheless, we fell asleep quickly.

The next morning, I woke up alone. I don't remember getting dressed or eating breakfast. What I do remember is spending what felt like forever walking around our house looking for Ashley. The new renovations had yielded new hiding spots and it took me awhile to check them all.

I finally went to ask my mom, who asked my dad, who had just returned from dropping Eric at the airport.

"Paul, please tell me you took Ashley with you to drop Eric off?!"

"No, why?" My dad's face paled instantly.

"Oh my God. Paul, we've looked everywhere, we can't find her."

My dad was already moving from room to room in the house checking all the places I had checked. By the time he returned, my dad was crying.

"Diane, call the police. Now."

That was the day my mother turned into something else. She never smiled or cried again.

But I did.

But I never cried as much as I did when when Rocky died, which always made me feel bad and confused.

I remember a big police man talking to me, asking me what I remembered, had I heard anything in the middle of the night. He even asked if I liked having an identical twin sister or if I hated it. That question confused me for many years.

The days turned to a week and still no Ashley. I slept alone in my room, switching from bed to bed, some nights pretending I was Ashley and it was Rachel who was missing.

Lots of men with dogs came and went into the woods behind our house. Reporters were parked outside everyday and overnight. My parents wouldn't let me watch TV. The policemen tore up my bedroom and the rest of the house. I thought they were looking for a goodbye note. I thought Ashley had run away. I was so mad at her.

Months went by and I grew lonely. I was excited when my birthday came. My mom cried from morning to night that day so my dad took me out for pizza. But he was quiet the entire time. My brother fell in love with a local and decided to stay in Japan. Since he was 18, my dad couldn't stop him. My mother missed him and Ashley and drank wine and slept all the time. My father tried to be there to support me but he was suffering in his own way, I think. He upgraded Rocky's wooden cross to proper stone when I asked why Ashley hadn't had a funeral. I think he knew I needed a place to grieve. We all did.

One day he came home with a new dog which I named Naughty Boy. I hated Naughty Boy. He was trying to be Rocky and no dog could ever be Rocky. He eventually ran away. No one looked for him.

Four months after Ashley disappeared my father filled in the pool. I remember sitting in my room (which felt big and cavernous and cold) and watching them drain the pool. It took two days to fill it in with dirt. The pool had been the one last happy thing in my life. And my father had taken it away. He had taken my brother away too. He was the taker of things.

One afternoon, I was flipping through channels on the TV. The remote dropped from my hands when I suddenly saw my face on screen. It was a show called Unsolved Mysteries. My mother walked in then and saw what I was watching. I was afraid I was in trouble but she just gave me a blank look and walked right back out. I turned the TV off.

My parents began to yell at each other when they thought I couldn't hear. Their marriage was strained. There were so many phone calls from witnesses who reported seeing Ashley somewhere. But they were almost always just seeing me. 

Whenever this turned out to be the case, which was often, my mother would give me an accusing look, like I had purposefully raised her hopes and then kicked the chair out from under her. Every false lead seemed to kill her a little more.

It was around then that I realized why no one liked me anymore. I was like a ghost, an echo of my sister. A pale shadow following around her mysterious disappearance. My parents could barely look at me. I know they think I didn't notice, but I did.

We eventually had a funeral for Ashley, but I don't remember it very well. At least, not as well as Rocky's funeral. I just recall thinking how stupid it was to have a funeral for an empty box.

After a year, my mother filed for divorce. I still remember their very last fight. They were so far gone by then that they didn't seem to care that I heard.

"My brother would never hurt my children. Christ, what the hell is wrong with you, Diane? You can't just go around casually accusing people of serious crimes like kidnapping!"

"She's not kidnapped anymore, Paul, is she?" She spat at him. "She's dead! But I'm starting to think you already know that."

"How dare you say something like that to me. I love Ashley. I loved all our children!"

"Yeah, I'm sure you loved Ashley a lot. How much did you love her, Paul? Do I need to keep Rachel away from you, too?"

SLAP

I recoiled like it had been me he'd hit. I didn't understand what my mother had said. Tears poured down my face. Stupid Ashley. Why couldn't she have just stayed in bed? Why did she have to go wandering off? Where did she go? Why had she done this to our family?

My thoughts were interrupted by a whisper from the next room.

"Why did you fill in the pool, Paul?"

I ran then. I didn't understand that question. I didn't want to understand.

Years went by. My mother met a new man named Bobby and moved out of our house. My dad and I maintained a strained but quiet home life - I avoided him at all costs. I spent more and more time at friend's houses and he spent more and more time in his study. The following summer, Dad built a deck over our filled-in pool. He never bought furniture for it.

When I was 13 I learned that my mom was living with Uncle Cliff, my dad's brother. I hated going to their house. Cliff had an above ground pool, and always tried to get me to go swimming with him. He even bought me swim suits, little bikinis that made me uncomfortable to look at. They would be laid out on the bed whenever I came to visit.

But I never went swimming with Uncle Cliff. I hated pools now. Soon they stopped inviting me to their house.

My dad was now spending every night shut up in his study, which he had moved to the room at the back of the house. He kept it locked and he would never let me inside.

I moved out when I was 18. My dad hugged me the day I left. It was the first time he had looked at me, much less touched me in seven years. He whispered that he loved me and then turned around and walked back into his study, closing the door behind him and locking it. I left.

Three weeks later a police officer showed up at my apartment. He sat me down and told me my father had been found dead.

I went to the house that night. My dad had killed himself in his study while sitting at his desk. I finally got to see the room - the body was gone, but the blood remained.

I looked around. The study was basically empty. There was a desk, a chair, seven photos, a notebook and a drawing. The desk sat in the middle of the room and faced the window to the backyard. The photos were of Ashley and I. The drawing was one that Ashley had drawn of our family shortly before she disappeared. The notebook was empty except for the last page.

It said: What happened the night of August 16th, 2002
 
But there was nothing written below it.

The chair was covered in blood but I was so numb I sat in it anyway. So it had been him. The whispers were true, he had been him all along. Our own father.

"What have you done?" I whispered.

I looked out the window and was surprised to find it situated over Rocky's grave. The tombstone was almost close enough the read.

"Ma'am? Ma'am, I know this is difficult. But I- I want to let you know that with this notebook we can get a warrant to excavate the yard."

I glanced up at the detective standing next to me. I knew he was trying to tread lightly. I nodded at him.

"But out of respect," he continued, "I want to ask you first."

I looked back out into the yard. I looked at the empty deck my father had spent an entire summer building and then never used. What was buried underneath it? I stood up and looked the detective dead in the eye.

"Dig it up."

I thought I knew what they'd find at this point. I thought maybe my mother had known it all along. But neither of us were right.

The excavation took 6 days. First, they had to tear up the deck. I stayed at the house that week, in my old room, and watched their progress from my bedroom window. The room didn't feel too big anymore. It felt small and suffocating.

I had my father quickly cremated and scattered his ashes in a ditch off the 405. I threw the urn in there too.

The first body was found at 11:29pm on a Thursday. I awoke to the sounds of yelling and dressed quickly. I ran down the stairs, through the door and out under the flood lights in the backyard. I darted my way around the mounds of dirt to where the forensics team was gathered. I braced myself and peered over their shoulders.

"That's not my sister."

They all turned to look at me.

"What is she doing here?" Someone said so no one in particular.

"That's not Ashley." I tried again. Someone grabbed my arm then.

"Who is that? That's not my sister! Who is that?" I was yelling. I knew I was becoming hysterical, but I couldn't stop myself from screaming.

They dragged me away from the body. I sat next to the house wrapped in a blanket for the rest of the night. I didn't understand. Who was that? That wasn't Ashley. Ashley was me and that wasn't me. The bones were too big. They were too long. That wasn't Ashley. Who was that?

At dawn, someone finally came to talk to me.

"Rachel-"

"Who is that?" I asked for the hundredth time that night.

"Rachel, we can't say for certain at this point but there's some strong evidence to suggest that the body might be, well that it could be...your brother."

"No," I said flatly, shaking my head. "Eric is in Japan. He's married. He's 30 now."

"Well, do you have an address? Or a phone number?"

"No... I mean...Eric doesn't talk to anybody anymore."

"Okay, well the M.E. took the body, so we'll know more soon. Just hang tight."

Just hang tight. What an absurd thing to say. The shitty world I had managed to build for myself from the ashes of my former life was starting to crumble.

