The unlocked door that you definitely remember locking. The shining light bulb that you’re sure you had turned off. Something that happens to people all the time. That minor detail that wouldn’t catch your attention if you weren’t absolutely convinced it hadn’t been that way just a moment ago. It catches your eye as you pass or as you’re about to exit a room. You furrow your brow and wonder how this could possibly have happened. You decide shortly that you must have just forgotten. With a shrug, you turn the latch, flick the switch, and things are as they should be.
The open window that you could swear you had closed. The keys on the kitchen counter that you know for a fact had been placed on the dinner table. Something completely mundane, a minor inconvenience at the very worst, but for that first second. That brief moment where your senses flare and your spine tingles. That fleeting opening in your mind where fear flashes behind your eyes. It’s not even long enough to form a proper thought, but enough for your instincts to shriek “danger” into your ears. Who could have done this if not you? Is there an intruder in your home? Someone hidden somewhere, anywhere within your sanctuary, your safe haven? But your senses clear and that terror releases its clenching hold around your heart as quickly as it appeared, before you even had a chance to truly process it. You write it off as being absent-minded, shut the window, pocket your keys, and never think twice.
The water faucet running long after you last used it. The television screen blinking back to life after you are positive that you shut it down before leaving the room. I call it the Forgetful Game. A bit of a contest you have with yourself as you try to remember whether or not something is amiss in your little world or if you’re just not recalling correctly. You catch movement from the corner of your eye, hear a floorboard creak from another room and your eyes dart and your head whips but you see nothing else, hear nothing else. That fear bubbles up, catching your breath in your throat as the notion that you are not alone crawls from the back of your mind and bears its cruel claws and jagged teeth.
In this handful of seconds, you debate investigating further, checking the other rooms of your home. You convince yourself that if you turned around at that moment, someone, something would be there. Someone, something that found its way into your safe haven with the sole intention of hurting you in the most unimaginable ways. But, once again, that thought passes in the blink of an eye, as if it were never there. You’re just getting yourself worked up over nothing. It was a simple, everyday mistake. You turn the handle and the water ceases to flow. You click the remote control and the television goes silent once again.
And that is how you win the Forgetful Game. You fix that tiny break in your life’s continuity. Plug the leak, seal up the cracks. Everything is back to normal and it never crosses your mind again. That’s how it usually goes; it’s an easy game to win. But there are those of you who will break the rules. You won’t bother to lock that door again, to shut that window. You’ll let the terror take hold and search the dark corners of your home. You won’t make right the inconsistencies. You won’t forget that the shadow you saw flit by your peripheral vision had a very distinct shape, a definitive form. You won’t look past how much that distant creak sounded like a careful footstep and not just the building settling.
You’ll go off, leaving that light shining, leaving the television to broadcast to no one. You’ll go and seek for the source of this wrongness instead of accepting that it was just a slip of the mind, a trick of imagination. And when you do that, you’ll find me. You will find me and I will tell you that you have lost the game.
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Credits to: Evergrey06
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