-1I slowly worked up the energy to pull apart my eyelids. A minute amount of light filtered through the window, casting black shadows in all the corners of my bedroom. An implacable sound had woken me up. It wasn’t too large, but it was far too small. A distant voice pounded against my door, echoing from across the unlit hallway, down the stairs and in the living room where I spend most of my free time. Its furnishings bland and under spoken. My mother called directly to me, not from a distance, but as if I was there with her and standing across from her, hidden in her shadow. Her voice came as a mumble, lurching up and through the house. She wasn’t calling for me, but having a one sided conversation that cast me as a recipient rather than a participant.
“Peter… Peter… I hope that you are happy that you are doing what you are involved in. I hope that you are not unhappy that you are doing what you are involved in. Peter… I hope that-”

I was blanketed in uneasiness, my body revolting at my mother’s eerie tone. As it spiralled through my house, my body, my brain, I became more and more in tune to a vision of crooked malice, playing over and over in my head. I was stuck to my sheets, frozen in place. Too afraid move, however curious I might’ve been. Inadvertently, I rolled over, my black blanket surrounding me, twirling around my body. Light came through the crevice below the door. Although every night of my life that hallway had been dark, a glowing crawled in from underneath the door frame. There was no working light out there, if a fixture existed at all. I never cared to look above me.
“Peter… Peter… Are you where you are in this place because you are happy with what you have achieved? Peter…”

My body tightened, and I was filled with an intense fear. Waves of energy coursed through my body and forced me to my feet. As I approached the door, my eyes locked on the glowing halo that came through all the spaces in between my door and its surroundings. It was soft, almost melting, yet still the brightest source of luminescence around me. A shadow passed over it. I felt my heart skip a beat and I jumped back. It passed over again and again, rocking back and forth outside my room. Although we were kept apart by the flimsy pine door, it was as if I was staring it down face to face. In its movements and silence, I felt a presence of hatred. As if it could not speak, and wanted to steal my voice. As if it could not breathe, and it needed to tear out my throat. As if it could not see, and it would pluck the eyes from my skull.
“Peter… Peter…” My mother was still downstairs. Her and I lived alone. Something was down there. Malicious, malevolent, it wished harm upon us in every way. I could feel its being. Dusty slime, filled with violence, coursing down its body, spilling into everything it touched. I didn’t say a word. The shadow kept milling about, going back and forth under my door like a metronome, moving left and right, waiting for me. I wanted to call out to my mother. Tell her to run. Tell her that it was not alright. I wanted to scream for help.

A weird frown stretched across my face. I was shaking, a tear flowing down my cheek. I felt like I was being assaulted, as though something hated everyone so much that its presence alone constituted harm to my well being. I stepped backwards, one foot at a time, towards my window. Trying to find a place to escape. My eyes began to fixate themselves on the jittering shadows that made up the décor of my room. They slowly began to pulsate, sliding across the book case, the dresser, the bed that made up my living space. Out my window, the drop to the ground might’ve been enough to kill me.
“Peter… Peter… Are you living in this house because you are who you are and not because you do what you might do?”

Fiddling with the lock on the window, I pushed it open, jamming it into place. Peering outwards, a similar presence lurched down my throat and coat my inner linings. Something was below me. I jumped back, slamming the back of my head against the top of the window. Coughing, sputtering, trying to force the perversity of whatever it was out of my system.
“Peter…” It didn’t see me. Its body was shapeless, although its purpose was clearly defined. It stood silent against the exterior of my house, looking outwards at nothing. It wanted trauma and unwillingness. Its feelings motioned for something beyond an action. Beyond rape and murder, torture and thievery. Human terms and ideas elicited no feelings within the creature. Evil beyond my comprehension of evil. It was unmistakable. It held an infinite willingness to achieve boundless hatred. Nothing physical existed inside of it. It didn’t see people, places or objects. It saw emotions, the abject terror it could elicit in a mental so profound and eternal that it can only ever shatter the human mind beyond any hopes of repair. So undying and ungodly that it cannot be perceived. It can only serve its purpose, and that is to never stop. It has no eyes or ear. It senses nothing but pain and misery, and even that is not on any measurable scale. It does not wish nor want, nor feel any emotion.

I looked out again, down towards it, being careful to make my movements as shadowy and silent as whatever was stalking me. If I was careful, I could escape to my roof. I looked up. Dozens of strange lines filled the sky, moving slowly in disturbing patterns that felt like they were meant to sink downwards. I became captivated by the images above me. Lines that filled up space and sky, moving back and forth, forming simple images that meant nothing in my mind. Their representation a winding falseness in a black sea of terror. And although they existed in my plane of sight, they didn’t know where it was that they were. They were on a separate plane of being. A place with no existence. I made my way back through the window, closing it slowly.

As the endless lines that filled the sky motioned back and forth, casting the shadows in my room across different space, something became visible to me. A creature… I couldn’t feel it. It began to undulate and ripple, shaking back and forth in the corner of my room. I couldn‘t move, couldn‘t breathe. I fell back onto my bed., stiff as a board. It walked towards me, tightening its body. Its feet clinging to the ceiling of my bedroom, its face hung down close to me. It stood upside down, ignoring gravity, seemingly stuck to the roof. It walked like a man, but upside down. It walked like a man. Two arms, two legs, a torso, a head.
“Peter… Peter… Can you decide why you are what you might be?”

Its feet were small. Distended appendages dangled from the ceiling all connected to a thin core. The creature was a pale grey, disappearing as it crossed through the shadows. Hidden in the corner of my room, watching, waiting, it gave no clues to its position. It’s arms by its sides, long fingers on each hand. It didn’t emanate a feeling. I could feel no heated evil burning from inside of it. I couldn’t feel that it wanted me for any reason. Its body didn’t give off any indications of personality or emotion. And although this creature didn’t seethe with the undying lust for blackness that I felt from everything else, I found myself more afraid of it. There was no clouding or conflicting emotions to be felt. It didn’t want anything. It did what it felt like for no reason other than that it could. It was not a leader or a follower. It was its own mutation, lying in wait for no reason other than that it could.
“Peter… Are you a person?” Its face was empty. Deep black eyes, large and unforgiving, sat centered on its face. It had no mouth, no nose, no ears. Its functions seemed limited, although I knew whatever it was had no maximum. Although that’s where it stood, it had no upper ceiling of what it could do.
“Peter… What makes you who you want to be?”

It stepped towards me again, its body beginning to feel endless and with no beginning. I pushed myself onto the floor. It stood above me, staring down at me. Its eyes had no wonder in them, no joy or fright. The abomination lowered its arms towards me, reaching through the air in hopes to grab a loose piece of clothing, or a limb. It pushed itself as far as it could go, my sweat pooling beneath me, tears running down my face. Everything began to blur around me as my body shook, forced into a seizure. I couldn’t hold still, keep calm or slow down. My heart beat inwards and outwards, my lungs sucking in and clinging onto volumes of air. Whatever it was felt unchangeable. As if in thousands of years, it would look and feel the same. Empty and endless. Unwilling to motion or reason beyond its own unspoken terms.
“Peter… Peter… Peter… Peter…” A being so horrible.
“Peter… Peter… Are you… Peter…”