Who was in the pool? The question haunted me for days. It wasn't Eric, it couldn't be. That much I knew. Unless Eric had come back from Japan. But I would know if he had, wouldn't I? Wouldn't he have come to see me?

I got my answers a few days later. Eric had not come back from Japan - because Eric had never left. Though his body had almost completely decomposed, the cheap, plastic "Good Luck" beaded necklace around his neck hadn't. The police ruled that he had died on the night of the party.

I didn't understand anything anymore. My mind refused to accept their findings. I began falling apart.

I wasn't there when they found the other body in the pool. It was Rocky's. When I walked into the house, they gave me his bones in an evidence box. It was all they had.

I looked down at the box and the dirty bones inside, and I knew where Ashley was. I knew why my father had moved his office. I knew why he had replaced Rocky's cheap wooden headstone with a heavy one made of shiny white marble. I knew why he had inscribed it: A Voice I Loved is Still. I knew why the date didn't match Rocky's death.

Ashley's small body was well preserved. When I saw how little she was, I started shaking. I never remembered being so small. He had taken great care in burying her. She was inside a white bag I had never seen before, a special type I had never heard of. It had effectively mummified her. She was laying on her back in a dress with her small hands crossed and her eyes closed. She looked peaceful and beautiful.

I watched them place her gently on a metal board. I watched them zip a different bag over her. I watched them load her into a van. And I watched them take her away. I sat down next to the headstone. It was her resting place for the the last 12 years. I looked through the window and I saw my dad's desk and his chair. I sat there all night. People brought me water and tea. But I just stared at the empty hole in the ground. Confused, angry and lost.

The excavation team left the next morning. The lead detective on Ashley's case - a man named Beller - called me around dawn. Because of the state of Ashley's body, they were able to collect evidence from her. They were waiting for it to cycle through the lab. I asked what kind of evidence. He wouldn't say.

The day I got the official report is another that I will never forget.

I was on the phone with my mother who I had finally found after months searching. She was in Philadelphia with Uncle Cliff and they had taken up heroin together.

I told her the police wanted to talk to her. I told her about Ashley and Dad. I didn't tell her about Eric yet. I couldn't tell her that over the phone.

But she wasn't all there. She asked the same questions again and again. She repeated what I said. It was hopeless. I took down her number and hung up the phone. Detective Beller could deal with her.

As soon as I hung up, he called me.

"Rachel, we have the results of the autopsies, can you come down to the station?"

I sighed. It was late. After the conversation with my mother I was exhausted and emotionally drained. There was no way I would make it downtown tonight.

"Can you just tell me over the phone? I'm sorry, I can't, there's no way I can get there tonight."

"Where are you? I'll send a car."

"Actually, can you please just tell me. I can't...I can't go back there. I can't see their bodies again. I can't be in that room."

The detective paused then seemed to come to a decision.

"Rachel, there was semen on Ashley's body."

"What?" I didn't hear that right..

"Yeah... We also found ligature marks on her neck. The Medical Examiner has ruled Ashley's death a homicide."

"Yeah, okay, but-"

"There is no mistake."

"Yeah, but, can you say the first part again? Because I swear you said-"

"Rachel, your sister was raped."

No, no, no, no, no.

"My dad couldn't have-"

"The semen isn't a match to your dad. It's a match to your brother."

I didn't speak. I didn't move. Until I started to shake.

"I wouldn't usually be so frank, but you've been through a lot and you deserve to know this. Here is what we have pieced together: on the night of August 16th, 2002 Eric went into your room and took Ashley. He then drugged her, raped her and, accidentally we think, killed her by strangulation. Your father walked in on him and beat your brother to death. This all occurred in the late evening or early morning of the party. He then held the bodies for a month or so until he had the pool filled."

"My-my brother went to Japan-"

"No, he didn't."

"But my dad, he killed them-"

"No, he killed one of them. This is a crime of passion and, honestly, I'm not even sure your dad would have done time for it. I don't understand why he didn't just come forward."

I was silent. I knew why. Because of me and my mom. Ashley's disappearance had broken us but we'd always had hope. Hope that Ashley would be released someday. Hope that she had found a new family. Hope that she would eventually come home. But she had never left.

And Eric, how could we reconcile our beloved Eric with the monster he truly was? My father had borne this knowledge and the burdens of it alone. His sacrifice may have been wasted on my mother but not on me. That hope for Ashley, and love for Eric and my parents had gotten me through so much when there was so little ground to stand on. The cost he must have paid to do this for me - it was unfathomable.

And I had burned his body and scattered his ashes on a highway. He would never be laid to rest with the family he had endured so much to protect. And I had done this to him.

My father wasn't the monster. I was.

I filled a casket with the photos on my father's desk and the drawing he had held to his chest when he shot himself. And then I, too, buried an empty casket. I buried Ashley next to my dad, and my mother on her other side two years later. I don't know what the state did with Eric's body and I haven't asked.

So really, this is a letter to you, Ashley. To let you know why this happened and to tell you I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that when the monster came that night he choose you instead of me.

I'm sorry that I thought you ran away, and I'm sorry I never looked for you.

I'm sorry I abandoned the person who loved you the most to his demons. I'm sorry I left him forgotten and alone in a ditch.

I'm sorry I blamed you for destroying our family.

But most of all, I'm sorry that I'm the only one left standing.

C. W.


---
by reddit user The_Dalek_Emperor via: reddit.com/r/nosleep

The Deepest Fear

You’ve been dating your girlfriend almost two years now. You often stay late over the summer and on weekends and arrive home long after the rest of your family go to sleep.

Every night, you drive the deserted rural roads back home from a pleasant evening at her house, but you become overwhelmed by fears that you will arrive home to find your family dead in their beds. Each night, you peek into your sister’s room and see she’s fine and hear the reassuring rumble of your father’s snore as you pass your parents’ door.

You chuckle at your silly worries and drift off to sleep. Finally, one morning, you decide to tell your mother about your late-night fears amidst some jovial conversation for a nice laugh. As you tell her, a concerned look comes over her face. She sweeps the hair away from her face as she says,

“Oh honey, you know we were all shot almost two years ago.”

You scream as you see the gaping bullet hole in her forehead.

Mommy

Last week, at the end of class, My English teacher Mr. Collins gave us an assignment. He told us that we were to write a fictional story that would count towards 20% of our overall grade. The story that I've decided to write isn't fiction, but Mr. Collins won't know that. I've waited almost ten years to get this off my chest. I can't tell anyone about it because if I did, they would think I was crazy. I've had enough therapists over the years; I don't want to see anymore.

I suppose I should give you a little background. My name is Eric Peters and I'm fifteen years old. I currently live in Dallas with my fifth foster family, the McLain's. My foster parents are wonderful people. They don't press about my past and they don't treat me as though I'm some delicate flower. They treat me like a regular teenager and for that I'm incredibly thankful. In all honesty, there isn't much to say about me, I like basketball, video games, and junk food. I have a girlfriend named Julia and a dog named Bruce. I like Pizza, movies, Facebook and the occasional TV show.
Besides the frequent nightmare and crippling fear of the dark, I'm your average American teenager.

The following is my story; I don't care if you believe me. I'm not writing it down for your approval or sympathy. I'm just writing it down because I think it might be good to get it out, who knows, I might not even hand it in to Mr. Collins.

When I was five years old my mother and I moved into a single story house in a small town just on the outskirts of Wyoming. It was just the two of us, my father had walked out on my mom a few months before I was born so I never knew him, I never really wanted to.

The house was nice, I once overheard Mom telling one of her friends that it was worth way more money than she had paid. She never told me why the people who had previously lived there moved out and I never asked. The house was bigger than the apartment we'd lived in before; we had a small front yard and a larger one at the back with a tree house at the far end. I loved it from the second that I saw it.

A storm hit on the first night that we spent in the new house, preventing the moving truck that my mother had booked from delivering our stuff. Luckily the people who had lived in the house before us had left their beds behind and Mom had brought some blankets with her in the trunk of the car.



There were three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living room/kitchen. Mom, of course, got the biggest bedroom, I chose the one that was directly across from her, we decided that the smallest one would be used as storage until we decided if we would turn it into a playroom for me, or an office for her.

The movers had called Mom around 6 o'clock, telling her that they wouldn't be able to bring our stuff until tomorrow. Mom had understood there were severe weather warnings and the snow was so heavy that half the car was already hidden by it, but before Mom could arrange a time for the van to come tomorrow the service on her phone cut out.

When I woke it was dark outside and the house was completely silent, the only sound that I could hear was the wind as it whistled harshly through the house.

