Horror (Pt. 1)

 I sense the shadows lengthening.

I feel their grip tightening like a vice.

Yet, I succumb, like a moth to light, only to be consumed.

As I drew the curtains of the lounge window shut, I thought I'd glimpsed out of the corner of my eye, a silhouette, patiently standing, watching. It had long hair like a woman. I shudder to think what color its eyes were, for I thought I had seen, for the briefest of moments, a sharp glimmer of red.

When I looked outside the porch from my room while alone, I thought I'd seen it again, albeit this time leering at me mockingly, as if knowing my abstinence to be a charade of hypocritical proportions. 

I hear things falling down in my room upstairs, while sleeping downstairs. I'm afraid to go and check, as many a time, it has indeed been one or more holy texts that I'd placed in that unholy place having fallen down of their own accord, sometimes with one or more pages strewn across the tiled floor.

The strongest the shadow has ever been, is within the dreary depths of my mind, the epicenter of  darkness. The temptations take their time, exploiting my state of vulnerability, and when they strike, are fueled by excess, which is its very own doctrine of necessity. My mind gets fractured, my vision, fragmented. I cannot focus especially when the myriad matters of urgency plague my mind. 

It cannot be. Surely, I cannot be 'haunted' for no one else has heard, seen or felt what I have. Everything has its own rational explanation, or it is as it seems to me, when the doing gets done. Besides, the clamor of life outside my window ensures me that I live in relative luxury. Why then this growing remoteness?

I have endeavored to wander at length regarding the nature of my predicament. As of yet, the shadows have not receded, and I've never escaped their watchful eye. An acquaintance of an old friend which I already find myself in short supply, offered to help. I obliged. There was some success, however I still felt watched. Unbeknownst to him, I secretly indulged myself once more in a moment of vulnerability. To my horror, I found the already lingering whispers, multiplying, at times even echoing. My old friends once again sauntered into my mind, weaving beautiful webs of deceit. 

The hour is late. The dogs howl, the little flame flickers then dances madly. 

Blissful sleep is to be interrupted. 

Hot become cold. 

All that is holy must be hidden, out of shame.

 The mirror becomes a doorway and the infernal knocking begins. 

Here they come again.