The story “It Creeps in like Darkness” was created after reading the stimulus text of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, which is also written from the eyes of a mental patient who suffers from hallucinations.
It Creeps in Like Darkness…
Darkness.
They say if you look at the light you can no longer see the darkness, but the thing they forget to mention is, once the darkness finds you, it clings to you like the shadow from the setting sun. I had heard it once before but I had never truly known what it meant until that day.
I had started shivering before I heard small taps from the rain against the window, and turned to watch it snake down to rest at the windowsill. It had such a humble request; asking me to turn and quickly admire the small rainbow reaching out, before being destroyed forever by the looming rainclouds. I clung tightly to the blanket wrapped around my shoulders, its gentle caress blocking out the world around me and keeping my own thunderstorm from breaking free. It wasn't long before the fire began to die out, forcing me to throw some more firewood into the fireplace but I quickly sat in front of it again; warming myself from the cold and dark that had embedded itself into every crevasse of my home and now was battling its way to my core. I could see them. I watched them erupt from the shadows; their white pupil-less eyes staring intently at me from the safety of the shadows. Occasionally one would reach out their long-fingered hands to grab me; hoping to pull me forever into the darkness but as long as the fire was lit, its flickering light would push them away again.
Suddenly the fire erupted. In my hast to rekindle the flames, I had put too much firewood in and now it was too bright, too hot! The shadow demons scattered; screaming as they ran. It was relentless. That scream, those eyes.
"No", I whispered, "no, no. Please stop it, stop it! Stop it! I don't want to remember! I can't remember it! Please!" I screamed shakily into the darkness, cowering at the memory clawing its way back into my mind. The storm outside had begun to copy the frenzying fireplace; raining for all its worth causing the glass in the window to shake. The fire was still raging but the demons noticed my suffering and stopped running to relish in it. They screamed again and again, watching with those pupil-less eyes and that wicked grin, "No…please" That scream was my scream. Those eyes were his eyes. I could feel my sanity slipping away, I could feel myself cracking.
“He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming to kill you. He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s gonna rip you apart.” They chanted surrounding me, like children dancing to ring-a-roses. “No. No, please!” I whimpered as memories flicked through my mind tauntingly. Rain in my eyes, a flash of silver, blood swelling, pain peeking, fear taking over and hate burning at my mind. Their laughter; like his, their eyes; like his, their nails; like his, clawing at my skin causing droplets of blood to erupt from my arms and throat. Their claws dug deeper; allowing scarlet streams to flood out uncontrollably, feeling like silver talons on my skin. “He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming to silence you. He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming to disembowel you!”
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The sun rose refreshingly over the old house; still dripping from the storm the night before. Warming its bricks and tiles; gradually creeping into the rooms in a flood of gold. The gold hit scarlet in a beautiful contrast of colours, that danced around a frail young creature; mangled and broken on the floor. As the light grew brighter, and the scarlet grew blacker, it revealed her body to be peppered with deep gaping cuts. However only if you looked closely you could see the words that she slashed into her own arm, “It was real, even if it didn’t happen.”
