Last resort

I don't think I have long. The shape and the stranger are growing restless.

I can't take it anymore. If I'm going to die, I'm going to take those things with me, and I know I'm going to die.

I've got a gun. I've got a knife. I don't expect either to work against the things I'm up against, but it's better than nothing.

Mom, Dad, Tom, I'm sorry this is how you had to find out who I really am.

 

If I survive this, well, cat's out of the bag.

If not...

Well. I love you. And goodbye.

Fear is here

There are more of them than I had ever realized. I dreamed of them, guided by the shape’s whispering.

There is a doctor dressed in a cloak and a mask. His clothing does not prevent him from spreading the disease he is supposed to cure. Of course, he only makes it worse.

There is a metal tower that grows from human flesh.

There is a murder of crows. They burn with lightning and shake the sky with thunder.

There is an angel that hides behind the faces of the dead.

There are countless souls, unbound from physical forms except when they take others' bodies and rot them away.

 

There is a puppet who pulls the strings of others.

 

There is a child of ice who haunts the lonely and the cold.

And of course, there is a stranger with too many faces and a shape that whispers at night.

But I know in my heart that there are more besides.

Living alone

I'm living alone. I have for the past few years, ever since I learned for sure that my parents' home isn't safe. I decided I didn't want to endanger anyone else if the shape or the stranger got more aggressive than they have been in the past.

It's taken its toll on me, but as the whisperer has returned yet again, I think it might be good I've isolated myself here.

Sleep no more

I had a dream last night about the shape whispering to me. It was one of the first coherent things I've been able to make out in a long time.

"Sleep no more."

Give up

I keep trying to keep living normally. I know I can't escape. But there's always the lingering knowledge at the back of my mind that it would be so much easier to give up.

Routine

I have to try to forget about all of this. It's hard, but every time I move somewhere else, the shape and the stranger are there, and nothing I can do will stop them. So as terrified as I still am, I just have to live with it. Make the fear routine.

I really hope I can.

Losing coherence

I know I'm starting to lose coherence lately.

Well, I haven't been entirely honest with you. See, when I said the stranger's face was blurred by the flash, I knew what really happened. The camera revealed the truth.

And I've been losing sleep. I mean, how am I supposed to sleep when no matter where I go there's a stranger staring at me, no matter what time I go to bed I hear something whispering to me and dragging something metallic across the ground as its dark shape moves away?

I'm not imagining things.

Or at least, I wasn't.