I've posted on here before, as many of you may know. Before high school, actually when I was a younger kid, I happened to be much more adventurous than the sullen teen I grew into. I would explore in the woods near my house, as I lived in the country and had the ability to run amok. My mother was in med school at the time, so I was generally unsupervised. I did a lot of exploring, and had the forest mapped out in my head, and a set of journals I scribbled in almost religiously. These journals came with me when we moved from home to home, despite my mother protesting that they were trash, no matter what I kept those journals. However, when I left for college, I left them behind, consigning them to my mother's care.
She kept them, actually, I guess they remind her of me. She's never read them, neither have I since I wrote them. Probably just childish fantasies, and I'm a law student now, I don't have time for that. So, I have never really read the journals.
That is, until one showed up at my door. I still remember getting back from class and seeing a small composition notebook on the mat. See, a pal of mine and me rented an apartment for school, to let us afford rent and help each other out with food and such. So, I picked it up and stepped inside, instantly walking to the TV stand and grabbed my gun from where it was stashed. It's a Mateba Autorevolver, chambered in .44 Magnum, one I'm immensely proud of. I called my roommate's name, looking around the room. "Chris?" Nothing unusual was there in sight, so I walked into the kitchen.
Nothing, just like the living room. I swept the rest of the house, until all that was left was his bedroom. I called his name again. "Chris, I swear to all that you hold dear, you'd better not be ignoring me." With that, I rested a hand on the knob, and shoved the door open, stepping back and raising the gun.
The walls in that place had to be thicker than we thought, as he was sitting in his computer chair, buck naked, watching something and toying with his lower half. I instantly looked away, lowering my gun reluctantly, and had the urge to retch. Instead, I pulled out my phone and texted him. '*Turn around, jackoff.*' He felt the buzz of his phone in his pants around his ankles, and grabbed at it, struggled to get it out, and read the text. His ears turned bright red and he whipped around, pulling the nearest thing up to cover his crotch. "What the f-" he noticed my gun. "What's up?" His demeanor changed in a split second as he saw the gun in my hand and the notebook in the other. This wasn't every day for us, so he knew something had to be off.
I waved the book. "Found this in front of the door. Thought maybe someone was here." I looked down the hall. "Please put your pants on."
"Fine. You ruined the mood anyway," he said.
"Ew, now I feel obligated to shoot you," I joked, walking down to the living room again. I first rooted around in the kitchen for my blacklight, then shut out the living room lights and shined it on the couch.
I was lucky that time: no dubious fluids on the furniture.
***
We sat together on the couch once he was dressed. He had switched the console on and was playing something dumb, I'm sure. I didn't know what it was, as I was reading the journal. It seemed to be pretty normal, honestly. Things about cool sticks I found, birds I saw, dumb stuff like that. There was even a surprisingly well-drawn map in crayon, which detailed the forests around my home. Pretty cool. Over the soundtrack of the game and the cartoonish-sounding gunfire emanating from the TV, I said to Chris, "Dude, this is weird. My mom sent me one of my old journals." He grunted in response. I kept looking over the map, and something didn't feel right as I stared at it. The center was my old childhood home, the driveway, etc. But as I looked around the map, I noticed something. In a spot on the map, there was a cross drawn in a heavy hand, using not a crayon but dark red ink. This wasn't ink from some ballpoint pen, no, it looked like it was drawn on with a calligraphy pen.
"What is this," I mumbled to myself, staring at it. It was situated what would probably be about a 20 minute walk from the house with stubby child legs. With my longer adult legs, probably 5 or 6. "Huh." I got up and decided to call my mom.
I walked out the back door and looked out into the slowly darkening horizon. The sun would set soon. Picking up my phone, I made the call.
It rang once.
Twice.
Three times.
Four.
On the fifth, she picked up. "Aaron? Is that you?" Her voice was curious and hinted at hopefulness.
"Of course, mom." I smiled through the phone, she could probably hear it in my voice. Despite her being busy throughout my childhood, she was my mom, and I loved her.