I climbed out of my bed and tugged at the blanket until it slid from the mattress. I wrapped it around myself as best I could, I was five and it was heavy, I wasn't able to carry it all so part of it dragged against the floor as I made my way to my mother's bedroom.
I couldn't see a thing in the dark, but I remembered where my mother's bed was, so I made it there relatively easily.

"Mommy?" I said quietly, I wanted to wake her up, but I didn't want to give her a fright while doing so.

"I'm cold," I said and shivered. "Can I sleep in with you?"

I heard the rustle of fabric as the covers shifted and waited.
"Sure, sweetheart, " Her voice a quiet whisper in the dark that surrounded us. "Climb in" The mattress squeaked and creaked as I moved but eventually stopped once I lay down. Now that I was closer I could see her a little clearer. She lay with her back to me, huddled up in a blanket,

I wrapped myself up as best I could, curling my little limbs up until I was cocooned in the soft fabric. I shifted a little closer, pressing my small frame against her back until I found a position that was comfortable. I remember thinking that she felt cold so I pulled one of my arms out from my blanket and slid it around her waist. I gave her a squeeze and pressed my cheek to her spine as I closed my eyes. Sometimes I think I can still feel the knobs of it against my skin. She felt so thin.

I was almost asleep again when something woke me; I wasn't sure what it was at first until I heard it again. I blinked a few times until my eyes adjusted to the dark and shifted back a bit.

She was jerking a little, small movements that weren't quite
enough to make the bed move. She was breathing funny too, long high-pitched wheezes that seemed to echo through the room.

"Mommy?" I'd said, scared. I thought she was dying or something! "Are you okay?"

"Yessss," She said, her voice rising in pitch as she spoke. I felt her hand close around my own, her fingers bony and so cold that it made me inhale sharply.

"I'm fineeeeeee."

She rolled over just as lightning flashed outside. It lit up the part of the room and allowed me just enough light to see the thing that I'd been cuddling up to only seconds before. I'll never forget that face for as long as I live.

It was pale, almost paper white with beady little eyes in sunken black shadowed sockets. It grinned at me, its lips stretched wide over teeth that seemed too big for its face. I'm not ashamed to say that I pissed myself.

I screamed and jerked my hand away from it. I scrambled off of the bed, leaving the blanket behind as I ran from my mother’s room.

When I reached my bedroom I turned back, I didn't want to look, but I had to, I had to know if that thing was following me.
It stood in the doorway of my mother's room, the blanket still wrapped tightly around it, one shrivelled hand holding it closed. It had its head cocked to the side as it stared at me, that same too big smile plastered over its face.

"Come to Mommy." it said, its voice was so low now that I could swear that I felt the vibrations of it through my feet.

"Play a game with me." as it stepped closer I slammed the door closed and hid in my closet.

I heard the door to my room open a few seconds later and the unsettling sound of its voice as it hummed, changing from low to so high that I thought my ears would begin to bleed. I hoped a neighbour would hear and come to investigate, I was so scared. I could feel hot tears roll down my cheeks. I hunched myself up, ignoring the wetness on my thighs as the pyjamas clung to my skin.
  
I'm not sure how long I stayed in there until I fell asleep, the last thing that I remembered hearing was the sound of birds chirping outside of my window, but I was too afraid to leave the closet because I was sure that that thing would be waiting for me. I was too scared to call for my mother because I didn't want whatever that thing was to get her, although part of me already knew that it had. It had the blanket that I'd seen her take to bed earlier that night wrapped around its shoulders.

I woke cradled in a man's arms. He had a uniform on with a nametag that I couldn't fully read, but I figured out pretty quickly that he was a policeman. Both my pyjamas and hair were covered in a dried crusted red substance that I later learned was my mother's blood. It clung to my head in a matted mess that hurt when I tried to tug it loose with my fingers.

The cop who had carried me out that night has stayed in touch over the years. My mother's case is still open, they haven't found her yet, although everyone thinks that she's dead, they don't say it, but I know they do, I can see it in their eyes when they look at me. There was no sign of forced entry and the previous owners of the house couldn't be tracked down either. It was the guys from the moving van who'd found me, they said that when they arrived at the house one of them had spotted me through the bedroom window, in my mother's bed. I don't know how I got there, though, part of me doesn't want to.

Anyway... This is my story. I lost my mother that day and gained a fear of the dark that I'll probably never get over. I don't know what that thing was or why it targeted my mom and me. I don't know why it let me live either, all I know is that I'll never in a million years be able to get the image of that thing’s face out of my head. I see it every time I close my eyes...

Ha, writing this down hasn't helped. It's got me on edge if anything. I'm shivering and there's Goosebumps all over my arms. If I didn't know any better I could have sworn that I heard my foster Mom calling me from downstairs, that's impossible, though, my foster parents are at a wedding two states away…


----by reddit user AdrianNight via: reddit.com/r/NoSleep 

Museum of Death

Forever in My Heart

Alone, I cry in the dark
Longing for you,
Your touch, Your love

You said I was your everything,
Said I was forever yours,
Told me you needed me to live,
That without me you would die.

You lied.

If you meant it you would be here,
If you truly loved me you would come wipe the tears I cry for you away,
Tell me not to cry,
Tell me you love me,
That youre sorry.

The way things ended,
They didnt end well.

I know youre hurt,
Im in pain as well,
Here I lie alone,
Missing you like hell.

Unlike you I meant what I said,
Meant every word,
Youre always in my head,
My one true love.

Forever youre in my heart,
You could kill me,
Laugh as I break apart,
But I would still love you.

You cheated,
Went with her behind my back,
You said that kiss meant nothing,
I believed you.

You said you were sorry,
And wouldnt do it again,
I forgave you,
Trusted you.

You lied again.

We fell deeper in love every day,
Every second,
You hoped to make me your wife,
Promised you would never leave me,
And with me youd spend your life.

Broken promises filled the halls,
I didnt know what to do,
There was silence in crumbling walls.

Here I lie,
All alone,
Hoping one day,
Youll come home.

Knowing fully,
I cant bring you back,
For you left by choice,
Now my future is black.

Im falling,
Waiting for you to catch me,
Knowing youre gone,
Shedding tears under our old tree.

I saw you today,
I heard your voice on the wind,
You said you love me,
And told me to never give in.

I cried,
Missing you,
Waiting,
Now I wonder, who?
Who took you away?
Stole you from my life,
I remembered your mom,
Wishing I could be your future wife.

My tears turned to sobs,
I blocked out the world,
Slipped into depression,
Hoping Id meet you sometime again.

You broke your promises,
You lied,
But still I love you,
My heart is yours.
You said you were sorry,
Hated yourself for what you did,
Said you would burn in hell,
I knew you wouldnt,
But I didnt tell.

We were holding each other,
Never to be separated,
Not even by your mother.

This time I wont let you go,
Ill cling to you for my dear life,
And one day,
Ill become your wife.

Well move to the country,
Away from Joy,
Just me and you,
Now were married,
Our life together starts a new.

You pace around the hospitals halls,
While Im in pain behind think walls,
You soon hear crying,
And our family has grown.

Austin was now born,
He had your eyes,
Your brown hair,
He looked at us with pride,
Knowing he was the heir of a family unlike any other.

Then he looked at me and smiled,
He knew I was his mother.
I smiled back,
Tears streaming down my face,
You wiped my tears then soon whispered,
Tears are words the heart cant say,
Our lips soon met,
I could taste the salty tears rolling down your face.

The door slammed open,
Then banged against the wall,
And bam! There went everything,
All gone down the hall.

I was alone,
With my head against our tree,
I was 14 again,
You were no where to be found,
And my tears of joy soon turned to sorrow.

It was dark and cold,
I remembered the news,
The coming rain,
Then cried some more,
We kissed in the rain.

The raindrops hit my bare skin like needles,
But nothing could hurt worse than losing you,
I sobbed,
Gasped for breath,
Then I laughed at the thought,
That the rain covered my tears,
Fooled everything into thinking I wasnt crying.

But they were wrong,
And I was wrong,
In the end,
My world came crashing down.

Now here I lie,
30 years old and still alone,
Waiting for you,
Hoping that one day youll come home,
I know you wont.
You cant.

But I still hope,
I still cry,
I still love you,
I will until I die.

My love for you is deathless,
You must know its true,
My last heartbeat,
Will beat just for you.

Youre forever in my heart,
My loving you will never end,
Even in death.

