***
The sun bathed in red blood while the sky above was swallowed by the encroaching darkness.
Mark too tired to notice drove through the deep forest. His weary face, once vibrant with life, now bore the weight of fear and guilt.
His phone buzzed with a new message.
"Why aren't you picking up?" Instead of replying , he ignored the message.
He passed by a sign filled with numerous straight strokes.
Cedarbrook Estates, 5 kilometers.
The time was 6:30 PM, but the streets were empty.
As the sun sank into darkness, it enveloped the neighborhood in a shroud of uncertainty, devoid of sounds; even the birds chirping in the forest abandoned their songs.
When Mark arrived at his house, it was already unlocked. A wave of exhaustion washed over him, clouding his thoughts.
"Did I lock the door before I left? "he muttered, his voice tinged with weariness. The weight of fatigue hung heavy on him as he entered the house.
He locked the door and switched on the light, but there was no power. He used his phone to find the candle and matches from the cupboards in the main hall.
In the stillness of the dark, he heard some whimpering around him. Carefully, he lit up the candle and looked around, only to see his own bloody hands.
He was so shocked that the melted wax falling on his hand didn't inflict any pain. Darkness and silence filled the room, suffocating him. Then the light from the door to the hallway lit up.
With a throbbing headache, Mark sank his exhausted body on the sofa forgetting what happened before, he opted to leave the lights off. As he nestled into the cushion, he felt faint breathing, inches away from his face. The air felt colder, denser, suffused with a palpable unease that made Mark's skin crawl. His tired muscles tensed involuntarily as he struggled to shake off the familiar scent of blood.
Was it merely his fatigue playing tricks on him, or was there something more sinister lurking in the shadows? The thought sent a jolt of fear coursing through him. Quickly he opened his eyes, but there was nothing. He switched on the lights to make sure he was not hallucinating.
Next,he dragged his body to the bathroom and took a quick hot shower, alleviating some of his tiredness.
After freshening up, he opened the fridge and took some salad to eat while watching television.
There was nothing that piqued his interest on TV as he flipped through the channels, so he turned it off. But the TV turned on itself and started to play.
A dimly lit hallway appeared on the screen, with two sets of stairs, one in the front and the next to the left. The stairway in front had a giant window showing the dimly lit streetlight in the heavy rain.
The Thunder roared, and lightning flashed; Rain poured relentlessly from the heavens, drumming against the windows with an unrelenting intensity. Mark found himself transported to a familiar yet unfamiliar place - a piece of the past he was trying to forget unfolded before him.
The sound of heavy Steps echoed in the hallway, but there was also another sound.Something heavy and dull.
As Mark focused on the stairs, he saw a person coming down; when the lightning flashed again, he saw his own face, covered in blood. In his left hand, there was a bloody iron hammer, and in his right, a dead body.
He was dragging a woman's body through the stairs, his wife. There was a bloody hole in her head, and the blood oozing from the wound, left trails on the steps.
Mommy! Came a cry behind him.
His heart throbbed, recognizing the voice. Then something flashed through the side of his head, a hammer; his daughter's blood splattered on his face.
He lost the strength of his legs and fell, only to return to the familiar hall room where he was watching TV.
"Daddy"
once again the voice rang beside him. His heart raced, breath hitched and the cold sweats invoked a great fear
Are you afraid of me, Daddy?
His eyes met those her innocent eyes but her small face,now riddled with a hole and cracked skull smiled with her blood dripping teeth
"Honey!!",another metallic, screeching voice sounded from afar, there he saw a bloody woman at the kitchen door.
"Ahhh!" he screamed.
A Familiar hammer appeared in his hands, and he threw it at her then ran away from the house; he was screaming and running like a madman, escaped from an asylum.
Thud.
But he was hit by something on the way. As he lay on the road, blood oozing slowly, he was relieved until he saw the two pairs of eyes in front of him.
"Honey!"
"Daddy!"
"Are you running away?!"
Their voices drifted on the air, like the soft rustle of leaves on a moonlit night, yet somehow more sinister.
"Noo" ,he screamed as dark tentacles rose from the abyss, dragging him into the nightmare again.
**
Mark jolted awake from the nightmare, his heart pounding against his chest as he gasped for breath. Blinking rapidly, he struggled to shake off the lingering tendrils of the dream that clung to his consciousness like cobwebs. It was just another in a long line of unsettling dreams that had become all too familiar.
It was 5:30 PM. He decided to go early today, as he was tired. He drove through the familiar forest with his weary dark eyes as the forest shadows watched him leave.
A custom notification rang, and his phone buzzed with a message.
"Why aren't you picking up", Instead of replying, he ignored it.
He passes by a sign filled with numerous straight strokes.
"Cedarbrook Estates, 5 kilometers."
And from the darkness, the finger of the Devil emerged to add one more stroke to the sign.