"Oh! How's school honey?" Her voice perked up and she gushed about work for a minute or two. She worked at a children's hospital, and often had cute stories to tell about the patient's interactions with service animals and such. I listened, occasionally inserting a "Yeah," or a "Hmmm."
Eventually, I broke in. "Hey, mom, I was thinking about coming down for a visit. I haven't seen you in a while, after all," I finished, trailing off. I had to pull the phone away from my ear, she started talking so loud.
"Of course! When?" She practically shouted into the phone now.
"Uhhhh, break starts next week, so then probably. I-" I started to gather the courage to tell her about my journal, but I changed my mind mid-thought. "Hey mom? You remember when I was a kid, right? All of those journals i kept about the forest?"
"Yeah, of course honey. I still have them," she said, chuckling over the phone.
"Okay," I said, then looked around me. It was getting dark. "Hey, ma, I'm going to bed, let's talk about this later, okay? I'll be there next week!"
"Bye honey! Sweet dreams!"
I hung up the phone, shutting and locking the door behind me. "Shut up, Chris."
"I didn't say anything," he said, smirking. "I just love how you are with your mo-"
"Shut it." I went to bed, gun under my pillow.
***
The week dragged by, leaving me to read the journal more. It wasn't very interesting, I must admit. It mainly contained ramblings about the cool sticks I found or something. There were a few pages that did freak me out a little though. They were about some "sleeping man", someone I guess I found in the forest? Either way, it was weird. Eventually, break started and I was on my way to mom's. I drove up there in my beat up old Ford Taurus. Yeah, I know. I can afford the fancy gun but I can't fix up my car, laugh it up. She was waiting in the driveway for me, the woods around us, the house sitting behind her. I climbed out of the car, feeling the cold of winter bite me despite my coat. "Hey mom," I said, flashing the left side of my coat open to show her my holster before we met and hugged. I wanted her to know I was wearing it, after all.
"Oh, honey, I missed you so much!" She was smiling, I could feel the warmth of it even over my shoulder. She was a tall-ish, thin woman, much like me, except I had more muscle than her.
"I missed you too." We broke apart, then walked towards the house.
"So, how is school? How's Chris?" She was excited to hear about my life, as usual.
"It's fine, he's a lil' rat as usual," I chuckled, opening the door for her. We stepped inside and talked for a while, until she got a call.
"Sorry, I have to take this, work," she said, walking to her office. "Feel free to look around!"
Naturally, I did so. I went to my old room and looked at the base of the door. Slip of paper. It was still there, surprisingly. I hadn't lived here for a year or two, so by all rights it should have fallen or something from mom coming in and out, but apparently she really hadn't come in. Weird.
I opened the door, letting the paper drop from the door, and walked in. The exact same as it had been when I left. Bed made. Bookshelf next to the door. Boxes of miscellaneous stuff stacked in the closet. I reached into my inner coat pocket, past my gun, and drew out the journal. Red composition notebook. I looked around for the box where I had the others, struggling to remember where it was. It had been so long since I had ever dug it out, so I understandably had forgotten where the box was. I found it, under my old bed. Seven, well, six now, composition notebooks filled a small box, all different colors: blue, purple, yellow, green, white, pink, and finally, red. Quite the rainbow. I lifted the box up and placed it on the bed, staring at the notebooks within.
Suddenly, a thought came to me. The "sleeping man" I had read about in the red one, was he mentioned in the others? So, being the inquisitive bastard I am, I decided to look.
Yes. He was. I looked through the rest of the journals, and they all mentioned some sort of "sleeping man". Oddly enough, I couldn't find a name in any of them other than that, but I did find another map in the red notebook. I decided to follow it.