And when my day comes,
I have my last breath,
I will still be there hoping for you
To hold me as my pain finally fades.
And silently,
My last breath will whisper your name

(Poem by Courtney Snow)

Alice of Human Sacrifice

"Somewhere, there was a tiny dream. Such a tiny dream it was, No one knew who had dreamt it. The tiny dream began to think. 'I don't want to disappear this way. How can I make people dream of me?' The tiny dream thought and thought, and then came up with an idea. 'I'll make humans get lost in me, and let them create the world.'"

The first Alice was gallant with a sword in hand
She skipped off into the woods and off to Wonderland
Cutting anyone and anything that blocked her path
Up until the Earth was soaked with red to show her wrath
Such an Alice was to be trapped inside the trees
A criminal locked away forced to beg on her knees
Other than the path she made while cutting in the wood
No one knew she existed and she was gone for good

The second Alice was a sweet and a humble man
He would always sing a song to his dear Wonderland
The many tones he sang they twisted and they swirled
And thus he created an equally mad world
Such an Alice was a man of flower and of rose
Got shot down by a man who could not take his own woes
And there in the forest bloomed a flower blood red
Once loved and enjoyed by all, is now left for dead

The third Alice was a child blessed with a fine form
She had vowed to take off and take Wonderland by storm
She seduced the various town folk to do her work
And she ruled a strange country while wearing a strange smirk
Such an Alice was the Queen of a Strange Country
When possessed by a strange dream the people went to flee
For they were frightened by such an ugly looking corpse
Once the gorgeous ruler now a body lost and warped

Meanwhile, two children followed the red path
Stopped next to a dead rose for some tea and a nap
Then there was an invite to the strange castle
It was a little card of hearts

The fourth Alice were two kids who looked alike from birth
Curious, they searched for this Wonderland on Earth
Passing through the various doors to find it, although
They had already arrived not too long ago
Stubborn big sister and her
Wiser younger brother, they
Were the closest to being the true "Alice of Wonderland"
So the two would never wake up from their perfect dream
They had founded Wonderland afterall, so it seems

The fifth ALICE was a small girl wearing mauve
Singing to the flowers in the fields of Wonderland
Her voice echoed with great style and suave
Everyone adored her except for an evil man.
This new ALICE journeyed through a field
Suddenly she was grabbed, her voice silenced.
The purple dress she wore turned crimson
One who was loved so well was now gone.

The sixth ALICE was a man in sparkling white
Dancing in the hallowed halls of Wonderland
His fantastic moves dazzled all in sight
His spells were going exactly as planned.
Suddenly a sound echoed in his ears
A sharpened sword rendered his life's end.
His white clothing was stained red.
His feet would never dance again.

The seventh ALICE was a tall lady
Towering over all in Wonderland.
She would cry tears of sadness
She was incredibly different.
This ALICE did not want to live
She then put a gun to her head.
She uttered her last words
Pulled the trigger and then she was dead.

The eighth ALICE was a girl in gray
She would never speak in her Wonderland.
Her wrists would bleed dazzling red
Nobody liked this girl.
Soon this ALICE was annoyed
She slowly lifted up the knife.
She pressed the blade to her throat
And no one would ever hear her voice again.

The ninth ALICE was a cheerful boy
Frolicking through the streets of Wonderland
On his tiny head he wore a sailor cap
And in his small hand he had a lollipop.
But one day his hat fell in the lake
He was sad but could not swim.
But then someone pushed him in
Now he will never learn.

The last ALICE was a girl in black.
Reading to herself in the Wonderland.
Her quiet voice was never to be heard.
Because she uttered all the dooms.
This ALICE could not die
Because she made everyone's death.
She would sneak up behind everyone.
With a sharpened scythe in her left hand.

My Friend From An Insane Asylum (Part 5)

First off, let me apologize for the long wait. Everything’s been so hectic that I’ve hadn’t had any time to actually sit down and type everything.

Let’s start with the action part. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to find a restaurant next to an abandoned construction site. At least in terms of asking the waiters/owners of the restaurant to see if they recognized Erik or Axel’s face. I supposed seeing a tall white guy and a short Japanese guy together was somewhat special.

I called up an old friend from high school - Uriah - to accompany me to the construction site. Never mind safety reasons - by the time we found the place, the sun was already setting. Given everything that had already happened, I would have probably shit myself if I had gone alone.

Erik wasn’t kidding when he mentioned in his update that all they did was draw circles. “Yo, Lyon.” Uriah pointed his flashlight towards the numerous of circles on the walls. “Did your bro have an obsession with circles?”

“You kidding me? He didn’t know what pi was until tenth grade.” I reached up and rubbed some of the material off the wall. It was red and chalky, and somehow, it sent shivers down my spine. There were various drawings - ranging from a simple pentagram to an overly complicated mandala kind of thing, yet they all revolved around a circle. They were everywhere - on the walls of the what would be buildings, etched in the dirt, and drawn on the ceilings. The place reminded me of some sort of satanic scenes from the horror movies I’ve watched over the years. That and the slowly darkening sky did nothing to help calm my nerves.

“Holy crap.” I turned around to see Uriah staring at one of the bigger circles - unlike the other ones, it had several smaller circles making up its design - on the walls, glancing at the red dust on his fingers. “Is this...blood?” He looked back at me, and I saw the mixture of fear and confusion in his eyes. “This has to be something else, right?”

I couldn’t answer - honestly, I was just as shocked and confused about the entire thing as he was. The place looked like something pulled straight out of a horror movie. The circumstances we were in didn’t make it any better. “I don’t know, man. I’m not even sure if the human body has enough blood in them to paint these many circles.”

Uriah just glared at me as we continued to shine our flashlights onto the dozens of circles surrounding this place. “Hey.” Uriah pointed at one of the circles near the ceiling. “That one looks like it’s made of paint. It’s peeling.” He reached up (he’s pretty tall) and scratched off a bit of the circle. Needless to say, a tiny strip of dark red paint peeled off the wall. “Looks like the stuff they sell at Home Depot.” I opened my mouth to reply when I heard a tiny crunch behind me. The sound that gravel under someone’s shoes makes. “Oh, this is the crap paint - Lyon, duck!”

I blinked, not registering his words for a moment. There weren’t any ducks around the area - at least not now. But then, I heard a brief swooshing sound next to my ear, and by the time I managed to move, something crashed into the top half of my head. Before I knew it, I was on the ground, gagging on a mouthful of dirt. “Holy shit -” I blinked the stars out of my eyes, trying to ignore the ringing in my ear as I somehow managed to get back onto my knees. “What the actual fuck?” Uriah was shouting his ass off, though when my vision finally refocused, my stomach dropped.

There, right in front of me, was my little brother holding a long metallic pipe in his hand, slowly advancing towards Uriah who was pressed up against the wall looking at him in horror. “Lyon!” I could hear the fear in Uriah’s voice. “Now would be a fucking great time for some brotherly love!” I couldn’t move. Erik was here, at the construction site. From what I knew, he was supposed to be watching TV with our mom or something. “Lyon!”

Uriah’s voice jerked me out of my trance, and scrambling, I grabbed the taser, firing after a second of hesitation. I saw the probes hit Erik’s body - I saw him jerk - yet he didn’t collapse to the ground like Axel had. Instead, he turned around and glared at me with pure black eyes.

“What the fuck?!” I screamed as I scrambled up to my feet, backing away from him as Uriah took the opportunity to run from the wall. Erik’s eyes were blue - not black. And even then, his irises were so dark that I couldn’t even see his pupils. It was almost like he was staring right through me. “Erik?” I gasped as I stepped back from him. “Is that you?”

Erik - or whatever was inside him - let out a growl didn’t even sound remotely human. I remember taking a huge gulp as I stepped even further back onto the dirt. Before I even realized it, I had stepped onto another one of the circles etched in the dirt - smearing one of the outer lines of the circle.

I barely had time to blink when Erik lunged for me. “Erik -” Without thinking, I fired the taser again. And like before, it did nothing. “Oh crap -” I dove out of the way - just in time to avoid the swing of the metal pipe, crashing into the dirt again. My phone tumbled out of my pocket and made a little buzz as the screen flashed. I won’t go into detail on why my phone didn’t have a passcode on it at the time, but the phone unlocked and immediately switched over to my “reddit is fun” app. Whether it was just a stroke of luck that it was on that particular page or some divine being helping me, I don’t know.

“Right, I was getting to that.” Axel grabbed a piece of paper on his desk and handed it to me. On it was some address closeby to my old house. “I said there were a few smart people in this body,” Axel offered as I looked over the paper. “We think we’ve found a way to return everyone to their original bodies. The catch is,” he said before I could say anything, “we need your help.”

