3:48 pm. The man quietly walked down the middle of the street, not checking for traffic. He could hear if a car was coming anyway, for everything seemed quiet enough to make a mouse’s footsteps seem loud. The only noises on the street were the sound of his old, yet newly polished brown and white shoes hitting the pavement, and the sound of the grasshoppers chirping. The colors of the street lights didn’t change from green as he passed by, yet he wished they would. He wished he was walking on the sidewalk, watching the cars slowly drive by, caught in traffic. He thought over and over again to himself that the day had been so…. strange… the whole day he felt like something was watching him, but whenever he looked around him, nothing was there. He kept thinking where everyone was, he hadn’t seen a single neighbor come out of their house today, or even come towards their windows. He couldn’t decide where they were, where anyone was. He had gone to his job for the night shift, working in his office as usual, but he had found that the building was locked. It wasn’t open, no one was there, no lights were on. His car wasn’t working for some unknown reason, so he decided to walk there and call someone to get his car fixed while he was at work (his office building was only a few blocks away). He was walking back silently, almost as quiet as the neighborhood. Out of nowhere, he stopped in his tracks. He jolted backwards to look behind him, he had feared something was following him, but when he turned around, nothing was there. He only noticed his wet footprints from when he had stepped in a puddle a few steps back. He sighed and continued on his way.
11:32 pm. He hadn’t felt tired, and was still sitting on his couch watching the news with a cup of water on the table next to him. He rested his head on his right hand and started to drift to sleep, still thinking of his past fears from today. Suddenly he was jolted awake by a scratching noise. It was hard to describe, he hadn’t heard anything like it before. It was as if someone took a fork and was dragging it across his wood floorboards. He stood up slowly, not sure what was in there, but the one thing he knew, it definitely wasn’t human. He slowly crept towards his kitchen, his squeaky shoes giving him away. He leapt into the kitchen doorway, ready to face whatever was there… but there was nothing. He felt confused, as if he was going insane. He looked around the entire kitchen, every crack and crevice, not a single scratch anywhere. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to call the police, but he feared they wouldn’t even be able to respond. If the neighbors weren’t even there to say hello, and his co-workers weren’t even there to open the office, then what has happened to the police? He stumbled backwards for a moment and then slowly walked back to the couch. He was trying to wrap his head around this, what this could possibly be? He sat down, took a sip of water from the glass on the table, and tried to comprehend this. He felt insane, he wanted to get help from a therapist, he wanted to call a doctor to examine his mental health, he wanted to put himself into a string jacket and stay in a plush room for the rest of his life… but he couldn’t. A horrible thought crossed his mind, what if whatever was out there has taken everyone else? What if that was why he hadn’t seen anyone all day? He couldn’t bear the thought of anymore of this. He wanted it all to stop, for himself to wake up, for this to be some terrifying nightmare.
2:13 am. He was laying in bed, waiting for sleep. Hoping for sleep. He just wanted to rest and wake up able to think straight. He couldn’t sleep thinking about everything from the past day, even though he really wanted to. All of a sudden he heard a crash, the sound of glass breaking, he waited for a moment, hoping he had imagined it. He got out of bed, his heart pounding, thinking maybe a horrible creature would be somewhere in his house. He decided that the noise had come for the kitchen, where most of the glass cups had been kept. He slowly crept towards the kitchen once again, unaware what might be there, and with one deep breath, he looked into the kitchen. Nothing. No broken glass, no hideous monster, there was nothing there but an ordinary kitchen. He lost it. He screamed as loud as he could, screaming for the police, for the paramedics, for anyone. Finally he collapsed on to the floor, crying and screaming for anyone, convinced that some horrible entity was trying to drive him to insanity.
Observation time: 4:53 pm. The doctors were encircled around the man who seemed to be in a deep sleep, possibly in a coma. One nurse scribbled something onto a paper attached to a clipboard. One doctor prepared a needle filled with a fluid in case the patient lashed out at any of the doctors.
“Well… I think he’s done for.” One of the doctors said, breaking the silence. “Are you sure? His heartbeat has increased, but I think he still-” A nurse got cut off by another doctor, “But look, his mental health has declined greatly, he’s only asleep now, dreaming of whatever patients like him dream of.” The doctors walked out of the room one by one, leaving only one nurse left, looking at the man that was strapped to the table, with an increased pulse. She slowly walked out, and finally shut the heavy iron door, leaving no light in the dark, eerie room.
