Corner Creatures

"The shadows and the damned, they lurk in the corner of existence, your vision, your eyes. A cold presence with the formation of an endless skein slowly wrapping around your heart, tightening as you crumble." These are the words a man once told me, a man who is no longer a part of this world. A man who was found mutilated in his home 3 years ago today.

The colossal slam as the letterbox closed almost sent me through the roof. "Bloody ridiculous" I muttered to myself as I ventured down the hall towards my front door. I'm not sure why, but I can't explain the feeling I felt when his letter came through the letterbox. No matter how hard I try. Sadness? No that's not it, I don't think there is a way to describe how I felt in words. I just stood there staring at the decayed and putrid envelope as I was engulfed by its horrific nature.

"Shit," I said to myself. "These fucking kids."

I had fully convinced myself that this was some sick animals idea of a joke, I could not have been farther from the truth. After a long day at work, I arrived home, drenched from the unforgiving "Mother Nature" as they say, but that's life I suppose, yeah, life. Settling down with a bottle of beer and my favourite T.V show I heard something fall off of the table behind me, it was the letter, it lay there still and damp yet I felt it call out to me, pulling me towards it. As I bent down to pick it up after my long journey from the couch I felt as if I would vomit, it had only been 9 hours since this morning yet the smell had grown thicker and the touch had become grimier. Opening the envelope without ripping it was a mission but I eventually got there, God I wish I hadn't. The letter lay on the table in front of me, it was just as damaged and wrinkled as the envelope was, a lot of the writing was smudged but one word that stuck out to me was "Branch" A name I had earned after falling from a tree back when I was deployed in Afghanistan. My heart sunk at the site of this, to you it may seem like a funny joke or a game, but my squadmates were the only ones to use that name, the same squadmates that were slaughtered by enemy forces leaving 2 alive, me and. Him. I stood there for a while, thinking back to all the horrible memories I wish I could erase, but it is in the past. Terrified, I finally decided to read the letter after a long silence, as I said though, a lot of the words were smudged and incomprehensible but this is what I got from it.

"To Branch.

Hey, it has been a while, how are you doing? I know the last time we spoke it ended rather bad, but I just want you to know that I really do care about you. Look, something is happening and I don't know if I am losing my mind or this is some joke but, they won't go away. I see them in the corner of my eye, sometimes standing still and sometimes sprinting towards me, but when I turn towards them, they are gone. They look like shadows but there is something about their eyes, red, glowing. Shit, I think I may have even seen Fergus and Bubbles earlier, just standing there in the very edge of my provisional vision, whispering. Hell, maybe I am going crazy, it really is like being back in those bunkers, you think you see someone but when you look, no one. I don't know what is going on but the police won't do anything and I can't do very much in this old wheelchair of mine, come see an old man will ya kid? Even if it is just for a couple of hours, I would really appreciate it. I have several lifetimes worth of beer and I'm sure Milly and the new pup would love to see you too. Thank you for sticking with me this long kid, after everything that's happened, you have no idea how much it means to me.

Thanks, Darryn"

The first time I read this my eyes had already swelled up and I was in tears, one of my best friends was calling for help and I never knew, he was played with, then murdered by thugs. I never even thought to ask myself how it took 3 years to travel a 3 hours trip and that was the biggest mistake of my life. Once I had washed my face and calmed down a little bit, I heard footsteps. quiet, but audible, right behind me.

An overwhelming sense of dread filled the air, the room still and silent. A distant voice in my head protested every thought that came into my mind and so I stood there, entirely mute until, they froze. At that moment, my head acknowledged my urge to see who stood beyond and well, you probably guessed it, it was no one, not a soul, the only thing remaining being the never ending hallway leading downstairs.

After reluctantly jotting it up to stress and my mind playing tricks on me I headed to bed, that was one of the most regretful decisions of my life. Those nightmares, flashes of lights, visions of dead relatives, even myself. But that sound, god that fucking sound, an ear-piercing low yet high pitched moan, it filled my ears, my head, it was unbearable. I started to sense wetness on my arms and legs, it was, blood, my skin seamed to peel back, splitting at the seams slowly transitioning from my body to a foundationless heap of flesh on the ground. I could not move nor speak, all I could do is merely watch as finally, my face ripped. What used to be covered by the surface of skin began to boil, a horrendous sensation of what felt like I was being showered with acid, corrosive liquid digging through me, seeping through every crevise, melting bone and destroying everything within reach. With all of this, paralyzed I remained.