My entire body stiffened when I heard his last words. Ever since that chatroom, I hadn’t been a big fan of that phrase. I even had a panic attack the first time I heard it again when my roommate asked me to help him move some boxes. “Why?”

Axel sighed again. “Because you were the one who started this entire damn thing, remember? Something about needing the start to end.” He beckoned at the piece of paper. “I got a pass to leave the building for the day tomorrow. I can meet you there at noon and explain a bit more.” I glanced at my watch - visitor’s hours had almost ended.
Something about needing the start to end.

Whether or not insane or sane Axel said that, everything clicked in my mind. The circles. They were an endless loop - the start always met the end. Erik had only appeared when Uriah disconnected the circle with paint after scratching off that tiny strip. And then he had turned to me when I messed up the circle drawn in the dirt. “Uriah!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, praying that he was still there and hadn’t run off, ditching me in the process. “Break the circles!”

“What?” He screamed back at me. “Did you go insane too?”

“No - just do something to the circles! Doodle over them, piss on them, scratch off the paint - I don’t know, just make sure that the lines aren’t connected anymore!”

Uriah shouted something back at me - probably calling me insane again or something, though I couldn’t make out the words as I saw Erik’s black eyes widen and his back turn towards the place where Uriah’s voice had come from. “Erik, you piece of shit!” I threw a rock at his head, and the moment it made contact, he whirled around and glared at me with his dark eyes. “Sup, bro.” I said, drawing a line through the dirt with my shoe, clearing screwing up a perfect pentagram drawn on the ground. “Heard you like circles?”

Did that piss him off? Hell yeah, it did. He lunged at me again, though this time, he seemed even faster than before. Purely by luck, I managed to dodge, making sure to kick dirt over another smaller circle on the ground - ruining the design on that as well. Judging from the inhuman roar I heard behind me, I figured that whatever was in Erik did not like what I was doing.
So naturally, I took off running, dragging my feet through the dirt in order to destroy every last circle there was on the ground. I was on the outer edge of the building - and the circles were primarily drawn on the floor. Uriah was further inside - where the circles were more on the walls and ceiling. It would take him more time to break them - and honestly, I was the one who dragged him into this mess. I had to keep Erik away from him.

I must have destroyed at least 30 circles by the time I looked over my shoulder to see if Erik was still hot on my heels. I wish I hadn’t it.

Whatever had been my brother had...warped. Twisted into some disfigured being that barely resembled a human being. The thing’s skin looked almost like wax as it hung off its cheeks and elbows unevenly while patches of hair fell out in clumps onto the ground. The entire body looked unbalanced - yet it didn’t do anything to reduce its speed as sprinted after me - this time on all four limbs. The only reason I knew it had been Erik was because of its black eyes.

I barely managed to drag me feet across the last circle in sight when the thing finally leaped onto me. I screamed - half in pure terror and half in horror as I felt its waxy skin burning into my own.

“Lyon!” By some miracle, the thing suddenly disappeared as Uriah slammed his foot into the monster’s side. “Okay,” he gasped as we made a break for it into the building, “Plan Circle finished - didn’t fucking work. What’s Plan Rectangle?”

I stared at him, “You got broke all the circles? Like every last one of them?”
“Hell yeah - and I made sure all of them were thoroughly broken, scratched off part of the design and everything. Didn’t do anything except make your little brother terrifying and my high school geometry teacher cry.” I glanced back and realized that the thing was much closer than I had originally expected. “Lyon, any fucking time now!”

I would have replied - probably something just as sarcastic and whatnot - when I ran into a wall. Literally. As stupid as it sounds, in the midst of our conversation, Uriah and I hadn’t noticed that we had been running into a wall. I smacked into it face first - and I felt liquid beginning to drip from my nose. Of course, a nosebleed. “Oh shit -” I stopped when I realized which wall we had run into. It was the one with the blood. The really complicated one with the tiny circles inside it.

“The circles!” I screamed, and though Uriah looked at me like I had really lost it, when he saw me scratching at the tiny circles that made of the design of this wall, he quickly caught on and began scrubbing at the dried blood. It wouldn’t come off. At least not in time. “Oh shit -” In desperation, I wiped off the blood dripping from my nose and as I felt a hot breath by my ear, I dragged my hand down the piece of stone in front of me.

I don’t remember anything else except hearing a scream that sounded like a million people screaming at once. According to Uriah, the monster slammed into my body, knocking me out cold. Since Uriah’s own phone had run out of battery, he ran to get mine (which I had left in the dirt) to call 911. By the time he got back, the disfigured mutation of a human being had all but faded away, leaving behind a sobbing Erik who wouldn’t even move when the police came.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed - apparently having suffered a broken nose and a minor concussion. As you may have guessed from the time it took to get this post up, it took me a while to sort out all the information being thrown at me.

Here’s a basic summary of everything we managed to piece together - at least now that we have Erik. He wouldn’t even speak to us for the first two days, though after I showed him the continuation of his nosleep thread, he started to open up. After he had wrote the second post, he had gone with Axel to the construction site where almost all the circles had been already drawn. Axel had gotten Erik to draw the gigantic circle with his own blood - insisting that because Erik had made the contract, he had to complete it in order to return all the souls to their original bodies.

That was an obvious lie. Instead, the next time Erik managed to regain awareness, he found his own body being moved against his will. I won’t go into detail on how he found out everything, but soon, Erik realized that original “Thing” that had sent him the deal in the first place over the chatroom had negotiated with Axel - the Psychotic Axel (or Axels, I don’t even know anymore), I mean. In return for allowing all the Axels to remain in ‘our’ Axel’s body and thus allow the ‘evil’ Axels to retain control, they would have to lure Erik into completing the contract that would allow the Thing to possess him. Had everything gone to plan, the Thing would be able to live on Erik’s body while ‘Axel’ would eventually be released from the hospital and continue his killing spree.

In an effort to prevent that, Erik managed to convince the Thing inside him to allow him to write the “Update” on the second post (Hidden Message Update), saying that it would put the readers (you guys) at ease with some sort of closure - no matter how crappy the closure was. By the time the Thing realized what Erik had really wrote, I had already changed his password - which resulted in the Thing trashing Erik’s computer in a fit of anger. Fast forward, my blood had ruined the design of the last circle, severing the link the Thing had to our timeline, dimension, or whatever you wanted to call it, forcing him out of Erik’s body. Because Uriah and I had destroyed all the other circles, there was nowhere left for it to run.

For those of you wondering about Axel - I asked Erik, and he said that since the entity that had brought all the additional Axels to this timeline had been banished, all the extra Axels should return to their original worlds as their link to this timeline had disappeared. Currently, the only one inside that body should be the Axel we’ve always known - though I haven’t visited him myself yet, so I’m not so sure.

So now, I’m sitting here, finally back at home, typing the last post of this story or whatever you want to call it, about to upload it. For all of you who followed me and my brother to the end - thank you. Really - the fact that I’m writing this all down somewhere is probably one of the only things that’s keeping me sane.

I’m going to give this account back to Erik to use now. Hopefully, he’ll be able to use this without fearing that some monster will jump out from the screen and possess him again.

If anything happens in the future, I’ll be sure to update you guys again. Hopefully, that won’t happen though, right?

Because this morning, when I came back home, I found a little pentagram painted by Erik’s broken laptop with red paint.

Masque of Red Death

"WAKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD! WAKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD! WAKE UP, SLEE— "

WHOOP!!

Jude groaned as she slammed the alarm clock. Curse her ex-husband to get her such a loud, obnoxious clock for her birthday. Now she couldn't wake up without having a heart attack first.

As she slowly slipped her legs off the bed to sit up and put her cold feet into her warm furry bed slippers, she stared out into the slowly rising sun at the horizon beyond her window. An empty feeling that she thought was long gone resurfaced as she glanced at the empty space of the other side of her bed, and her heart unconsciously ached at that feeling, making her wish in vain that all this had never happened.

It had been almost 3 years to the letter that she had divorced Jay, her ex-husband of 5 years, due to some stupid misunderstanding. She had to admit, they were really young at the time and they seemed to have rushed into the marriage (after dating for only 6 months) as soon as they were fresh out of high school and at an age where they should be considering college first. She had abandoned almost everything: her friends, her family, her hometown of Burlesque, to be with Jay in Kite City, but when she had a miscarriage and, due to her depression over the loss of their child, mistaken Jay's visit to his sister, who came to console him, as an affair, they started drifting apart, losing each other's trust and finally lived separately for a few months before Jay mailed her the divorce papers for her to sign.

