True Terror

And there I was, alone at last.

I once loved people dearly. I would love to go into the city and just sit on a bench, taking in the crowd. I would just sit there for hours and draw children playing in the fountains, businessmen and women eating their lunches, and the elderly feeding birds. I loved the environment of being in a crowded area. I loved just blending in and being a part of the crowd.

Until June 14th, 2002 happened.

We hit the other car at around 60mph on a 30mph road. My father was going twice the speed limit. They were fighting, my mother and father. To be frank, my father was pissed. I can’t recall why they were fighting. In fact, I can’t recall all the insignificant details on that faithful night. It’s not a mental thing; I physically can’t without having a mental breakdown. But I digress.
My older sister and I were the only ones who survived with only a few minor cuts and bruises. Our parents, however, were less than fortunate.

I saw my father’s head split open. I heard the last groan from my mother as her windpipe was crushed and a rib broke, puncturing her lung. I watched as the opposing driver flew through his windshield, hyper-extending his arm and screaming as he flew into the twisted metal of our car, suffering heavy trauma to his spinal column, just under the base of his skull. His wife was pregnant, I heard. Her baby was crushed by the dash, and she died in the hospital bed from head trauma. Even though the CAT scan came back normal, for a pregnant woman. No airbags engaged. It’s kind of funny how car companies put so much emphasis on how safe their cars are.

I was 14 when this happened. I was in shock for 2 years. I could do nothing but sit there and stare. I couldn’t speak at all. I was afraid that if I did anything, my life would shatter. I felt like I was on thin ice. One false move and I’m over my head in below 0 degree water. I was blind to the world and words fell on deaf ears. What were once beautiful sketches that were crafted by my hand and pencil were now inadequate lines on ancient, yellowed paper.

And then, 3 years after the accident, it finally happened.

I woke up one night and left my room. I heard moans from down the hall. The same moans that come from the throes of passion. I knew what my sister was doing, and it disgusted me. However, I still cracked the door and looked. It wasn’t the sex that scared me, because I frankly couldn’t care about what my sister was doing behind closed doors with her boyfriend. No, it was the thing I saw. It wasn’t just the naked bodies and interlocked arms and legs of my sister and her boyfriend in the room, but a sick, twisted perversion of shadow and sin loomed over the both of them. Its gaping, drooling maw was inches above their bodies and its fiery eyes blazed hotter and brighter as her boyfriend was reaching the point of orgasm. Looking back on it, I find it kind of funny what I did next.

I screamed. And of course my sister had the biggest look of shock on her face as she quickly covered herself and her boyfriend with the sheets. My sister naturally thought I screamed at the fact that she was having sex, but that wasn’t it. I was terrified at the terrible being that towered over both of them. It looked up at me, gave the impression that it scowled, and then faded away. I ran from the room and curled into my bed, lifting the sheets over my head the same way that my sister and her boyfriend had done. I sobbed all night. I cried until every my entire body ached. In the first moments out of my shock, I saw something that would change my life forever.

I no longer had any desire to go out into public. If I saw two people fighting, I saw the embodiment of the anger, clutching chains that held the two captive. After the accident I could see monsters. No, these were not the goblins or trolls of fantasy stories, but monsters that were reflections of the sins on people’s souls. Certain beasts had certain characteristics. Soon I was able to identify all the sins of someone’s past based on the different characteristics of the demon that reflected their soul. I could do nothing to fight them. I wanted to save people from what had them captive, but I could do nothing. I didn’t want to leave my room. I couldn’t bear to see other people, and I needed to be alone. I felt so small.

And I still feel small, in this dark.

8 years after the accident. 5 years after I started seeing the monsters in people’s souls. I thought I knew the terror that came from seeing these monsters. However, I was dead wrong. I felt as though I needed to go back to the site of the crash. I wanted to be rid of this curse completely. I figured, ‘what better way to get rid of it than to face the source?’

I stood where I was when I saw the horrendous deaths of my family members and the people in the other car. Tears flooded from my eyes as I recalled the details of that fateful night. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I couldn’t bear the horrors that gripped my throat and constricted my breathing. And then I saw the one thing that filled me with the greatest feeling of dread and fear.
I saw my own monster. It stood on the road in front of me. It didn’t take the shape of a terrible beast, but of a man. In fact, he wasn’t made up of the shadowy, slightly transparent matter that the rest of them were made of. He was tall, and dressed in all black. He had black pants, a black dress shirt, a black suit jacket, and black fedora. The only things that weren’t black were his white tie and pale-grey skin. I didn’t know what he represented. In fact, I didn’t think he even existed. All I know is that he smiled, held out his right arm to his side, and stretched out his black-gloved hand. He snapped, and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Shocked, I realized it was now in the middle of the night. I don’t know how long I sat there, staring at the man wordlessly. All I knew was that my vision was being quickly filled with bright lights.

The car tires simultaneously rolled over both my lower legs and my upper back. I could feel my ribs pop, one by one as they broke. I rolled a little, and the back tires ran over the back of my neck and lower back, flattening my insides against the ground. The last thing I remember before darkness was looking up at my watch, seeing that the time was 3:49 a.m. The date was June 14th, 2010. The same day and time as the crash.

In death, I still feel small.

--Jon