This is Nuts!

In this world, you are not normal if you are not crazy.

This Is Nuts!

The only good thing about the day was that Alex was finally discharged from the hospital. I was happy for him too, but the wolf looked like he had won the lottery. You couldn't wipe the smile off his face.

Of course, the cat didn't jump from joy when it saw its owner. Perhaps it had begun to think that it had finally got rid of him for good, and now it had to admit that it was wrong. When the wolf entered our shared room, the cursed being immediately jumped up from its seat and looked at Alex with a mixture of hatred and disgust, growling maniacally and managing to inflate itself to three times its original size.

Unfortunately, it realized too late that such defenses were useless against the wolf, and he managed to get within meters of it. Alex stroked the cat's head, and then the cat made such a ruckus that I think even the neighbours heard it.

First, with medical precision, it dug its claws into my flatmate's wrists and, to get a nice pattern on his skin, it scratched him a couple of times while Alex whimpered as if he was in the most painful agony in hell. Besides his hands, his heart was also bleeding.

After this, the cursed beast of a cat ran out of the room, whimpering and whining, and on reaching the kitchen, attempted to jump and destroy as many utensils as possible, climbing to the top of the cupboard and then fighting an angry spider for the dusty corner where it had then nestled itself. Alex looked ruefully at his hands and I laughed at him.

The wolf must have smelled my brother's scent in the apartment because when he managed to get over his depression over his affair with the cat, he asked me quite firmly not to leave him alone with "that crazy hunter" if I didn't have to.

I nodded, that I could manage. Of course, I knew the feeling was mutual, and Des didn't like my favourite wolf either. I was not surprised, as my dear brother hated all non-human entities with all his heart. Of course, knowing that, I couldn't understand why he was so fond of me, but it was better than him constantly trying to hunt me down. In any case, I thought, Alex would no longer have to fear for his life from this particular demented hunter — if Des had wanted to kill him so badly, he wouldn't be alive.

"I've got something to tell you too," I said slowly, "Do you fancy a cocoa?"

Alex knew there was trouble just from that last sentence — I don't usually give out my cocoa for free. Alex sat quietly at the table, and I leaned against the kitchen counter, watching the two mugs spin in the microwave. When the two minutes were up and the machine chirped, I took the mugs out and sprinkled three spoonfuls of cocoa into the hot milk. I held one out to the wolf and took a seat opposite him with the other in my hand.

Once again I reconsidered whether I really wanted Alex to know about the future diary. I didn't want him to get too anxious about it, but I also didn't want him to be unaware of the clear danger that threatened all of us.

"Alice slept over last night, but that's not the important thing," I stated, "So, in the middle of the night, he wrote an entry in his diary, and I was very curious, so I looked in it."

"What did he write?" Alex's voice sounded strained.

"About the future? Almost nothing. The prediction was interrupted," I replied, "I found a threat instead."

"A threat? Was he possessed?"

I nodded.

"Blood! Kill! Kill! Get him! — was written in it."

The wolf turned pale.

"I guess Ben didn't take it very well," he said, "What did you do with the diary?"

"Des took it to the Crosspherat to see if they could find out anything," I replied.

"Someone wants to harm us?" the wolf wondered. "But who could it be?"

"I don't know," I shook my head, puzzled, "Alice thinks it might have something to do with the transcendence."

"Whoever we're dealing with, we have to be careful," he declared and I nodded immediately. "It could be dangerous if they can mobilize transcendent forces."

"Maybe a mage?" I suggested. "They are notorious for dealing with transcendent powers."

"Maybe," Alex replied.

As soon as we'd cleared away the rest of the cocoa, I quietly stood up and set about washing the dishes resting in the sink. Suddenly the sponge and fork fell out of my hand. For a moment, I seemed to see my own breath in the air, as if the temperature had gone to sub-zero in an instant only to return to normal the next.

I heard the scratching from the window again, whereupon I immediately turned a hundred and eighty degrees. I discovered some black smoke behind the glass, which by the time I turned around had almost completely disappeared. What is it, some kind of magic?

Dropping everything, I rushed to the window and opened it with a fury as if that would have been the moment I realized that all the oxygen in the kitchen had run out. I looked around for any suspicious clues, but everything seemed normal. I wasn't just imagining things, right?

"What's wrong?" asked my roommate.

I must have looked like I had just been confronted by a horde of mountain trolls because Alex looked scared too.

"Did you hear that?", I questioned him tensely, still looking at the window.

"What?"

"The scratching on the window," I replied.

"What scratching?" he asked, puzzled. "I didn't hear anything."

Okay, then I'm going crazy.

"No, nothing, it's not important," I muttered. "I just thought I heard something."