Jude sighed as she turned off the snooze button on the alarm clock and made her way to the bathroom to freshen up. Despite the divorce, she still kept a multitude of vanity items that she got from Jay when he was still courting her and she couldn't bear to part from it no matter how painful it reminded her of her mistake to let Jay go yet never tried to earn him back. Though, despite her lack of college education, her talent for linguistics due to the fact that she was a half-breed (incubus on her father's side) with better brain capacity to absorb foreign languages just as easy as one would learn how to drink water secured her a job in Kite City as an international translator, and while back then she used to be able to be the biggest breadwinner between her and Jay and live comfortably, now she, single and alone, was earning more than she needed to. If she were to show others her bank book, you'd be bamboozled with all the zeros laid before you.

As she finished freshening up and got dressed, she went to her front door of her $900-a-month condominium to check for any incoming mail, and sure enough, there were a few. Bringing them to the kitchen counter where she poured herself a cup of strong black coffee and reheating some leftover omelets, she sifted through them one by one.

"Junk mail…bills…bills…junk mail…subscription fee renewal advice…bills…hey, what's this?"

Her eyes caught sight at an odd-looking envelope. It was fully red, like the colour of blood, and sealed with golden wax, almost like the ones that were used during the Middle Ages. There was no return address and no indication that her address was written anywhere, and there was no stamp either. It was as if someone wrote a letter to her and mailed it by hand themselves.

"Ah well," Jude shrugged as she opened the envelope. "It's not like my day could get any worse."

As she took out a card that was inside the envelope, she saw that the front of the card was a picture of a medieval-looking castle. At closer inspection, she recognized the castle as Prospero Castle, one of the 8th wonders of Kite City, allegedly rumoured to have housed more than 5 generations of the area's most notorious and scandalous royal dynasty of the history. When she opened the card, there it wrote in red ink:

Dear Judith Light,

You are cordially invited to the most spectacular masquerade party the city has ever seen. Should you decide to accept this invitation, your life, as you know it, will change for the better and you will be rewarded with something you hold dear the most.

Venue: Prospero Castle, Frankfurt Avenue
Date: All Hallows Eve
Time: 7.30pm onwards
Attire: Will be provided upon confirmation

RSVP: Please confirm your acceptance of invitation by dialing 555-1408

P/S: You may want to think carefully and considerably before you decide to reject this offer. This is your only chance

"I…Is this some kind of joke?" Jude exclaimed in disbelief. She read and reread the invitation card and yet she still couldn't figure head or tail of this. Her? Invited by a stranger to a masquerade party? A change in life and a reward of something she hold most dear? It sounded more like a scam to her.

As she was about to reach back to the envelope to see if there was anything else that came with the card, she caught sight of the time, found out that she was almost late for the last subway train to work, swore and hastily made her way out of her condo, leaving the envelope and the card behind on the kitchen counter amongst the pile of junk mail.

--:--

Jude groaned as she finally stepped out of the subway train and into the open. She was glad that her job allowed her freedom to wear whatever she wants as long as she does not wear it during public functions for the rich and famous, and she was wearing her usual baggy clothes to work, or she would've probably suffocated to death by the clothes alone that everyone seemed to have an affinity of wearing despite its lack of room to breathe.

If only Jay were to understand that her lack of fashion sense was the one thing that probably saved her life so many times during rush hour.

She readjusted the strap of her sports bra she wore underneath that long, baggy T-shirt dress and made her way towards her workplace, her left pants leg folded up an inch higher than her right and her Japanese wooden sandals—Jay called it clogs, more like it—echoed down the steadily busy streets of Kite City. She couldn't care less if people were staring at her weirdly; she just wanted to continue on her way and be within the walls of her office listening and/or read into whatever her superiors had to throw at her to translate and get on with her day so that it would end quickly for her to return to the sanctuary of her home and carry on what she did best: drawing comics.

As she took out her pass card and made her way towards the building where she worked, she recalled the last time she tried to convince her mother to allow her to pursue her true dream career as a manga-ka. She always had a passion for comic books and manga and hoped that one day she could be just like those wonderful artists, sharing their dreams and imaginations for the world to enjoy, rather than sit there and tell people what other people were talking about. That discussion led into a huge argument about a total waste of talent and potential and total destruction of her manga story by her mother that she spent almost a month completing and had planned to be sent to publishers.

At least Jay allowed me to do what I want to do, Jude thought, barely realizing that she had tend to associate everything that she could think of to her ex-husband. She berated herself for not getting over it even though it had been 3 years after the fact, as she swiped her pass card at gate entrance, but she knew, deep down inside, it was easier said than done.

ACCESS DENIED

"What?" Jude raised a brow and swiped her pass card again. The reaction was the same for the next 2 times she tried it, and at the 3rd time, the security breach alarm went off, prompting the security guards to the door to investigate.

"What seems to be the problem here?" a chubby African-American man clad in the company's security uniform came out along with another tall, lanky partner. Jude recognized them as Al and Sticks, some of the closest friends she had made in Kite City.

"Oh, Al! Sticks! Thank goodness you're here," Jude sighed in relief. "Did you guys changed pass cards or pass codes or something because, seriously, you really need to update your memo system…"

"Ma'am, where did you get this card from?" Al asked sternly. "This is exclusively for employees only. And how do you know my nickname?"

"Al, it's me, Jude! You know me, I always get you decaf and jelly donuts every chance I get. Come on, it's not April's Fool Day, stop playing!"

"Ma'am, I don't know what you're talking about. I have diabetes and can't touch anything sweet without insulin, let alone have coffee and jelly donuts. Now hand over the card before I take you to the authorities for theft and trespassing."

"Sticks!" Jude turned desperately towards Sticks who looked at her just as sternly as Al did. "You know me too! I gave you that necklace for your birthday last week! Don't tell me you don't remember that!"

"Lady, I dunno watcha playin' at," Sticks replied in his thick Southern accent. "But the missus is the one who gave me this necklace, and you sure ain't lookin' like my missus to me."

Jude looked at each of them in disbelief. They seemed to know what they were talking about, but it seemed so impossible and unreal. Just the evening before she got off work, she had a hearty conversation with the two of them gossiping and joking about a recording she had to translate of a so-called Ukrainian underground mob, to only find that it was just some poor Russian sap being caught by his wife for having sex with her sister, and now they were looking at her as if they had never ever seen her before in their lives.

Her fight or flight instincts soon kicked in as she pushed past the two guards to run up to her office. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it's some sort of joke. Maybe it was some sort of sick sense of humour from the upper management to make subordinates like Al and Sticks not acknowledge her presence. She had to make sure that she didn't just step into the Twilight Zone. Ignoring the shouts of the guards that were chasing after her, she quickly dashed up the stairs (since her pass card couldn't work and the elevator required pass card access) to her floor where her office was.

The moment she pushed the door open, all eyes were on her. Everything in the office was just as she had left it last night, but something about it was different in a sense, like she both recognized and not recognized it at the same time. Her seat was replaced with a Caucasian man who was a half-breed like her as well, but one look at the wings he sported and Jude knew he was descended from a different breed of nether beings.

But the most disturbing part was that her fellow colleagues who shared the same office with her were all giving her the same look that Al and Sticks gave her.

Needless to say, once the security guards were able to catch up with her, she was dragged kicking and screaming out of the building, stripped of her pass card and clearance badge and escorted unwillingly into the company security car to the nearest police station.

After almost 3 hours of interrogation and Jude repeating over and over again her identity and her position in her company and almost half a day in a holding cell, the police decided to let her off—since they couldn't find any proof of foul play on her part as to how she acquired a high security pass card that was employee-exclusive only—provided that she did not leave town. As she left the station, she caught a glimpse of a newspaper clipping on the notice board. There was no picture to illustrate the article, but the headline was big enough to catch anyone's attention:

THE RED DEATH'S BLOOD TRAIL CONTINUES

She would've gone over to read it in more detail if she didn't realize that she was being watched. The piercing gaze of some of the detectives who were interrogating her was like daggers on her back, making her feel like a criminal already. Guess she was still under suspicion even though her situation proved otherwise. Giving the detectives one last challenging glare, she made her way out of the police station.

