1 Chapter I: Introduction

It had been 4 years since I finished high school. I'd tried pursuing an education at the local community college. Veterinarian, you see...seems silly now, stupid actually. I don't really know why I ever wandered into the field, was dad's little dream I suppose, as his dad was one and I always noticed he had unresolved daddy issues, but the conversation never came up, so we never talked about it. I guess one could say I didn't find a passion, something that I wanted to chase and do for the rest of my life before graduating from high school, nor did I succeed in finding one afterwards. So, naturally, I dropped out after the first year of college. Wasn't horrible, it just wasn't for me. And while my parents gave me the "We're not mad, just disappointed" treatment, I felt as if they might as well disown me right then and there when I told them. They had always been supportive of me, their only child, so for them this was like a sucker punch, especially for my dad. I was through all of high school and still am your average teen. Played football, had a decent circle of friends, a couple of girlfriends here and there. I wasn't ever better or worse at things than everybody else, though horrible at maths, I excelled in logical reasoning and reading people.

I could read a person that's just entered the room, I could always see through people, know their intentions. It was always awkward listening to somebody trying to sweet-talk me or trying to manipulate me because everything was always crystal clear for me, I analyzed people's body language, tone and other criteria to understand one's purpose in a conversation or any social situation for that matter. Even when I was a kid, I could always see relatives purposefully talking to me as if I was a little kid, which I was, but only on the surface. I invariably noticed details, if something had moved in a classroom from the day before, I'd be the first one to notice, I'd see logical connections for almost everything and could mostly answer the questions before they were even asked. This wasn't anything supernatural, you see, for this is called Low Latent Inhibition. From a medical standpoint, we all receive stimuli from our brains for any given task, for example looking at the clock to check the time. When a normal person checks the time, they look up, take note of the time and carry on with whatever it was they were doing. Not for me though, so brace for impact. You see, when I check the time, apart from the stimulus responsible about noting what time it is, my brain lets through all the related, yet oftentimes unimportant stimuli that regular brains restrict. I will note what time it is, yet concurrently notice that the clock has a little scratch on it and wonder what might have caused it, going through 7 possible scenarios in my mind and seeing them play out right in front of my eyes through my imagination. I will then proceed to notice that the numbers are in a different font than those in other classrooms and start to wonder what happened to the previous clock, that required it to be replaced together with how might the scratch on the present clock have contributed the old clock's "demise", as it might just as well follow its predecessors footsteps and therefore, eventually, be replaced as well. Coincidentally, I will mentally note that it's swayed a little bit sideways and then carry on to think about time as a concept and how it's helped civilizations progress, yet puts us in a routine, which is essentially a structure none of us can ever get out of, but can only modify as time passes by. Sounds pretty unusual, a bit unnecessary and strangely complicated, right? Well, here's the kicker...all the thoughts I just mentioned pass through my brain in seconds. When people lose their "train of thought", they usually bounce back pretty quick, well my trains of thought are cargo trains, stretching out for miles and miles, yet moving at a speed unknown to mankind. If you were to observe my mind or "train of thought" as a passenger sitting in a car at a railroad crossing, waiting for the train to pass and said train was my train of thought, you' d witness a three-mile cargo train that's packed to the ceiling reel past you in a matter of seconds. And for me these thoughts take seconds as well, these trains are constantly there. I don't hate them, but sometimes I get sick of overthinking everyday events or activities for no reason at all. All that said, I still don't know how I didn't see any of this this coming.

After I dropped out of college, I got temporary a job at the local Subway. If "temporary" means 3 years, then this had, indeed, turned out to be a temporary job. I actually enjoyed it, coworkers were all good people, but 23 years old and not having made it anywhere past high school and working at a Subway put me in a weird place mentally. It wasn't like I was sad or happy, I'd say I was lost. So no wonder my parents supported me on wanting to move out of the house and promised to help with rent money. As I mentioned before, I can read between the lines fairly well, so I could tell that both of them had had enough of me and wanted to take a break and start enjoying their lives for once, I don't blame them, it had been 23 years, the least I could do was move out. So I did.

We found a house that was somewhat secluded. I liked it. It was on a street that only had 6 houses on it, 3 of which were still unoccupied after I moved in.The "neighborhood" was uncommon, yet generic. It was as if someone had taken a piece of a typical suburban neighborhood and put it in a middle of a field surrounded by a forest. All of this in mind, I actually liked the feel of my house and our little "neighborhood". If you were to look at it from a high altitude, you'd see an empty field in the middle of a forest, that's crossed by a straight road and has 3 houses on each side of it, neatly packed together. I lived south from said road, in the house on the left and had two houses to my right. I didn't have a backyard or a fence for that matter, what I did have was a tiny patio that overlooked the forest, which I started using quite often after I'd moved in. The house opposite of mine was vacant but the one to its right belonged to an 82-year-old Mary Calloway. She was your typical sweet grannie, just like ones you'd see in movies, come on now, she even had the name. The first day I'd moved in, she brought me home-baked cookies. "Just like in the movies", I said inelegantly, I was always direct with people, I always tried to find some humor in a situation, or come up with a sarcastic retort if somebody had beat me to it. I often regretted this, why couldn't I just say something a normal person would, like "Thanks, I appreciate it" or "You really didn't have to.", that I don't know. I don't recall exactly what Mary's reply was, but our conversation went onward and, as it progressed, I could sense that Mary was really excited about me moving in the "neighborhood", as the only other neighbor was, apparently, a trucker that only came home to sleep and prepare for his next journey, his was the house south of the street but on the right side, so him and I had a vacant house in between us. I went over to his house to take a look, the grass hadn't been cut for at least a month, fence was rusty and his 2001 Chevy Trailblazer had just started to show rust around the arches. That pretty much told me everything I needed to know, no pitbull in sight though. Never catched the guy's name. Roy, probably.

