Dichtende Designerin

Genre: horror, pov: first person, word count: 1419, content warnings: monster, suicidal ideation, mental illness, paranoia, car crash

Lights are blinding me. I flinch, holding a hand out against the white light coming closer. An engine breaks through the silence of the night. I squint and suddenly there’s a car moving towards me at high speed. I stumble to the side, my heart racing. How did I end up here? In the middle of a crossroad. My fingers ache, so I flex them, slowly gazing down while my sight is still flickering from the headlights. Something warm trickles down my hand, it oozes onto the grass where I’m crouching. What is this? A realization hits me: It’s blood, and it’s not mine. What happened? My head hurts. The texture of the grass beneath me feels soothing. I want to lie down and never get up again. My back hurts like a thousand needles are pricking it. I roll onto my side and let out a heavy sigh. The air is freezing, my breath turns cold. Everything hurts. Oh please make it stop.

A high-pitched scream pierces the air and I cover my ears, but it only makes it louder. Am I screaming? Something flickers behind my eyes, my vision blurs and then I suddenly see it. The monster. It stared at me with overbearing eyes, saliva dripping down its chin, the hairy forearms and a breath that tastes like death. I thought I escaped, isn’t that why I’m on the road? How could it find me? Wherever I go, it always follows me. You can run, but you cannot hide. A deafening scream escapes my sore throat. This time, I know it’s me. A cry for help, but no one will hear it. This road is deserted in the middle of the night. Achingly, I try to stand up again. My legs turned into jelly, I fall down on my knees. Everything hurts. Worst of all, my head hurts. My head always hurts, but something feels different. Thoughts are chasing each other by the tail, but I can’t grab any of them. My mind remains a blank slate, preparing itself to be eaten by the monster. Despite the brain fog, a thought emerges. A command: Run! Run! Run!

On all fours, I’m crawling towards the street. Pain shoots like an arrow to my knees, but I force my legs to stand up again. The monster is lurking in the dark, chuckling at my desperate attempts to save myself. Am I even worth saving? She told me I was beyond saving. Before it all went wrong, she tried. I’m thankful she tried, even though I don’t deserve such kindness. She said, I don’t hate you, I just want to save you while there’s still something left to save. We compared scars. She said, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours first. My body is a haunted house, only a few would dare to visit it. I can cry about the sorry remains of myself another time. Now I need to focus on saving myself. Though, it would be so much easier to give in, to accept my fate of being eaten by a monster.

What’s there to live for anyway? Since she left, I have been lying in my bed like it’s a deathbed. My feet are still running down the road. Where am I going? There is no escape from the monster. It’s roaring laughter keeps haunting me, trailing behind the line of blood drops I’m leaving on the road. So much blood. Bloody hell, I am such a loser. When they finally found my mangled body on the road, there will be no way to recognize me. There is no one left to recognize me anyway. And I would spare her the look of my fucked up body. Of my remains they scraped from the road and put on a steel table under a harsh white light. I can picture it so well as if I’m already dead.

Am I dead yet? Is this nightmare ever going to end? I haven’t slept in weeks. Once upon a time, the night was my friend. It welcomed me into its warm embrace after an exhausting day. I didn’t feel lonely, even though I was alone. I didn’t question the natural order of life back then. That was before she came into my life. She taught me that my life was lonely and she was the missing puzzle piece to my happiness. Then she left me in pieces, shattered glass on the ground, drops of blood smeared on the mirror. How can anyone be so cruel to love me? What a sick joke love is. Everyone wants to be loved, right? I’d rather have people hate me, it’s less cruel for my broken heart. Tree after tree passes me as I stumble down the road, the monster slowly walking behind me. It is taking its time because it knows it will catch me. Like a cat with a mouse, it’s playing with me. Giving me just enough hope to keep on going. Even though we both know how this will end. There is no chance I make it out alive. I won’t see another sunrise. How sad that I didn’t appreciate the last sunrise.

A distant memory of sunshine on my scarred skin. A warm embrace on a cold day. I’m shivering as it starts raining. The hairy monster shakes the rain off its fur. It smiles at me, like a friend. I know better than to trust that smile. Friends become enemies very quickly. They cared for me, a long time ago. They stopped visiting me in the hospital a few weeks after … the incident. Not only that, but they couldn’t understand that I’m still sick. That there is no cure for this kind of disease. It’s eating my brain inside out. It’s tearing at my flesh and no matter what the doctors tried, they couldn’t help. The only visitor that kept coming was the monster. Somehow it managed to get past hospital security. Somehow it was invisible to others. All that doesn’t matter. It’s real, it’s here and it is still going to feast on me. Blinded by the lights. A honk, screeching tires, then the road falls on my face. Darkness engulfs me.

Muffled voices near my ear, a hand checking for a pulse on my slit wrist. “Oh shit, oh shit! Is he okay?” Then a deeper voice shouts: “Darling, call an ambulance! He lost a lot of blood!” Footsteps approaching. “Shit, I didn’t see him! Why was he walking on the road at midnight?” Yes indeed, why? The monster! How could I forget about the monster! I open my mouth, but just a gurgling sound escapes. “He’s trying to speak! Move closer!”, the deep voice commands. “The monster … look out … can’t escape … it will eat us all”, I manage to mumble under my breath. “Honey, what is he talking about? There is no monster, is it? The road is empty!”, she says, confused. Idiots! We are all going to die. More food for the monster, that must make it happy. At least one of us will be happy. I will never be happy again. Sirens in the distance. “Oh, thank God, the ambulance is coming!”, he shouts out, relieved. “Please just leave me to die here”, I whisper into the darkness.

A hand holds mine. “No, stay with me, buddy. You will live. The ambulance is nearly here. Don’t give up yet! You will live, I promise!”, he speaks softly yet eagerly in my ear. Tears are running down my face. “I want to die”, I whisper in the direction of the voice. “You won’t die tonight”, he reassures me. Then four strong arms lift me up. “His pulse is steady, but he lost a lot of blood. Give me some bandages! And open his vein for me, I need to inject”, one says to the other.

The monster smiles his devilish smile and waves me goodbye. “Please don’t leave me”, I cry out. “I’m right here”, says someone. “Stay with me”, someone begs me. It sounds just like her … impossible, it can’t be her! She was taken by the monster a month ago. “He’s got a hospital bracelet!”, someone shouts. “Great, where are we taking him?” Someone grabs my wrist. “It says: Mental Ayslum Georgetown.” A cough of disbelief. “Didn’t that close down years ago?” Hands are grabbing my body, rearranging it. “Let’s just drive him to the nearest hospital then.” Lights are blinding me, then darkness engulfs me.