I found a piece of paper and scribbled a note to my mom, saying I was going on a walk. Then, taking the red notebook, a lighter (I smoked a little in my college days, before this stuff all happened), and my gun, I went walking to find "the sleeping man". I walked through the woods for what must have been an hour, following this crayon map through my childhood haunts. As I was bound to, I got lost. I passed the same clearing what must have been six times, and when I reached it again, I just sat down in the center. I pulled my phone out, as if to call my mom, but then stopped. Over in one part of the clearing, I could see a small point of rock sticking out of the ground. I walked over to it, and then examined it. Brushing away leaves, I found a tiny cross, small but perfectly formed, carved into the rock. I looked closer, and the rock had a line of stone connected to it. I followed it, brushing leaves away as I looked, and ended up in the center of the clearing. I walked back to the tiny spire. Odd. It looked... bigger. I walked the clearing, checking if there were maybe more rocks. I found six more, all arranged into a seven pointed star, each with a tiny, perfectly formed cross in the rock.
Suddenly, a crack sounded behind me, in the center of the clearing, and I snapped my gun out, whirling around and dropping to a knee. There was a man lying in the center of the star, white and of average height. He had slight facial hair from what I could see, and he seemed to be... asleep. Two questions raced through my head: Where the hell did he come from? Was this the "sleeping man"? I kept my gun in hand, stood, and stepped closer. He stayed still, and I walked all the way over to him and examined his face. His eyes were shut, and he looked oddly familiar. I tapped him with my free hand, then knelt. He wasn't breathing. I then did something I was going to regret for the rest of my life.
I opened his eyes. Electric blue eyes looked back at me, staring me down, and a hand flew up and grabbed my wrist.
Electric blue arcs of light exploding from my palms, the soldier falling to his knees, my sword splitting his throat, blood spattering my-
"What the hell-" I recoiled from touching the man. But then, he sat up on his own. I looked around, the spires huge now, all of them having grown to the size of a tree. He stood, shaking his head. He strode over to me, and grabbed the front of my jacket, lifting me up and pressing a finger to my forehead.
The armies opposite me quiver in fear, their scent one of fright and timidity as I step forward, blood drips from my hands-
I struggled out of his grip, crawling away and standing, about three yards away from him, gun raised and pointed at his head. "Who are you?!" I was shaking visibly, barely able to keep my pistol pointed at him.
"I," he started, "Am Michael." Then, he waved his hand, and my gun was in his hand. "Pathetic. If you have a weapon, use it." Then, he stepped forward again and grabbed me by the wrist, looking me in the eyes.
The woman in her dwelling cowered, my sword hanging loosely from my hand, dripping blood and bits of fire as I cut down the man, shearing through his neck like it's dead wood-
"Sleep," he said, and it all went dark.
***
I woke up in a hospital bed. Police had filled the room, and when I sat up there were several guns pointed at me. A doctor walked into the room and yelled at them, ushering most of them out. Then, a newspaper was in my lap, the words hazy in my vision. I had to be on something, morphine maybe? It's not that I couldn't read, just that I couldn't find the energy. The doctor put a hand on my shoulder and started talking. "They really don't like you, buddy. Personally, I would've let you die, but that would've broken my oath."
"Wh-what?" I looked at her, my movements slow.
She responded by reading the newspaper out loud.
Slasher Kills Seven in Casino, More Suspected
On June 6th, a man entered Harrah's Casino in New Orleans, Louisiana. The man drew a pistol and shot six guests, then beat one more to death. Police apprehended the shooter in the establishment, and believe he is linked to several murders along the Southern United States. More information was not provided by the police, and when the leading detectives on the case were questioned, they provided no comment. The Behavioral Analys- Continued on Page A7.
"That answer your questions, killer?" She looked at me and walked out, letting the cops back in. I was hauled out of my bed in cuffs. I was being taken to some holding cell, I guess. It was still hazy, and I couldn't remember all of it. But on the way to the place, it started to rain, and the car I was in crashed. I wasn't chained down, so I crawled out the window. I've been running ever since.
I'm not sure who will find this, but my name is Aaron Woodridge. I'm an ex-law student on the run from the law, and I don't want to hurt anyone. Michael does.
And I am not Michael. No matter what, I am not Michael.
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Credits
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