I’m running from something. I don’t remember what. But I know that I can’t stop because sticky black panic is boiling in my chest, the froth bubbling up into my throat and out of my mouth.
I burst out of the trees and am enveloped by the emptiness of a neighborhood. The streets are stained a sickly yellow by the weary, stooped streetlights. Darkness lurks in the gaps between houses. Orange smothers the green, dyeing the trees an ominous color. Houses are stripped of their identities. Everything is strange and unfamiliar. If this was my own neighborhood, I don’t think I’d be able to recognize it.
I stop in front of a house. The windows are black. Blacker than emptiness can be: someone must have blocked them off. A rope missing its swing is suspended from a tree like a hangman’s noose. It sways in the still air, counting time for some invisible musician. The flowers in front of the porch reach up, hundreds of tiny hands grasping for sunlight. There are eyes on every leaf, the ground has ears and mouths and teeth. I sway in the thick air, bathed in yellow light and fear.
I don’t notice that I’m moving towards the house until I’ve already taken a few steps. And the air around me is no longer sickly warm and viscous. It evaporates into empty space as I start to panic, nothing between me and the stars and whatever else is out there.
My hand reaches out and opens the door. I can see into the gaping mouth of the house.
Something moving catches my eye.
I remember what it was I was running from.
He’s tall. That’s the first thing I notice. I keep staring. His skin is gray — a smooth, mottled color. It looks like he’s slowly being consumed by some ash-colored parasite. The skin is barely stretched across his veins, which are bulging out of him, everywhere humans have them and a few places we don’t.
His whole body is pulsing to the rhythm of the blood in his veins. The skin looks thin enough that you should be able to see – maybe even hear – it flowing through him. When I look again, I wonder if his blood is even moving. It seems more like his veins are filled with some dark congealed liquid, expanding and contracting, stuck in place.
He’s moving away from me, but all relief evaporates when I see what he’s moving towards. A dark figure, lying on the floor, squirming slightly.
He crouches on the floor next to the figure, lowers his face to it.
I can hear him chewing. The sound fills the whole neighborhood, soaks into my brain. I don’t think I’m ever going to stop hearing it.
The sound breaks me out of my trance, and I take a step back, preparing to run.
As soon as I move, he stands upright. He’s taller than he was before. And he’s looking directly at me.