TITLE: the things that live in the dark
AUTHOR: Hannah K
ARTIST: Flavija P.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: BLOOD SCRATCHING, HAIR PULLING
I thought I was alone. It was the dead of night and I should’ve been alone.
I lay in my bed, the still cool blankets brushing against my legs. My room is dark in all corners and my eyes are still adjusting to this lighting. But I can hear the grating sound of its breathing. It wheezes and groans with every exhale, and each inhale makes a soft screeching noise. At first I assumed the AC was acting up but my shoulders were tense all the same.
It wasn’t immediately apparent that it was there, the sounds were mostly faint and I could almost pretend this was just any other night. Until, of course, I heard it lick its slimy lips. Certainly, it was not just the ventilation.
I sit up straight, no longer capable of just pretending it's not there. I know it is, and it must know I’m here too. The longer I stare where the noises are coming from, the more of it I begin to see. It’s tall with jagged and pointed edges, fingers long and nails sharp. My room remains dark enough that all I see is its silhouette, until its eyes slowly peel apart.
They don’t quite glow, but they shine as if they were wet even in the darkness.
It breathes deeply and I can hear its chest rattle. Its head tilts and my legs begin to tingle as if hundreds of tiny rats are racing across my sheets, their wet noses pressing into my thighs and their sharp nails cutting little divots into my skin. I try to shake them off but they persist. Is it real or imagined, I cannot tell, but when I look back up to the thing in my room, it's closer than before.
It stands near the foot of my bed, its lengthy fingers gripping to the bottom of my bedspread. It tugs it softly, not enough to remove it, but enough that I can feel that it’s here. It lifts its legs up slowly to place one on top of the bed. I shuffle further until my back is pressed firmly against the headboard.
It begins heaving coughs, the hacking sounds somehow reminiscent of nails against a chalkboard. I see its teeth as spittle meets my face and notice the sharpened edges. It’s all I can do to not scream. I fear much movement and it will pounce upon me.
The coughing ends when the figure regurgitates a singular wet rat. The small creature limps forward no more than five small little steps before it hunches over and stills. It will not move again.
A hissing sound comes from the figure, punctuated by piercing clicks of its tongue. It slows its voice as it raises a second leg onto the bed. It sits on its knees as black pools of darkness surround wherever it touches.
“Show me,” it says in words I finally understand. The words are punctuated by sharp shallow breaths between, as if it is unused to speaking.
By now I don’t care if it might pounce, I just want to leave. I want to run for my life, scream, cry, and find the light switch across my room. However when I mean to move my legs, I realize I cannot. I look down and see legs that are not my own, with a grey substance caking over it. They feel as though they have turned to stone.
A cursory glance to the now dead rat reveals that its entire body has turned into a rock, almost as if it had been carved as a statue from the beginning.
“Show me,” the large creature says again. Its arms, which seemed normal enough before begin to bend at odd angles, moving as if there were no bones within.
It begins to crawl closer to me, and I can feel more of my body paralyze. I catch on to the most horrid scent, of dead things and rot. Of sewage and urination. It emanates from each exhale of the thing, while the rattle from before persists. My nose bleeds.
A singular long hand reaches for my face. It grazes the soft skin of my cheek with its long and pointed nails. It stings.
The hand moves along my skin to my hair, even as I try to jerk my head in the opposite direction. It grabs hold of a handful of hair, its grip much harsher than before. It pulls my head to the side and I can feel my scalp burning with the sheer force it’s using.
The pain grows and grows until I can feel the hair being pulled from my scalp. I begin to wail but find soon my tongue has turned to rock. It feels heavy and dry in my mouth.
With one last strong pull on my head, the rest of the hair is ripped from my scalp. I can feel the wetness of blood trickle down my head and face.
The creature moves quickly to bring my hair close to its face. It takes a sharp inhale and sighs, the sounds like that of a dying person. It stows my hair into the darkness of its body, and I see it’s nose twitch.
It leans into where my hair has been ripped, and I feel its long and thin tongue reach out. It burns the area as if coated in acid while it licks up the blood.
It now leans over to the scrapes it inflicted on my face. It licks that up too. Then my nose bleed, its small tongue dipping in and out of my nostrils as it sears them. I can feel my nose swell until it closes up. I cannot breathe through it; I’m left with only my mouth and the stone tongue.
It leans back, done with its ritual. It takes one last deep inhale, and exhales a singular word.
“Later.”
Then it disappears into the darkness entirely, as if it had never been there. But the burning and swelling across all my face assures me I haven’t imagined all this.
As the rock formations reach my lungs and heart, stilling the very organs that keep me alive, I know nothing of what just happened other than one simple phrase:
This is what lives in the dark.
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