Hi everyone. No talk about writing, editing, or any special subject this week. Instead, just a nice little horror story for you all to check out. Enjoy.
Reflected
Barry sat upright in
bed, gasping for breath and dripping with sweat. The nightmare again. He looked
over at his clock; the bright red numbers telling him silently that it was one
thirty-seven am. In the darkness of his one bedroom apartment, he swung his
feet out of bed and used them to pull himself out from under the sheets and
into the room. Moonlight filtered in through the half-closed blinds, shading
the room like a jail cell with horizontal bars. He stood up, carefully stepping
among boxes he had yet to pack for moving.
He shuffled across the hallway and
into the bathroom, the light blinding him as he flicked it on with a slight
groan. He leaned on the counter for a few minutes, his eyes adjusting to the
bright lights. He turned on the tap and let the water warm a little before
cupping his hands under the faucet and pulling the water up to his face,
splashing it across his forehead and cheeks.
For the past month he'd had the same
nightmare over and over, every night. It felt like he wasn't getting any sleep
at all, even though he rarely woke from the dream. He splashed his face again
and looked at himself in the mirror. The skin under his eyes hung dark and
loose, his eyes themselves red with exhausted veins and arteries. Granules of
sleep clung to the inner corners of his eyes. His head throbbed lightly, testament
to the sleep aids he took, but which did little to help his search for slumber.
His neck had started to itch slightly,
his hand reaching up and scratching at it automatically. The itch only got worse
after a few seconds. He lifted his hand to look and there was blood on his
fingertips. He looked into the mirror, craning his head to one side to get a
better look and there was a single tiny pinprick in his neck, through which blood
was oozing out and moving down his throat in slow drops. He reached into the
cabinet and pulled out the small box of band-aids that he kept there. The box
dropped to the counter as he watched himself in the mirror. Four more pinpricks
slowly appeared in his neck, lining up with the first, blood slowly bubbling
from each one to drip down his neck and under his t-shirt.
He reached for the hand towel that sat
in the ring on the wall, pulling it down and wiping away the blood. His eyes
widened as he pulled the towel away and saw the claws; reaching around his neck
from behind, their tips digging into his skin, causing the pinpricks and the
drops of blood. His eyes were locked on the mirror as another hand reached
around the other side, its color a sickly pale green. Its placement mirrored the other clawed hand
and its fingertips dug into his flesh.
He spun around, swinging his arm wide
to strike back, but nothing was there. He threw his head left, then right,
scanning the bathroom for the creature. He was alone. He turned back to the
mirror, and could see the claws at his throat. His hand pulled up and grabbed
at the claws, trying to pull them away. He could feel them digging in deeper,
the flow of blood increasing. His hand in the mirror grabbed the claws, feeling
them under his fingers and against his palm; its flesh ice cold and dry. Its
fingers far stronger than his, resisting his attempts to unseat them without
the slightest give.
He swung around again, trying to throw
off his ethereal attacker, pulling his t-shirt over his head and off, throwing
the blood-soaked thing to the floor. He spun around back to the mirror and
still the thing held its death grip on his throat. It's claws dug deeper into
his flesh, the blood flowing faster, dripping to the floor, making it
treacherous under his bare feet. He grabbed at the reflection and found only
the cold glass of the mirror.
He could only watch, frozen in terror
as its head slowly rose from behind him, its pale, green flesh
covering a bald head. One eye was simply an empty hole in its skull, the other
yellow and oozing pus down its face. It grinned at him,
baring split and broken black teeth. He
twisted his shoulders, still trying to get free as more of its fingers drove
into his throat, the blood pooling on the blue and white tiles under his feet.
He could feel the blood running down the inside of his throat now, the claws
worming their way through his flesh. His lungs were filling up and breathing
was becoming harder with every second. The creature grinned at him in the
mirror and in one smooth motion tore his throat open, exposing the interior of
his anatomy as blood showered the mirror. The motion pulled him back and his
feet finally lost their grip on the slick floor. He fell back, everything in
his sight going dark.
Barry sat upright in bed, gasping for
breath and dripping with sweat. The nightmare again. He looked over at his
clock; the bright red numbers telling him silently that it was one thirty-eight
am. In the darkness of his one bedroom apartment, he swung his feet out of bed
and used them to pull himself out from under the sheets and into the room.
Moonlight filtered in through the half-closed blinds, shading the room like a
jail cell with horizontal bars. He stood up, carefully stepping among boxes he
had yet to pack for moving.
He shuffled across the hallway and
into the bathroom...
