You ever get that feeling? You know the one I'm talking about. The one where you're in bed, and you're warm. Comfortable. And you were asleep, but something made you wake up, like say... need to use the bathroom, you need to roll over, etc. And I know how it goes, I've been there too. You keep your eyes shut and shift a little under the sheets, trying to drift back into sleep.
Except you can't. You get that feeling-- everybody does-- that there is something there and you can't see it. We've all seen that one horror movie that made us never completely comfortable in the dark. You can't see a thing, but a feeling not to open your eyes creeps over you as you lay there, and you battle with keeping your eyes shut or just flicking them open quickly to make sure you're alone. Now, at this point, there are two thoughts in your head right now, right? Just... just open your eyes and get it over with, then you can go back to sleep and be done with it. And then there's this little voice inside your head, your irrational and unrealistic thoughts:
"No... don't! If something's there... Just don't open your eyes. Just wait, you'll eventually go back to sleep anyway. You don't want to see... oh God, something is in here and it's right in front of you, you don't want to risk it!"
Like I said, I've been there. You can only take so long without knowing for sure, but your own paranoid thoughts make you fear what could be watching you as you lie there, battling with yourself. Watching, waiting for the moment your eyelids flicker. So it can lunge forward.
Well don't do it. Just don't open your eyes, trust me on this. Why?
Haven't I told you throughout this, that I've been there? Well, I have. Believe me, I was one of the most scaredy-cat kids you could ever imagine, and that's before it happened. The thing that shook me to my very core, and it still makes me clamp my eyes shut at night.
Her name is Marie, Dawn Marie. Or it was, back when she... back when she was a normal human being. I did some looking after the scare, I had heard a rumor that a girl by that name was raped and murdered somewhere near my town and decided to research it to see if it was true. And... it was. You can look her name up yourself.
It was 1986 when she was discovered, horribly mutilated. I honestly felt sorry for her, even with what she had done to me. Strangely it hit me pretty soon after I read her article-- the terror, sheer terror of what it must have been like before she died. Things like that can turn the soul sour, I know it would have turned mine. That's what she wants...
She's dead, and pissed. She's been pissed at the world, don't you get it? No one helped her, she must've screamed and cried for help, but no one came! She hates us, every single person that lives.
And she has a right to.
She sure as hell got her revenge on me. I was alone in my room, with my cat, listening on my iPod. Trying to go to sleep. When I finally thought I was wound down enough to sleep, I shut it off. And then... you got it, it was that feeling in the dark right before I shut my eyes. I battled, just like we all battle. My courage won, and I opened up my eyes--
An image I found. Someone it seems tried to re-create what they saw.
She was there. She was there and her skin was red, and dear god those eyes... the whites, they cut right through the darkness and into your heart. But the one thing I'll never, ever forget so long as I am breathing... was that horrible mouth.
Blood red zigzag tears and cuts over her lips, as if she'd tried to chew her way out of her duct-taped mouth to scream. It was only an instant that I saw her as a kid, and I still remember that jarring scream:
"WAKE UP!!"