I have never sat up so fast in my life, I basically fell out of my bed before sprinting to the nearest mirror. I was trickling with sweat and shaking like a mad man, I wasn't sure what to make of everything I just witnessed, but at least I still had my skin. I stared into the mirror for a long while, my skin didn't feel like my own and my body felt hollow, simply a shell for a perpetual void of endless capacity. Continuing my morning I reached work and I could feel myself remaining on edge, I felt like I was being watched from every possible direction and I hated it. Paranoia inflamed my thorax like a matchstick and I could barely take it, I searched my desk for anything to distract myself but when I looked down, I was holding the letter. I began to feel dizzy and fell. My body slammed onto the carpet and groups of muffled voices surrounded me, I looked around dazed, confused and before I could even think, I lost my consciousness.

When I woke up I was in the Medical Room of where I work and after about 30 minutes of a back and forth with the Nurse, I was sent home for the day and told to take it easy. I accepted defeat and took a slow drive home, I don't know what it was, but something didn't feel right at all when I opened my front door, everything was in place, but something just felt off. That night I lay there, unable to sleep, deep in my own thoughts about the past few days, I was soon dragged out of my head by an ungodly scream of a man, it bounced off of every wall and rang throughout the house, I sat in fear, that fear then became terror when I heard footsteps from my staircase. They were wet, hard footsteps and they were coming my way, very, very slowly. I began to hear moaning outside of my door, a groan of a person who was in an inconceivable state of mind. It kept going and going, what was once a moan was now an agonizing scream, it began banging on the door with more strength than a bull and eventually, the door opened.

The door opened slowly with a sound that I cannot describe and then it was quiet once more, I looked around and just before my eyes reached the left corner of my room, I froze. In the corner of my room stood a tall black figure, a shadow, with big red eyes, it's neck twisted and torn in unimaginable ways. It began twitching and soon it was approaching me, fast, but when I looked, it vanished. Just like that, it was gone, whatever demon stood before me was exactly what Darryn described word for word.

The air fell cold, far colder than anything I had felt before, whispers from every direction filled my head with excruciating pain and that's when I saw him, or, them. Darryn, Fergus and Bubbles stood at the bottom of my bed, they stared at me with blank faces, emotionless entirely. They all resembled the same friends I had grown up with, but their eyes, they had no goddamn eyes, there was nothing inside, an endless tunnel of sin and misery. I wanted to call out to them but before I could even get a word out, their mouths began to move, fast, jumbled, the only catch, no sound came out. The room remained silent as Bubbles jaw cracked, skin tearing, Fergus had a sick smile on his face, an ear to ear grin, blood dripped from his toothless mouth but Darryn? Darryn stood there motionless, crying tears of blood, they trickled down his face and onto the floor.

Darryn spoke, this time with an audible yet sickening tone. He said but one word.

"Branch"

He smiled at me and then all 3 of them looked in different directions around me. During all of this, I failed to realise, I was completely surrounded, my peripheral vision filled with the same red eyes I knew so well. I was being closed in on, no matter where I looked, only one would vanish, then reappear when I looked at another, they were playing with me all along, toying with my fear. I started to panic and tried to get away with every bit of strength in me, but it was no use, they grabbed me and slammed me down onto my bed with my head on its side, I could see them staring down at me, dozens of them with their sick fucking eyes.

They had no facial features besides their eyes yet they exhaled an awful sound of a dying animal. This went on for what I perceived as an eternity before it finally happened, I watched in horror as one of them held my head still and another brought what appeared to be 2 fingers over my eyes and pressed in on them. A pressure unlike any other permeated my eye sockets, I felt as my eyeballs turned to mush in my own head, blood rushing to the now exposed holes in my skull, I screamed in pain that I cannot describe, I just kept screaming, the remains of my eyes dripping from my skull in a thick mushy mess, the entities let me go but I knew for a fact that those fuckers were still there, smiling.

I could sense a hand over my stomach, it was rubbing it, I hated it.

"Get the fuck off of me!" I screamed, lashing out, I tried to kick or punch any of them, but no contact was made, I felt another wave of agony as my stomach was cut, a sharp, never-ending feeling of nausea came over me and I vomited, all of my limbs were being cut now and then it all came to an end when what felt like a sledgehammer thrashed through my belly.

A thick coppery liquid filled my mouth, I knew what it was, I was no alien to blood. I could feel all of their eyes on me, many, many more than before, a gentle cold slowly came over me as crimson fluid entered my lungs pumping them full. I thought about Darryn, Bubbles, Fergus and of my fallen comrades, the pain they had gone through was now my own. tears slipped down my blood-soaked face and into my mouth, I knew this was the end, I'm coming my friends.