1-2 They See You
She was exhausted the next morning. She was unable to go back to sleep for fear that she would see the dark figure again. She was afraid that the next time she saw it the outcome would be more fatal. She tried to get through the day as if nothing had ever happened, but this time she was unable to hide the scratches. Not because they were on her face, she would have been able to cover it easily with enough makeup; these scratches were just too deep. People noticed. Customers snickered and whispered, pointing and trying not to make eye contact all day. Even the other workers would huddle together in corners making up their own stories.
She tried to ignore it the same way she tried when she was younger, before she knew how to hide it. Walking down the hallways of elementary school, seeing all the other kids huddled near doorways and water fountains whispering in each other's ears while staring in her direction. All the adults thought she was being abused by her mother. She had almost been taken from her on numerous occasions, but no one could ever prove where the cuts and bruises actually came from. Her mother asked once, only once. She often wondered why her mother seemed so unconcerned. Why all she did was show her how just a little foundation blended properly would cover that bruise right up! "Don't worry sweetie, they're only dreams. You must have just been moving around so much that you bumped your leg on the wall…Oh my, those darn bedsprings must be poking through that old mattress. Well we'll just flip it over till we can get a new one." Eventually she stopped telling her mother. She just started covering it up and hiding it until everyone forgot. Eventually she would get a few friends off and on, but she mostly preferred to keep to herself. She tried to lead a normal life, but that would be impossible now.
There was a man with a black hooded jacket, the hood hiding his face as he sat with his head lowered, sitting in her section. He had come in not long ago. He seemed strange. He wouldn't look up at all, not even when Eden was taking his order. Coffee, that's all he wanted. He sat stirring his coffee and scribbling on a napkin for the next ten minutes. Then he slid the napkin under the cup, got up from his seat, pulled some crumpled money out of his pocket, tossed it on the table and left. Never once did he raise his head. Eden went over to clean up the table for the next customer. After she picked up the cup she froze when she saw what was on the napkin, "Do you see them Eden? They see you. Run Eden. Run."
The cup fell from her hands, shattering into pieces on the floor. She slowly took a few steps back, raising her hand to cover her mouth, just so that she wouldn't scream. The walls seemed like they were closing in around her. She didn't even notice the people staring at her or the manager yelling. Everything seemed so unreal. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Then it all stopped. Time stopped. She looked around in shock to see the manager who had been yelling at her had frozen in mid-sentence. Jesse had been pouring some coffee that had completely stopped halfway out of the pot. Everything…everyone…had all stopped.
Just then she heard a chuckle from a corner table. She slowly walked over to see an old man hunched over a plate of hash browns and eggs. Something was moving on the plate and there was a smell, an awful smell. As she got closer the chuckling got louder and she stopped for a second, but something inside her urged her to continue. She took a few more steps and the chuckling stopped when she was just a couple feet away from the table. She looked down at the plate noticing the movement of the food that looked as if it were breathing. As she started to lean in a little to examine the plate the hash browns burst open and out poured a pile of maggots that squirmed all over the plate, the food had turned black and rotten. Eden gagged and turned away with her hand covering her mouth once again.
The chuckling started back up. She slowly turned to look back at the old man. Then he slowly turned his head towards her revealing his hideously twisted smile that stretched all the way across his face. His teeth looked old and decayed and sharpened to a point. His eyes were sunken and dark. She couldn't move. She didn't know what to do, where to run. The old man just sat laughing and staring at her. Then he spoke, "He saw you Eden. He's very unhappy with you. You snuck into his home, you didn't even say hi. Tsk, tsk." He turned his head away and continued to laugh. She stood in disbelief trying to analyze the scene; was she dreaming again? Had she fallen back asleep? No, this was no dream. This was real. Somehow her nightmares had spilled over into reality and she had no control over it. She tried to take a step back, but her legs wouldn't allow it. Every muscle in her body had weakened and as she shifted from one foot to the other her legs gave out and she went crashing to the floor.
Just when she thought things couldn't get any worse she heard the jingle of the bell over the entrance door. She looked up to see the strange man from before come walking back in among the other still frozen people. He calmly walked behind the counter and helped himself to a cup of coffee then sat back down at the same table he had sat at before, still not looking up to acknowledge anyone in particular he simply said, "Go home Nybbas."
The old man quickly jumped up from his table and scurried past Eden over to the man, "On what authority do you speak to me this way?" The man at the table raised his head to look at the old man and smirked. The old man backed away hissing. "You won't be so confident when your skin is covered in puss filled blisters and boils and you're being beaten with your own severed limbs!" he said to the man at the table before vanishing in a black mist.
Eden started pushing herself back up onto her feet. Once she was standing again she raised her head and noticed that time had started moving normally and no one seemed to be aware that anything out of the ordinary had happened. She looked over to the table where the man had been sitting and he was gone. Still confused and quite bewildered she walked over to the table where she found another note. "Yeah, that's not running is it Eden? Try listening next time."
Eden was clearly shaken. She told the manager she wasn't feeling well, and after being firmly reprimanded and informed that she would be missing out on the days tips and her next paycheck would be docked he agreed to let her go home. She promptly gathered her belongs and hurried out the door. The bus ride home seemed to last forever and she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched, though there were no signs that anyone even noticed her. Every time the bus came to a stop to let others on she felt overwhelmed with anxiety waiting to see who was getting on the bus next. Was she going to see another demonic face? Would it be the man from the diner that seemed to know who she was, though she had no knowledge of ever seeing him before? As soon as the person would come into view she would feel a slight sense of relief that they appeared to be just another person, though she was still unsure. Once her stop finally came she walked as quickly as she could from the bus stop to her house.
There was a feeling of dread as she got to the walkway leading to the door. She stopped for a moment, staring at the house where she had been attacked while she slept. It seemed like such a simple house; a house where one would feel at ease. She was so happy when she first moved in; she had worked hard to save up money to pay the deposit and she finally had a home of her own. She put so much care into decorating it just the way she wanted, planting flowers around the house underneath each window.
She remembered the first day waking up in the house. It was the first night she hadn't had any nightmares. For the first time in her life she had felt hopeful that everything would be ok. Sipping a warm cup of tea, wrapped in a thick blanket, she sat in an old wicker chair that she had picked up at a yard sale, listening to the birds sing their final songs before the cold of winter sent them off to warmer climates. It was peaceful. It was safe. Now, it was a place of terror. It wasn't long after that when the nightmares started seeping back into her life. However bad they were she told herself that she would never let them control her, but she couldn't think that way anymore; everything had become too real.
She slowly walked up the walkway to the front door with the key in her hand. Her hands were shaky when unlocking the door. She stepped in and stood in the doorway for a few seconds, and then she made a decision. She ran to her room and rummaged through the closet for a suitcase. After finding the suitcase buried under some old coats she tossed it on the bed and quickly began stuffing her clothes and any other things she might need inside. She had packed so much in that it was a little difficult to close and she had to fight with it for a bit, but eventually she was able to get it shut. She grabbed the heavy suitcase and hurried out of the house, slamming the door behind her. She didn't know where she was going or if she'd be back, but she knew that she didn't want to stay in that house, at least not tonight.