"You should rest," the wolf said. "You look like you haven't slept for a week."

"You're probably right," I agreed, but then I heard someone shouting my name and asking if we were home.

Alex and I hurried to the door and opened it to see the landlady with her two sons. Almost immediately, Inez gave us a delightful smile.

"Hello, boys!"

"Hello!" "Hi!" my flatmate and I greeted her at the same time.

"I'm so glad you're finally feeling better, Alex," said the charming lady, "I heard they were releasing you out today, so I baked you something."

The wolf had a big grin on his lips. "Thank you very much!"

And then he added something that she really shouldn't have bothered, but of course, he was immediately hungry for the plate of goodies.

"And the boys helped, so it didn't take long."

"Really?", I asked, and then looked at the boys.

Ricsi just shrugged, but I noticed that when we opened the door, he looked at Alex with concern. The wolf had mentioned a couple of times that if Ricsi was in trouble and he happened to be in the area, he would help him out.

For a human boy, he was pretty brave, and he even left the upperclassmen in their place, it wasn't even the issue, the problem was getting home. Ricsi didn't like it when his mother worried too much, so he tried to collect himself before he met her. Alex came home from school just at this time and called him into the house to treat his injuries. He did this once or twice more, and then the child went to see him himself.

"We made the cream," said Marci with a huge smile.

Inez ruffled the boy's hair.

"It was a great help!"

"Why..."

The faint smile froze on my lips. That ghostly voice didn't belong to Marcell. My gaze slowly slid back to the little boy's face. His eyes looked at me with hatred in them.

"Why did you let me die?!" he was almost screaming in a raspy, grating voice.

"That's all we came for," Inez stated, "But now I must go, I'm leaving for work soon."

My eyes darted to her face, then slowly back to the boy, who was smiling gently now. No one else seemed to have witnessed the frightening scene. At that moment, I seriously thought I had gone mad.

The woman turned around and walked off with her children in hand to her own apartment.

"What's the matter?", Alex looked at me in confusion, "Did you hear something again?"

I shook my head. "No, nothing's wrong."

I closed the door behind us and my roommate almost immediately headed for the kitchen. I continued to stand frozen in front of the closed door. I leaned my forehead against the smooth wood. Am I going mad?

"Do you want some apple pies?" the wolf shouted from the kitchen. "It's delicious."

"No, thanks," I replied, and moved languidly to our shared room, "I'm going to bed."

What the hell is going on? I slumped limply between the duvet and the pillows. I didn't understand anything, I didn't know what was happening, and it scared me. Finally, I fell asleep in a state of doubt.

(...)

Darkness... A bloody figure... I must run, I must escape...

Suddenly my eyes popped open, and at the same time, I sat up in bed, frightened. I couldn't have slept too soundly, for I was awakened by a small noise in the middle of the night. I glanced around the room slowly, a little relieved when I saw Alex in his bed, laying in the most uncomfortable position possible. I fell back into bed, and sleep was about to come around again when I heard another squeak.

I sat up again and looked around. Alex was still sound asleep. When I exhaled, and the air floated in the air like a snow-white cotton ball, the blood almost froze in my veins. Instinctively, I knew something terrible was about to happen.

The window cracked, claws tapping on it. I heard the scraping again, but much louder this time, and much closer, as if it was coming from the kitchen. I didn't dare get up to check the source of the noise. I waited, frozen, for the sound to reach the threshold. It stopped, and a moment of silence descended on the freezing air.

The door creaked open, but there was no one behind it. A moment of silence, and then the nightmare resumed. Claws dug into the wall, the paint and plaster immediately giving way to four claws. The invisible enemy was approaching fast and I thought I was going to die of fright. Then, before it reached me, it stopped about a meter away. There was an eardrum-shattering scream, close up, and it echoed in my skull. More howls, loud, agonized, more and more and more. I closed my eyes and put my hands over my ears, but it didn't help at all, as if the source of the sound was hidden deep in my skull.

I could feel something warm wetting my hands and I knew it was my blood, I could smell its metallic scent. My ears ached, they ached terribly, and I thought I was going to die, yet the voices would not stop, they just screamed and screamed in agony. I fell off the bed, pressed my skull to the cold floor, and in my pain, I joined the voices. Then suddenly it all stopped.

I felt Alex's strong grip on my shoulder. I looked up. The wolf looked frightened, I startled him.

"What happened? Shay, what happened?!"

"I heard..." I said, but my voice trailed off. My throat hurt. Why did my throat hurt? "I heard voices, Alex. They were screaming as if they were being tortured!"

"Shay..." he uttered my name cautiously, wary, perhaps afraid that I might fall back into the vision again. "You were the only one screaming here. I tried to wake you for five minutes, but you didn't respond."