--:--

Jude was wrong when she stated this morning that her day couldn't get any worse, because it did. Just like the incident at her workplace, it was happening again at her own condo as the locks were changed and the landlord did not recognize her and denied ever letting her stay in her condo. Someone else—a family of four—occupied her home, and everything that she owned in that home was gone, except for her alarm clock that she got for her birthday from Jay and the invitation card that was left carelessly outside the door. And when she tried to prove her residency by showing her the clock and the card together with the condo keys, the landlord went into a fit of denial and threatened to call the police if she did not leave.

Not wanting to make another trip to the station and risk meeting those detectives again, she reluctantly left the condo with only the clothes on her back and whatever she had brought along for work in the morning, in addition to the clock and the invitation card. After walking aimlessly for miles, she found herself in Kite City Memorial Park, her footsteps echoing down the long walkway with only the park lights to illuminate her way.

Finding the nearest seat, she rested on it and mulled over what had just happened. Why didn't her pass card work? Why didn't anyone recognize her? Why was she suddenly replaced from her job and her home? How was it that she could be Judith Light the International Translator to Jude the Nobody overnight? Who was doing this? How did they do it? And why?

Giving her luck one more shot to assure herself that she had not gone insane, she took out her cell phone and dialed home, back in Burlesque. It had been so many years since she called home ever since she eloped with Jay, but knowing her mom, she would jump to the chance to scream her head off at what an ingrate she was for running away and ruining her dreams of seeing her little girl being the trophy daughter she always wanted her to be.

For a moment, she actually would welcome that if only to know that she still exists.

"Hello?" a brisk, no-nonsense yet familiar voice came through after 2 rings.

"Um…Hello? Is this…Mrs. Light?" Jude asked tentatively, testing the waters.

"Yes, this is Mrs. Light speaking. Who is this?"

"H…Hey, Mom. Um…it's me, Jude. You remember me, right?"

Jude braced herself for a yelling, but nothing prepared her for this reaction:

"I think you have the wrong number. I don't have a child."

"Hey, Mom, you're kidding, right? You're just saying that to spite me, right? I know it's been years and what I did was wrong but…"

"I said you have the wrong number. I've been infertile for as long as I can remember, let alone have a daughter to be done wrong to. Is this some kind of sick joke? Who is this? Hello? Hello?"

Jude hung up helplessly, not wanting to explain herself anymore. If even her own mother did not recognize her, who else would now? In a fit of rage and despair, she flung her phone against a nearby tree and shot up, shouting at the top of her lungs at thin air, "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?! WHO THE HELL IS DOING THIS?! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?!"

She was about to grab something else to throw and vent when she caught sight of the invitation card. As her half-breed brain worked out the kinks, she soon realized that it was the moment she received this invitation that her day went downhill. As crazy as it may sound, it had to be the only explanation when nothing else made logical sense. It had to be!

Desperate for a lead, she snatched the invitation card and studied it again. She read and reread the message on the card from cover to cover until those specific words started to sound like a mantra in her head:

…you will be rewarded with something you hold dear the most…

Reaching over for the envelope, she tore it open as she should have done this morning and sure enough, something fell out of that envelope. As she picked it up, she was shocked to see that it was the 4-photo strip that she and Jay took at the Kite City carnival's photo booth on the 1st year of their marriage. She remembered it was near autumn when the annual carnival began, and the first she and Jay did was rush to the photo booth to take pictures of themselves. The first three were just silly faces they put up, but the last one was of them kissing.

She flipped to the back of the photo strip to confirm her suspicions and sure enough, there was the little doodle she and Jay did and the handwritten date of the photo taken in Jay's handwriting. There was no doubt about it as the answer and those specific words were laid out in front of her.

Whoever sent her the invitation card and the photo strip had Jay.

A feeling of warmth washed slightly through her heart at the thought of Jay keeping this photo when she did not, but a sense of dread overpowered that feeling as she wondered why Jay became collateral damage to a vendetta that was targeted to her. Millions of questions ran through her mind as to who, what, why, where, when and how did all this happen, but she knew it was not going to be answered by just standing there staring at nothingness. If she were to get her answers, she would have to accept the invitation.

She cursed as she remembered she smashed her cell phone against the tree and quickly exited the park to find the nearest pay phone. Finding one, she quickly dialed the number that was on the card and waited. At the 3rd ring, a woman's voice that you often hear on an answering machine greeted her:

"Thank you for accepting the invitation to the masquerade party at Prospero Castle. Please specify your residency to receive your event attire and everything else will be arranged."

Jude had wanted to say her condo's address but, remembering that she no longer live there, her mind immediately thought of the next best option, which was the Apollo Hotel where she and Jay stayed for their 2nd anniversary. The moment she said the address, the voice in the phone ended the conversation with just a "Thank you" and she was soon left to her own devices.

Double-checking to see if she had enough cash at hand, since using her credit card would probably not work thanks to today's events, she took a cab and made her way towards Apollo Hotel.

--:--

Jude's musings were broken with the sound of knocking on the door. It had been almost two days since she checked into Apollo Hotel and All Hallow's Eve was almost approaching. She was almost getting cabin fever waiting for any news from whoever sent her the invitation and she literally made a sprint for it when the knock came.

Seeing no one through the peephole, she opened the door cautiously to find a black box tied in blood red ribbon at her feet. Picking it up, she looked around again to see who left it behind in vain before bringing it into her room. Almost immediately, she tore off the ribbon and opened the box to see a shocking sight before her.

Inside the box was a pink ballroom dress with a slight dark hue and embroidered with tiny pearls and sequins in random pattern, with gloves, shoes and accessories to match. There was something very medieval about the dress, almost like something out of a Shakespearean era where Romeo and Juliet still existed and A Midsummer's Night Dream was not much of a dream at all, and judging by the quality of the dress, it did not come cheap. Along with the dress and accessories was the crème of the crop: a pinkish-white mask that could literally cover half of her face with elegantly carved holes for the eyes, and like the dress, it was decorated with tiny pearls and sequins with a creamy-coloured bunch of feathers on either side of the mask.

But that was not the shocking part.

It was a picture of Jay taped to the bottom of the box cover that really got her riled up. He was stripped down to his briefs and blindfolded and gagged while his hands and arms were raised and tied above his head. There were long and thin scorch marks on every part of his body and some of them were fresh and bleeding. Jude would've thought him dead if not for the fact that his legs were still standing firmly on the floor, albeit weakly.

Her heart burnt with fury and agony at the sight of this. Why him? Why, of all people, him? What did they want from him? What did they want from her? What was the point of all this? Those were questions she would demand from the culprit first chance she gets.

As she flipped to the back of the picture, a small note was found written in red, saying:

Your reward will soon be at hand, if you were to follow the rules.
Put on the dress and wait for further instructions

As much as she didn't want to, she had no choice. Jay's life was at stake, ex-husband or not. She couldn't deny that she still loved him with all her heart, and she would do anything to save him from this predicament.

The moment she finished dressing up in the outfit she was given and fitted the mask, the hotel phone rang. As she picked it up, the same voice she heard the first time through the pay phone came in.

"Thank you for accepting your attire. Please proceed outside your residence and your mode of transport will be with you shortly."

Jude was tempted to yell at the phone to demand she has proof of life from Jay, but the phone was already hung up by the time she actually thought of saying. Grumbling curses at it, she slammed the phone down and made her way out of the hotel, ignoring stares, teases and wolf-whistles by those she walked past.

She wondered, at the back of her mind, what would Jay think if he saw the ex-wife he knew who had totally next to no fashion sense all dolled and dressed up like that right now.

Sure enough, the moment she was at the entrance of the hotel, a black limo was parked right outside waiting for her. No one came out to open the door for her, so she had to go in herself. A tinted glass window separated her and the driver and the moment she got in and closed the door, the limo started up and made its way to their destination.

As she sat there, letting the vehicle take her to wherever she needed to be, she stared at both the photo strip and the photo she got of the tortured Jay and whispered quietly to it, caressing it tenderly.

"Hang in there, Jay. I'm coming for you."

My Friend From An Insane Asylum (Part 4)

Like Erik, I had only visited Axel once since the accident. And, just like everyone else, that place gave me the nerves. Even without his screams vibrating throughout the hallways, the feel of the place sent shivers down my spine.

You know, I was half expecting to find Axel the same he’s always been - strapped to the bed or something and muttering incomprehensible words. It would have made my life so much easier if the entire thing had just been some creative story Erik decided to get critique on. He liked writing - so even when the hospital was eerily silent, I almost convinced myself to turn around and walk out. I thought I wouldn’t find anything but another scarring image of what was left of someone I once knew.