I was always a bit on the paranoid side when it came to my home being secure. I don't know why but I enjoyed a little extra piece of mind when it came to home security. So, instinctively, the first week I moved in, I went on Amazon and ordered 4 fake AA battery-powered CCTV cameras that would blink a red light periodically. They didn't record anything, but had a fake lens, would blink every 2 seconds and had a fake wire that connected to the bottom of the plastic frame, so that it looks like it's going into the wall somewhere. Thereupon I wandered down the rabbit hole that Amazon was and found battery-powered security sensors that would emit a resounding siren sound, should the sensors be moved apart, for example when a door or window is opened. Finally, I added a small taser to my cart and was set. The items arrived 3 days later and, picking them up, I thought to myself "Glad there's nobody to steal these here!". It seemed like Mary had just returned from the store, so I decided to lend a helping hand and assisted her in taking the groceries in. She thanked me, we talked about the weather a little bit and she mentioned that me and my parents should come over to dinner. "Yeah, sure!", I belted out, surprised of my ability to dignify a request with a normal, non-sarcastic reply and simultaneously understood that my life as an adult had started right then and there, and that my parents are not a part of my life anymore. But she did not know that, and she did not need to, so that was the end of our conversation, we both said our goodbyes and I returned home to implement my new security measures. I unpacked the fake CCTV cameras, put the batteries in them and installed them on the outside of my house. The blinking red lights were visible from quite a distance away, so I was content with my decision to invest in these blinking pieces of plastic. I then proceeded to unpack the security sensors, these were very straightforward. I put the batteries in them, put one on the door, the other on the door frame and pressed "arm" on the little remote control that came with the sensors. I then opened the door...deafening. Success.I went to bed that night with some piece of mind.

A week passed and I'd developed my own little habits and had gradually got used to my new home. It had a small kitchen that was conjoined to the living room, a bathroom, small laundry room and my bedroom and another small bathroom upstairs. It wasn't much, your typical popcorn ceiling house but smaller, but I was happy with it, for the first time in my life I had something of my own, even if my parents helped pay for it, this was mine. It was fall, so it wasn't that cold outside yet and the melancholic sound of rustling leaves and the gray, empty sky that sucks out any joy that's left in you after summer was yet to come. Thanks to this, I'd developed a habit of spending my evenings on my small patio watching Netflix or something similar, yet the beauty of the nearby forest was infatuating. It was as if it had been set ablaze, judging from the vibrant spectre of colors that the trees offered. Sometimes I'd just gaze upon it and wonder how with skyscrapers, metropoles and architectural masterpieces, a person can still appreciate the beauty of a bunch of trees, even though in a span of 3 seconds I answered my question with the fact that humans have inhabited forests and the wilderness for millions of years, whereas houses and skyscrapers for everyone to live in is something relatively new in the grand scheme of things, so it only makes sense that humans are nonetheless still drawn to nature and can perceive its beauty because, technically, it still is our only true home but that's besides the point.

Weeks passed. I'd wake up, put my music on, make breakfast, head to work, come home, sometimes workout, but mostly just relax and watch something to entertain myself. It was around this time that I developed and uneasy feeling. It wasn't anything specific, as I couldn't quite put my finger on it, yet I just had a bad gut feeling and could sense something was off. I'd look outside my windows and all I'd see would be trees, the empty field and the road leading up to my house. Nothing was out of the ordinary, but I couldn't shake the feeling, so eventually I just wrote it off as my autumn depression, which I experienced almost every year. For me it's only natural - leaves on trees start to die off, it gets colder, it gets darker, it can get eerie, so I think it's only logical for me as a person who is perceptive of the nature and environment around him to feel the same way in my mind.

I did go over to Mary's for dinner, without my parents. She seemed ecstatic about the company that I provided for her, I noticed that her house had been cleaned from top to bottom, every glass surface was shiny. She also had a glowing smile as she opened the door and gave me a hug. It seemed to me that she had put on some of her more fancy clothes and done her hair up different, which honestly made me feel a bit more important, as I barely knew this woman. The meal she'd made was, of course, delicious, she was joyful all night long and would variate from stories about her family and grandkids to stories of her everyday life, which, surprisingly, were interesting, knowing that she'd only ever be either at home or at the store. She told me all about her life. Nurse, 47 years, retired after her husband died of cancer. Why do these types of things always happen to the best people? I wondered, as cliché as it might sound. I felt a little bit sad for her, but the glee she was emitting right then and there was contagious, so it anew made me feel delighted that I was the one to thank for this. I truly enjoyed myself, she was your typical nice, old lady. She sent me home with a bunch of her home-baked cookies. "Do I really deserve this?", I wondered as I made my way back home as the sound of rustling leaves accompanied me to my door. Still thinking about cookies, I opened it and - BOOM! The siren on my door started blaring. It echoed all throughout the surrounding forest, as there wasn't much in the way, before I desperately searched for my keys and finally turned the siren off with my little remote control. I sighed in a combination of relief and frustration, put the cookies away and went to bed. The gut feeling never withdrew though, I simply stopped acknowledging it. I should have, if there's one thing I should have done...I should have acknowledged the feeling. It was then a couple of days later that it first started. It was then that I met him...