PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR

When Dreams Are More Real Than Reality

Primordial vehicle so powerful you question knowing anything

Man looking at his own hands. Image generated by ChatGPT

Stuck indoors like a discard I burned through five candles every night for the last few nights.

“Candles?”

Yes, whoever left those boxes with hundreds of candles either didn’t make it to tell his own sorry ass goodnight, or is now foaming in a straitjacket in some faraway institution.

“Pfff–”

Hey don’t pfff me. Just hear me out.

“I’ve always liked stories about candles, Kevin.” Martha’s sarcasm is not something I tolerated.

Don’t worry about it then!

“I’m sorry, please tell me.”

It sped up its burn rate.

“What? How?”

Last night’s candle burned so fast it hissed like a snake’s head.

“You pulled on the wick?”

I pulled my dick.

“Come on, I just don’t understand… tell me.” Martha annoyed me, always.

It was burning a big long orange tongue, but at some point it stopped.

“Went out?”

No, not snuffed out. It stopped flickering like time froze and I —

“And you?”

I stopped breathing.

“Huh?”

I stopped inhaling and exhaling, OK?

“Why?!”

I don’t know. My lungs just stopped doing their thing and —

“And you died.”

Will you ever listen, or you jus’ gonna mock me.

“I swear I’m not. What happened?”

Next I found myself standing in front of the bathroom mirror.

“You are going to make me shit my pants aren’t you.”

The dim yellow had me nudging forward just to see anything in the reflection. Dark silhouettes darted all around and at first I thought they were cockroaches.

“Oh my god, stop it.”

No really. Something brushed my arm, then I heard a shuffling sound somewhere behind me. I closed my eyes to wish it away and —

“All the while you are dead?”

You’ve never heard of active listening, have you?

“OK, sorry; what happened after you closed your eyes?”

I felt prodding at my ankle.

“AND?”

My foot jerked and then came one loud BAM!

“Shut up. That did not happen.”

I’m telling you. LOUD. Like a gun shot.

“What’d ya do?”

Panicked.

“Ahh”

I flicked on the bulb and found nothing interesting. I was in bed.

“HA. So it was a dream then, you GOOF!”

Yeah, drifting back into sleep would have been wise, but no. Nah. Not to my dumb anthropological curiosity.

“Oh, that better be the best part.”

I got up and paced toward the bathroom across what looked like a cave.

“A cave?”

Yeah, a fucking cave!!!

“OMG go on.”

To my surprise, the mirror was smashed to pieces. Some of the bigger shards in the sink were bloodied. I looked at my own hands and they were bloodied too!

“WHAT?”

Ya, no shit. A trail of gore smeared behind me. I brought my face closer to one of the shards and saw myself covered in dark maroon.

“NO!”

Then I felt the heat, my heart pounded like a power tool until everything went black.

[SILENCE]

I regained consciousness on the bathroom floor. Hard, cold, terribly uncomfortable. My bones ached.

“Tell me you stayed there for the whole night.”

No no. I slowly pushed myself upward, shuffled toward the kitchen like an old fart. Raised my stiff neck to look at the green numerals. The display read 3:05 AM.

“Don’t stop and jus’ tell it all.”

My head felt so heavy I thought it was filled with lead. No idea how long I stood there propped against the wall like a vacuum in the utility room, before I decided to drag myself into the massive cave to catch a sight of that evil flicker across the far end.

[Martha looked defeated. Her entire body transfixed]

Standing there, or more like crunched into a fiddle, my gargoyle self suddenly remembered the bad stuff, everything that evil candle did to me.

“Like WHAT?”

You know, demon voices, sharp glass pieces, the pleasure of pain. I remembered doing shit that would make serial killers in maximum-security crawl up cement walls.

“You remembered all that? Kevin, you scare me.”

I know, horrid stuff.

“You in a cave full of blood. Don’t tell me it smelled good.”

I licked it off the floor while calling your name, Martha.

“SHUT UP!” We broke into laughter.

“Now tell me how it ended before I take a bite of your stiff neck.”

Well, I was kinda paralyzed.

“I got that part. You aged in minutes, but then what happened after that?”

I slowly turned my seized-up corpse around, somehow remembered the light switch existed, and just went for it with my shriveled corpse wriggling and scraping across that dark, evil cave.

“Yes, yes. Lights on, lights on! Tell me, tell me, tell me!” Martha’s eyes doubled their size.”

I turned the lights on and, to my absolute bewilderment, the floor —

“Covered in dismembered bodies and one of those bodies was me?”

Martha.

“OK sorry, go on.”

It was clean.

“Your bloodied dick?”

The floor, Martha, the floor was perfectly clean!

“Don’t disappoint me like that, Kevin. Were you at least cut up and bleeding?”

No. I was standing upright, not hunched. My body was not aching anywhere. No stains. Head light and happy. Just normal me.

“WEIRD. Did you look around?”

OH YA. I went to the bathroom and found the mirror intact. Not a single drop of blood anywhere. I turned around to look at the candle at the far end, and there was no candle. I ran toward the wardrobe to look for traces of wax, burnt out wick, but there were none.

“So no candle boxes or anything remotely ominous about your downtown condo you are telling me.”

NOPE. NONE.

“So what was that? What the hell?”

Martha, I’m just as confused.

“Not even blood on the bed sheet?”

I looked at the bed and there was a man sleeping.

“Don’t tell me you’re gay now.”

Martha.

“Okay, some dude snuck into your bed because you are handsome. Was he naked at least?”

I don’t think so.

“Then just TELL ME.”

I came closer and realized I was looking at myself sleeping, dreaming about standing there and looking at myself sleeping, dreaming about standing there and looking at myself sleeping —

“WAIT. Are you dreaming now?”

Are you?

Martha, where are you?

A contribution to my Ko-Fi account would help me wake up.