The Truth

As I peered around the corner, I saw that the thing… it was gone. “I had only seen it a second ago...” I thought to myself. I blamed my tired mind for just seeing that tall figure with black eyes. I always have hated working the night shift. I decided to get some sleep because it was around midnight. I was brushing my teeth, when I saw something in the mirror. I turned around, but nothing was there. I sprinted into my room, and I locked the door. I made sure that the windows were latched, and I used my phone to shine a light around my closet. I could not find anything out of the ordinary, so I closed the closet door  and tried to sleep.

I could not sleep, so I decided to go downstairs and take a sleeping pill.  I grabbed a flashlight, my phone, and a gun (just in case). I wandered downstairs, not turning on any lights. Just as I got to my medicine cabinet, I hear a creaking noise behind me. I looked to find nothing. I looked around, I used the flashlight, and started shining it everywhere. I backed up against the wall to make sure that thing was not behind me. Hugging the wall, I took a sleeping pill with some water, and rushed back upstairs, careful not to make a noise.

When I arrived back in my room, I closed the closet door, locked the bedroom door, checked the windows again, and once again tried to go to sleep. The pill took a little while to kick in, so I just sat there, forming pictures on the ceiling from the shadows of the trees outside. I remember forming pictures of faces, mostly. They would grin at me, peering down from what seemed to be noticeably further than normal. Their smiles widened as I drifted to sleep. As I was about to go into a deep sleep, I swear I could hear the closet door creak.

That night, I had a dream. Unlike most other people, I can control my actions in my dreams. This was a dream I have had several times before. In this dream, I always just swim at the beach, look at coral reefs, and relax. However, this time… it took a turn for the worse. When I jumped in the water, I could not see around me as usual. A sort of sandy, dusty murkiness filled the water. I could not see any coral, so I swam back up to the water’s surface only to see that the shore was far away. Unlike when this dream occurred any other time, I was getting a little bit tired. I started to swim to the shore. Swimming got harder and harder as the water seemed to get thicker and thicker, until it was almost as thick as honey. The water changed colors; it turned into a shade of dark green/gray. I was able to make it to the shore, but my arms and legs would not move without much effort. I tried to crawl up the shore, but I felt something grab my leg.  It pulled. Before I was dragged underwater, I looked back to see the figure dragging me down into the now pitch black liquid. It was almost like oil.

Suddenly, I woke up in a sweat. I tried to sit up, but I felt like I was stuck to my bed. I felt a liquid was slowly oozing across my body to my face. I finally managed to sit up, and walk to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror, and the black, oily liquid was covering me, oozing up my body. It all collected in my eyes. I could see. I did not look like myself... In fact, I looked hideous. I could see even more than I ever could see before. I used to be blind to inner character, but now everyone’s appearance is shaped by their actions. The world is covered with monsters. It is about time I let them see the truth. Each time I help a monster turn to the light, I look better and feel better. One day... I will be beautiful.