The apartment complex around him was virtually silent but for the
sound of his footsteps against the ground, his heels striking the ground and
echoing across the floor as he made his way for the basement, muttering under
his breath. The stranger in his head was mercifully silent, but there was only
the sensation of rage for him. It was totally inappropriate to have him
babbling away like that in his head, and he didn’t want to fight the damn thing
anymore. He wanted this done with, he wanted to have this over with, wanted to
deal with the damn thing…but at the same time he wondered if he wanted to be
done with what it brought him. He was deep enough in thought that by the time
he made his way down into the basement, he was paying little enough attention
until all of a sudden the rush of the darkness and the intensity of the
location seemed to hit him all at once.
Darkness stretched around him, dark and thick and consuming as he
opened the door to the basement, his hand running over a knob that seemed to
rust over beneath his fingertips, the metal rough on the inside of his palm as
he turned it and looked down. The light from the hallway, pale yellow and
translucent, seemed to slice through the darkness like a knife, illuminating it
as he stepped down into the shadows, the first step making the stairs creek and
thud below him. It was every horror movie basement, every twisted sadist’s den,
and the darkness was thick and cold and smelled of blood. He didn’t know how
this was possible, he knew this couldn’t be real, but everything around him
told him it was the real world… only different. As he stepped down into the
darkness and closed the door behind him, he was painfully aware that he couldn't’
see through this darkness. It wasn’t like night, it was something else
entirely, something… painful. The world around him was closed, to both body and
soul, and he felt lost within it, the only sensations he could feel the aging
wood beneath his feet and the rusty metal railing leading down into oblivion.
He started walking.
It was so cold… he didn’t know how it could be that cold down there,
but he could hear something breathing. Hear something tapping, and as he
stepped down into the darkness hear an old tune he half remembered whistled
from nowhere. He couldn’t see anything, literally couldn’t see his hand on the
banister, and as soon as he felt his foot his hard ground, felt the
uncomfortable lurch of trying to step to a stair that wasn’t there and finding
only solid ground, there was the snap and flare of a lighter to his right,
illuminating the darkness. He whirled quickly but impossibly fast there was a
sensation of pain across his face, a striking blow and an immense pressure like
a sledge hammer that knocked him clean off his feet and sent him skidding on
the concrete. The taste of blood, his blood, filled his mouth, and he spat to
the gritty floor beneath him as he sprung back to his feet, whirling in the
darkness, feeling the beat of his heart hammering against his ribcage. His
fists shot up, but it was useless; he couldn’t see, he couldn’t fight, he didn’t
know jack shit about whatever it was… about whoever it was…
He didn’t know anything about the stranger.
“That’s right, Saito. You don’t.” From the darkness a voice came,
one that was his voice and not his voice at the same time, and there was the
sound of a slow, casually puffing breath before a cinder appeared in the
darkness, glowing a bright red and illuminating his own face for just a moment,
a few paces away. It was his face and not his face, the hair lank and black
over his skin and his mouth slit open from cheek to cheek, silver rings holding
it shut. His face, in the light of the moment, looked as though it had
piercings and maybe even a tattoo before the eyes snapped to him and the lips
spread into a grin that was wider then it had any right to be. He spoke, and
little puffs of smoke curled around his face, illuminating him slightly so that
Saito could see him before his eyes snapped to Saito’s face, mirrored in the
light of his own cigarette. “You don’t know jack shit about me, Saito…” he said,
voice soft and controlled and almost removed as though he were studying
something particularly interesting under his nail while telling him this, just
before his face broke into a grin. “Need a light?” he said, chuckling to
himself before he blew the smoke out through the slits in his cheeks, the grey
vapor the only thing visible in the darkness as it slid up over his face,
outlining but not revealing him before it was gone, and there was only darkness
again, darkness and the echoing sound of footsteps. His heart ran a bit faster
as he struggled to keep his breathing straight.
“Alright, I get it, I don’t know you, so what-“ Saito started before
the sensation of pain blossomed across his face once more, this time starting
from his mouth and his teeth and sending a more acute jab of pain through his
jaw. He could feel his lips split under pressure, feel the sensation of his
sharp teeth cutting the skin as he fell back… and he realized it wasn’t
knitting back together. It was just staying that way. He rolled back, panting to his feet when he
started to feel panic begin to grip him, an unfamiliar sensation, so unreal to
him. It had been so many years since he’d really felt panic like this. He could
die-he could die here, murdered in the dark, with never a soul to hear him in
this cold darkness. He could die-
“That’s right.” The voice said coolly from the dark; it sounded like
it should have echoed but it didn’t, it simply came from nowhere and everywhere
at the same time without interacting with him. There was no direction to it,
just that it was said, and it seemed as though it was close to him, though he couldn’t
tell. “You could die. You’re not healing anymore, are you? Your lips aren’t
getting better, are they? What’s wrong, Saito? Cat got your tongue?” The word
ended with a blow that drove the breath from Saito’s lungs, knocking him
backwards as though he’d been kicked in the stomach, the dull sensation
intimately familiar as he skidded backwards, staggering and holding himself as
he groaned and fought not to sink to his knees, panting hard, the panic almost
overwhelming him. He wanted to scream, wanted to shout, needed to do something
to feel less afraid-
“Help me…” he whispered in the dark, his voice breaking as he said
it, looking out and seeing only a pair of mirrored eyes gazing back in the
distance. “Please, help me…” he whispered, feeling a tear run down his cheek as
the light flared, the face appearing leaning back once more as it took another
long puff of the cigarette, breathing out and looking forward almost
disappointedly.