I’m so glad I didn’t. “Holy shit,” I remember saying as Axel blinked and glanced up from the novel he had been reading. “You’re really okay.”

Axel stared at me for a moment - as if he didn’t recognize me. Then he frowned, almost in disbelief. “Lyon?” He blinked again, looking me over from head to toe. “Is that really you?”

“It’s been two fucking years.” In the midst of my disbelief, I almost forgot why I originally came back to this hellhole. “I can’t believe it.” In that moment, all doubt I had about the veracity of Erik’s posts faded away. Axel really was here, sitting down quietly in a chair, and looking sane. Erik was telling the truth - and I wasn’t going insane with paranoia. I didn’t know whether to be happy or horrified.

Axel beckoned me towards the seat in the corner of the room - likely the same chair Erik sat in. “When did you fly in? Assuming that you’re still studying in New York.”

“Tuesday, actually. I just finished my Masters.” No need lying here. “My flight came in at 4:30 PM.” At that, I saw something change in Axel’s eyes. “I thought I’d come by and pay my respects to my little brother’s best friend, though I guess I got a lot more than what I was hoping for.”

The guy snorted. “You make it seem like I was dead. Give me some credit, will you?” I held up my hands, signifying my defeat. “Honestly, thanks, though. I think I’ll really go insane from being stuck inside this room soon.”

I blinked my eyes and mocked surprise. “Erik hasn’t come by yet? Even though he lives like, what, ten minutes away?”

There was that change in his eyes again. “Actually, no. Though, if you consider the fact that I’ve only been conscious like this for the past month or so, I wouldn’t be surprised if he stopped coming after seeing what I was like before - if what the doctors tell me is true. Did I really scream that loud?”
It took me all my willpower not to sock the guy in the face. He was lying - and I didn’t need some damned note to tell me that. “You made all of us cry, man. Hell, if you’re finally okay and everything, why didn’t you give Erik at least a call? You can do that in a hospital, right? He should be the one sitting here, not me.”

“Oh.” Axel waved me off. “It’s actually not as easy as you think, since I’m in long term care and all. Seriously, do you have any idea how hard it is to prove that you’re sane? What am I supposed to do, tell them that I don’t have a craving to stab people in the heart? I’m not a psychopath, you know.”

Somehow, I managed to force myself to laugh. “I would hope not. Then I’d really question my brother’s choice of friends.” Axel smiled at that, though the grin on my face faded. “Look, Axel.” I looked down towards my feet. “Maybe it’s better for you to stay here - at least for a little while - just between you and me. You know,” I paused before continuing, “your parents...didn’t survive the car crash. I’m not sure if the doctors told you that yet.”

“Oh.” Axel didn’t reply for a long time. “I see.” He turned his gaze away, and I looked for some sort of glimmer of emotion - a tinge of regret or sorrow. There was nothing. Not a hint of the love I knew he once had for his parents.
I glanced at my watch. “Oh shit,” I heard myself say. “I got to go now. Sorry.” Axel shrugged, as if he didn’t really care. “Dude, here.” I chucked him a piece of peppermint. “Your favorite candy,” I explained as he looked at the peppermint in confusion. “I was going to leave some with the hospital, but I guess I don’t need to now.”

The confusion on Axel’s face faded as he smiled back at me. “Thanks man. Tell Erik to stop by too, so, okay?”

“Sure thing.” I reached for the handle of the door, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pop the mint into his mouth. “Oh, and by the way,” He blinked as I turned around and glared at him in full. “Axel hated peppermint, dickhead. He’d never take one from me.”

I closed the door before the liar could say another word. I didn’t need anymore proof than that. That person wasn’t the Axel we knew, and he had done something to Erik. If I stayed in there, I wasn’t going to get anything from him - though I made sure the hospital got every piece of information they needed to know. Multipersonality disorder? Still holding up the illusion that he’s sane? Yep, I told all that crap to the front desk - and hopefully, they’d never let that guy see the light of day again.

The parking lot was in the back of the hospital - a cool area shaded with trees and surrounded with a wooden fence. It was still in the afternoon, yet there were barely any cars here - aside from the ones of the staff and everything.

Only when I got to my car parked in the back of the lot under the trees did I notice that I didn’t have my keys. “Well, shit.” I muttered to myself as I glanced in the car and the area around it. How the fuck did I lose my keys on such an important day?

You know that feeling you get when you think someone’s watching you? Like that chill that runs down your spine that almost signifies that you’re not alone? Yeah, that’s basically what I felt as I bent down to look under my car.
I barely turned around in time to see the flash of a metal. “Holy -” I rolled out of the way before the knife could impale itself into my abdomen. “What the fuck?” I shouted as I met the eyes of my attacker. And despite everything that’s happened already, I couldn’t help but the gawk in horror as Axel yanked his knife out of the dirt.

The guy was panting, yet there was a rabid smile twisted onto his face. “I don’t think peppermint is that bad, actually.” I stared at him as he twirled my keys around his finger. “It’s a refreshing change to the crap they give us in the hospital everyday.”

All I could do was scramble back from him as he stepped closer with the knife pointed. “There are security cams, you know,” I gasped, glancing over at the building of the hospital. “You’ll get caught.”

Axel - or whatever thing inside him - laughed. “You think I care? I was caught three times before they finally decided to put me into a straightjacket.” The glee on his face was almost...maniacal. I wasn’t dealing with a human.

Whatever had taken over Axel was a monster.

“Who the fuck are you?” I managed to whisper as Axel advanced towards me. “Never mind that, what the fuck are you?”

The thing just smiled at me again. “Hi, my name’s Axel.” He grinned when he saw the expression on my face. “I’m 20 years old. By the time I was 18, I killed 56 people. My first victims were my mother and father when I was 15. I cut off all their limbs and skinned them alive. My third victim was the girl who worked in the 7/11 down the street. I cut off her tongue and gouged out her eyes by the time she was dead.” He continued down the list of his victims as if he were reciting a poem, though the joy in his eyes as he retold the experience horrified me. I was victim number 46. Erik was 47. He had tortured his best friend’s brother in front of him before killing him too.

“You know, it was really boring in that straightjacket,” Axel smiled at me as my back hit the fence. “I barely could wriggle my fingers or my toes. But then, when I woke up, do you know where I was?” He grinned at me. “I was here in this body! I saw all of you alive! It was amazing, you know - that I had another chance to kill you all again. I couldn’t wait until I could, but you know, all those other Axels kept trying to stop me from getting control. They even slipped the Erik of this timeline a note! It’s too bad he didn’t listen.”

I just stared at him. “What the fuck did you do to him?”

“Me? Oh, nothing. You see,” he smiled again, “I made a deal with the thing that brought me to this body. If I brought its host to where it wanted, then it’d let me stay in this body so I could continue having fun. It really was a simple exchange, you know.”

Oh god. “You mean...that thing from the email is inside Erik’s body?”
“No idea, probably. I didn’t pay much attention to the details.” He licked his lips. “You know, the people of this timeline are really stupid. It was so easy sneaking out from the hospital once I kissed up to those nurses. And you,” he laughed, “if you knew I wasn’t your friend, why did you let me know? At this rate,” his eyes glinted, “I might silence you before you can tell anyone else.”
Before I could even react, he lunged at me with his knife pointed straight my heart. I screamed, though before I knew it, I grabbed the taser out of my jacket and fired. Axel dropped like a rag doll, yet even then, I couldn’t move as the image of his face burned itself into the back of my mind. Even when the doctors and nurses and securities came running towards us, I could barely utter a word as I stared at the limp body in front of me.

I’m sure you guys can guess the rest. Tons of interrogation and everything else that comes with being attacked by a madman. The police found a box filled with tiny strips of paper in Axel’s room, all with warnings or other horrifying things written on them. They confirmed that it was multipersonality disorder and that Axel might have to move to another facility after this. I can’t even say for sure - everything was such a blur after that.

Now, I’m at my friend’s house typing this and ready to crash. I didn’t want to go back to my house anymore - not after what Axel said about Erik.

Whatever the case is, I think I’m going to go look for the construction site Axel and Erik went to. I need answers, some way to get that thing out of my brother’s body. I looked through every scrap of paper from the box in Axel’s room - yet there wasn’t a single hint on how to fix anything. I’m not sure if even the insane Axel knows how to get Erik back.

Well, I guess I’ll update you guys tomorrow on how everything goes. I know it’s stupid - to jump back right into the fray just as I managed to get out. But in spite of that, Erik’s still my brother. And I guess, this is just what brothers do for each other.