Ā Ā Ā Ā IT WAS DARK ,Ā the body that crept through the mirror.Ā dark like a shadow ,Ā dark like the frame of the silent ,Ā shivering windows.Ā it had no discernible features ,Ā defined only by the absurdity of its existence ,Ā by the physical space that allowed it.Ā slowly ,Ā it crawls ,Ā not unlike a child ,Ā vaguely towards the edge of his bed ,Ā growing larger ,Ā larger ,Ā larger as it nears.Ā with every step there is an evolution ,Ā a maturation into man :Ā first there are arms ,Ā then hands ,Ā then legs ,Ā then feet ,Ā then spine ,Ā then an awful ,Ā human bipedalism.Ā the head is what grows lastĀ (Ā and with it a mouth ,Ā which opens and closes with the aid of an invisible jawbone ,Ā filled with teeth like thorns ,Ā sharp and gleaming and full of languageĀ ).Ā it speaks only when gale begins to audibly hyperventilate ,Ā turning to him with animal - like suddenness.Ā a step closer ,Ā a small thud into the furthermost edge of his bed.Ā Ā the body,Ā gale realizes,Ā is blind.Ā Ā Ā Ā why are you afraid ?Ā am i not familiar ?Ā when it speaks ,Ā it is underwater ,Ā murky and gargled ;Ā the noise is terrible enough to evoke a petrified whimper out of gale ,Ā which does not affect the thingās rhythm whatsoever.Ā you know who i am.Ā weāve met countless times before.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā vibrantly and with desperate disagreement does gale shake his head ,Ā lips pursed tight in a sort of traumatized spasm.Ā the room shudders.Ā it awaits an answer.Ā the only words he articulates are so broken ,Ā so shaken that they remind him of the very first dayĀ ā the day he emerged from the river ,Ā naked and unpunished.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā āĀ you arenāt.Ā i do ā nāt.Ā āĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā it laughs ,Ā cold and rippling ,Ā baring its razor - mouth for the luminescence of the moonās ray.Ā Ā yes ,Ā you do.Ā who am i ,Ā gale ?Ā i know who you are.Ā the thing smiles ,Ā taking a sudden ,Ā sharp left ,Ā feeling the frame of galeās bed with one black ,Ā shapeless hand.Ā the house hold its breath.Ā when the massās dark hand teeters over the curved edge ,Ā it turns again ,Ā as if to get nearer to galeās body.Ā blind.Ā in perfect ,Ā terror - stricken silence ,Ā gale creeps towards the opposing end of the bed ,Ā towards the window and its promise ,Ā further away from the ebbing entity that draws closer in reverent perpetuation.Ā he sprints to the glass the second both feet meet the hardwood.Ā Ā Ā Ā it does the same.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā heās pinned to the wall before he can even touch the windowās corner.Ā it holds him by the neck ,Ā eye to nonexistent eye ,Ā heaving with its inhuman strength as it lifts him from the ground.Ā gale writhes ,Ā twists and turns and heaves like a deer caught in an impenetrable snare.Ā the air is so thin ,Ā his vision so hazy.Ā all at once ,Ā he is drowning and at the top of some vast ,Ā immovable mountain.Ā all at once ,Ā he whines and weeps and the thing ,Ā angry as it is ,Ā begins to shout.Ā Ā I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. YOU ARE JUST A BODY ; TO BE DUMPED ,Ā DISPOSED OF LIKE A CARCASS ,Ā LEFT OUT FOR THE BIRDS TO FEED ON.Ā gale canāt see ,Ā canāt breathe ,Ā canāt stop kicking and gasping and clawing at his neck.Ā its voice only rises ,Ā fractioning like glass into the cacophonous screech of a thousand mouths at once.Ā I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.Ā WHO AM I WHO AM I WHOAMIWHOAMIWHOAMIWHOAREYOāĀ with his last ,Ā fleeting ounce of strength ,Ā gale opens his mouth and attempts to scream.Ā it starts as nothing ,Ā only hot ,Ā stricken air from the lungs.Ā through it all ,Ā his eyes are open ,Ā bulging from the sockets ,Ā asking to be wrong.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā THEN :Ā the disappearance.Ā in the blink of an eye ,Ā the hand is gone ,Ā the air released ,Ā the house unfettered.Ā unstopping and without an ounce of morale ,Ā gale continues to scream ,Ā this time audible ,Ā loud and guttural ,Ā like a screeching animal still shrouded by night.Ā he does not stop ,Ā voice going lower and lower ,Ā grating like nails against the throat ,Ā dry and splitting like wood.Ā a freed deer ,Ā still scarred from the memory of its cage.Ā as suddenly and eerily as it began ,Ā the scene ends with a sharp hitch of his breath ,Ā a thick gloss over his eyes.Ā in windless anticlimax ,Ā galeās body twists in a breathless dance of the limbs and he falls to the ground ,Ā thudding hard and cold onto the hardwood ,Ā unconscious and still as the dead.Ā