"What...?" my voice trailed off again.

I looked around the room. The door was closed. There was no sign of scratches on the walls. Suddenly, I reached for my ear and found no blood there either. Am I... am I really going mad?

"You had a bad dream," Alex stated, but I interrupted him.

"It wasn't a dream!"

The wolf let it go.

"Try to lie back down," he suggested, "See if you can get some rest. You look really bad..."

Yeah, well, usually, crazy people look pretty bad. I finally nodded and crawled back into bed. In less than five minutes, the wolf was sleeping peacefully but I couldn't forget what had happened. What could it have been?

There were two possibilities. One: I was crazy. Version B: The world was going crazy around me. For some reason, the first option seemed more likely. Do crazy people know they're crazy?

I shook my head, closed my eyes, and tried to force myself to sleep — unsuccessfully. I decided that only a cup of cocoa would help. There are two good things in life: sleep and cocoa. If you can't have one, at least you have the other.

I got out of bed and headed for the kitchen. I grabbed my favourite mug, then the milk from the fridge — just enough left for one last serving. It's an old habit of mine to have a glass of cocoa when I'm nervous. It calms me down.

I remember exactly the day I first met Geri, as well as how cruelly he treated me when I refused to obey. Des wasn't home, so I locked myself in his room and sobbed. I sat on his bed, clutching one of his sweaters, taking in his scent deeply. I just cried, cried bitterly.

Then the door creaked open. I thought it was my brother coming home, but it was my mother. I stopped crying almost immediately, the last tears leaving my eyes. I honestly thought she was going to beat me up for it. In the end, she didn't do anything like that. She simply handed me a mug of hot cocoa.

I accepted it uncertainly and took a sip — almost immediately, all tension, anxiety, and doubt left my body, giving way to the warmth of the cocoa. In the next moment, my mother disappeared from the room and the door closed — I thought I imagined the whole thing. After that, she left me alone again, but I felt much better. Neither of us ever mentioned the incident but this is one of my most precious memories of my mother.

I was about to close the microwave door when I sensed someone watching. Immediately, I glanced at the window, where again I saw only black smoke disappearing. I slowly walked over to the window and looked out through it. It was dark, perhaps a few minutes before midnight. My eyes immediately found the black figure of a man in front of the house. He did nothing but stand there, and although I could not see his face, I was sure he was looking straight at me.

I left everything in the kitchen and rushed out the front door. Once again, the figure was replaced only by the familiar smoke-like apparition. My breath drifted through the air like white wool, only to merge with it again.

It was then that I felt him behind me. I knew he was standing there, I could feel the cold breath on the back of my neck. I spun around to face him. The boy was familiar. I remembered him, he was one of the people I'd ripped off at the buffet, yet now he looked different: his short frame was translucent, his skin pale and colourless. His dark, dead eyes absorbed and swallowed up all colour. His wavy red hair was dull and I knew that if I had wanted to touch him, my fingers would have slipped through him. Still, I was most frightened when I noticed the strange purple patches on the boy's neck and the marks of vampire fangs. They almost bit a piece of him off.

An icy chill took over the air. On top of the water that had collected on the ground as a remnant of yesterday's rain first formed a dull layer of frost, then the whole puddle froze spectacularly. Ice flowers blossomed on the windows, and frost appeared on the grass and electrical cables.

Suddenly, I was surrounded by freezing cold. So much so that it was unbearable. The windows began to crackle, the icy air stung, and it hurt to breathe. I felt as if some invisible force was trying to tear my heart out. The ghost was angry. Terribly angry.

"You let me die... You let me die!" his voice was accusing. "It's your fault!"

"I'm sorry," I felt I had to say it.

I had no idea why I was apologizing, but the ghost's anger seemed to have subsided a little.

"Help me, please," the ghost begged. "I'm in so much pain... I can't leave, he's holding me here..."

"Whose holding you here?" I asked. "How can I help?"

"Help me! Help me! Help me..."

I felt a warm hand on my shoulder and the ghost disappeared at the same time. The cold vanished as if it had never existed, yet I knew that I had not imagined it. I turned to face my brother.

"Shay? What are you doing here?"

"Did you find anything about the diary?" I asked instead of answering.

The hunter nodded. "They discovered traces of a ghost's essence on it. They are haunting one of us."

"Yes," I said, "me."

"What?"

"I know who the ghost is," I declared.

"Why would they be haunting you?" he frowned.

I shook my head. "I don't know. I didn't even know the boy was dead."

"All right, wake your friend up, I'll go and get Ben," Des said.

"What are you planning?" I asked.

"We're going to see someone," he replied, "the Necromancer."