Let me tell you my story. It was 3 AM. I toss and turn forcing my eyes shut. I think in my head I need to sleep, just sleep god dammit. Frustrated I open my eyes. My routine when I can’t sleep goes as follows: I open my eyes, check my phone, browse social media, watch ridiculous unfunny videos that plague my timeline, shared by people who I despise. But not this time.
I unlock my phone to see immediately I have no signal or wi-fi.
“S**t, my internet must be messing up again.” I think This is one of the downsides of living in a village so far away from main towns in my area, when people ask where I live I tell them, and they really have no idea where it is. It is often described as a village from outer space Because no one has ever heard of it, other that a few select people.
My village has been a hotspot for suicide over the past 50 years. The man who used to live in my house 30 odd years ago walked down the road to the bushes and small river just to blow his brains out. My next door neighbours house 30 years ago was housed by a man who went upstairs to his attic and was found swinging from the rafters of the roof a week later semi decomposed. Rumour has it you can still smell the stench of the rotting flesh up in the attic.
The last suicide I noted was only a few months back. A man from a village not to far from mine drove down to the highwayman woods two minutes away from my house and hung himself with a dog lead. What shocked me the most is that the night it happened I drove through the woods, I saw the car in which was parked at the side of the road.
I thought nothing off it maybe just someone walking their dog in the woods it was only until about 4 am in the morning when I went to pick my sister up from her weekly nights out. That’s when I passed the car, it was surrounded by police. I found out in the morning that it was a suicide, just to think I drove past a man who was about to, or had currently hung himself. Now driving down that road through the woods is more haunting than ever.
It was now 3:30 am. My internet was still not working and still no signal on my phone I decided to attempt to sleep again. As I had to be up at 7 in the morning for work.
When I inevitably couldn’t sleep I stared into the pitch black of my room. Sometimes my mind would play tricks on me and I would see a tall dark figure at the foot my bed just standing there as still as a statue, but this time it was not there.
All I could hear was silence and a popping of my TV and a decaying sound of my laptop fan. I often would leave my laptop on with the screen off ,as I found the hum rather soothing and if I saw the figure I could just move the mouse and the room would be lit up by the screen and the figure would disappear.
As I laid there all of sudden a loud PING sounded from my phone. I jolted up my phone screen was illuminated, I had just received a message from a number I had never seen before.
The number read – 00010101666
This was very strange as most numbers started with 07. I lifted my phone up to read the message. I was surprised to find was a voice recording. I played it out loud and all I could hear was a strange distorted static. Similar to white noise only augmented and glitched.
I reached over to my cabinet to grab my headphones to get a better sound. Maybe there was an emergency and someone could only send a voice message. But that didn’t explain the weird number.
I plugged the headphones in placed a headphone in each ear and pressed play. The same static noise played for 3 seconds then suddenly stopped. Only what could be described as a voice or growl began to speak.
The voice was dissonant it had several layers to it a low growl a mid range yarn, and a high pitch scream.
It snarled, “You can see me if you look closely, I am Nothing, I am Everything, I am Eternal, I am Immortal, I am Your Death.”
*BANG*
My room lit up a dark red, I was sat before the figure only this time I could see him more clearly. Teeth as brown as dirt. Fingers as long as knives and Red Eyes that pierced right through my body like bullets.
*CLICK*
The room shot to pitch black, a force unknown to man flung me back from my shoulders. Laying down I was now paralysed, I could not move.
I opened my mouth to scream nothing came out but a whimpered breathe.
“Now you see me, now you don’t.” Scorned the figures voice.
It began to laugh. AHH HA HA HA.”
The sound was so loud in my ear, I could feel small drops of liquid falling from my ear lobe not knowing if it was my own blood or the beasts drool flinging on my face. The sound crescendos. Once again I was subject to deadly silence. A red light flickered on and off, on and off, on and off. With each red flicker I could see the figures dirt brown smile grow, it was as bright as the moon. Off…, On…, Off…, On… The light flickered.
Each time the figure was getting closer and closer to my useless body.
The lights flicker faster and faster, The faster it flickered the closer it got. Until it was sat on my stomach. Moving his face closer to mine I forcefully closed my eyes.
Suddenly.
The light went a permanent red, I opened my eyes The figure had disappeared from my stomach.
I looked to the side at the clock had stopped ticking.
Maybe this was it. Maybe this was what death feels like…
“OH NO YOUR NOT DEAD… YET,” whispered in my ear. The window flung open. My cover shaped up in front of my eyes a noose which was then forced around my neck.
“Let me tell you my story,” growled The Darkness. I levitated up off my bed effortlessly as if I weighed the same as a feather.
“It was 3 AM”
The other end of the sheet made nose attached it’s self to the window. “I tossed and I turned forcing my eyes shut…” said the now familiar sounding voice, The figure flung my body out the window.
*Crack*
My neck broke upon reaching the end of the slack of the rope allowing me only seconds left to live. Before I died the voice said one last thing.
“YOU STILL DON’T KNOW WHO I AM DO YOU…”
“I AM NOTHING.”
“I AM EVERYTHING.”
“I AM ETERNAL.”
“I AM IMMORTAL.”
“I AM DEATH.”
“I AM YOU.”