“You don’t know anything about me.” The other man said, examining
the cigarette in his fingertips morosely, “but you know that I could kill you,
and you’re asking me for help. You know what that means, Saito? You know what
all this means?” he sighed slightly before he looked up to Saito, putting his
head in his hand and cocking it slightly as he looked to him with a wide, falsely
sad smile like a wolf telling its prey that it’s a dead end in the cave it just
ran down. “I was going easy on you. I was playing nice. All those nice little
talks we had in your head, all those times you mouthed off to me? You were a
big man then, Saito, weren’t you? A big man when you could see, when you could
stand on your own two feet, when you could bend steel and take bullets. But
what did I ever do to you, really? I gave you a headache, now and then.” He sneered,
curling his lips up and showing off his teeth as his voice turned mocking. “I
told you to take the hint. To give it a go. I was nice, Saito. But you never
bought into it… I’ll hand it to you, Saito; you were a big man, running around
with all the shit I gave you.” He was gone, then, and the next time he spoke,
it was a few feet away from him, and the smoke curled out his lips and rolled
up his face, outlining it but never revealing it.
“But you…were…SCARED…” Voice slow, staying slow, staying the same as
before, calm and collected as he started back up again, the sound of the
cigarette hitting the floor as it twisted to the pavement. “Why were you
scared, Saito? I never did anything. I never even looked at you funny. I was
nice and patient-“
“I-“ Saito started, his voice breaking before he screamed, before
pain ran down his spine, exploding from his spine. There was the pain he was
used to, the pain of a punch, of a cut, of a bruise, even of a gunshot, but not
pain like this, like something had cut open his back along the spine and the
flesh was boiling over and spilling open like rising bread dough, wet and
sticky and bloody as it ran down his back like the tears on his screaming face
before it stopped when a foot struck his face and kicked him to the side,
sending him sobbing and sprawling across the ground.
“No, Saito, you don’t get to talk yet.” The other man said, almost
happily as he looked down to him, visible in the blackness as he slowly started
towards him. “I was nice, and I was patient, and all I did was prod a bit here
and there, and you were scared. So scared you didn’t know it. You didn’t let
yourself know it. Because you can’t handle it, Saito. You can’t handle just how
scary I can be. You dream of monsters, and you fight monsters, and you kill
monsters… but you can’t kill me, Saito.” He whispered, his voice growing
fiercer and more exultant as he started to laugh.
“You can’t kill me, Saito! You can hurt me… you can cut me… you can
cry yourself to sleep and pretend that I’m gone… but you can’t fucking kill me,
Saito! You can’t fucking kill me, and you can’t run anymore, Saito!” His voice
was manic now, echoing around the room as his laughter grew, shaking in his
chest and growing to something terrible as he kicked him in the side, sprawling
him over onto his stomach. It was almost a reprieve, the pain was familiar,
something Saito could understand before even that was gone. Fingertips were
pushing through his back, into his spine, down inside him, he could feel the
claws sharp and acute inside him as pain blasted through his spine. He tried
not to think about the scything fingertips he felt, tried not to feel them
ripping him open from behind as he screamed and screamed into the floor, the
mad laughter from behind him echoing into the dark as the figure behind him
screamed it’s fury and laughter and bloody joy to it’s victim.
“You can’t kill who you are, Saito, you can’t kill who I am! You can’t
kill what’s inside you, Saito, because you can’t kill ME!” he howled with
laughter, pulling sharply and ripping open his back as Saito’s eyes flashed
red, as strobes of white ran across his vision. He couldn’t hear himself anymore
couldn’t hear his screaming as the figure laughed and laughed and laughed, as
he felt it bore inside him and tear out everything he was, every last mediocre
bit until he was hollow, screaming the whole time. “You can’t kill me, Saito,
you can’t kill me! Scream for me, Saito, scream for me, show me just how afraid
you are, because that’s just what I am, Saito! You feel this-“ Agony- “You feel
this-!” Terror- “YOU FEEL THIS-!” Panic- “AND YOU KNOW MY NAME! SCREAM IT,
FUCKER, SCREAM MY NAME, YOU MOTHERFUCKER, SCREAM-“
“Yoji...!!”
The sound burst from his throat as a terrified sob, the sound of a
torture victim who can’t hold back any longer, who is broken and whose
interrogators have one. He was in his bed, in his room, but it didn’t matter
because he was still there, because he could feel him laughing, because he
could feel the pain running down his spine like the tears running down his
cheeks and he knew he would never be alone. He knew why he was afraid of him,
he knew who he was, he knew everything…
He lay there, curled in his bed, wishing to die but knowing he
wouldn’t, knowing that he was as strong as ever… because he was still there…
Boo.
He woke up later never realizing he’d passed out, shaking and sobbing
and begging for an end. It would be a day and a half before he could stop, and
he hated himself for it the whole time.
2250
Home 
Log in 
