The Other Side

They say the scariest things happen at night - the darkness gives cover to hide all the evil. But for me and my family, that could not be further from the truth. To us, night is a blessed respite from the evil that haunts our days. We have no name for it, for we do not even know and cannot even begin to comprehend what is happening in our house. All we know is that it keeps to the daylight hours, and that we can never escape.

We have lived in this house for longer than any of us can remember. So long that none of us can even recall how or why we came to be in the home, or anything that came before. It is a beautiful home, with every comfort one could imagine - except the ability to leave. No matter how hard we try, we have never been able to successfully open any door or window. No matter what we do, and we have done just about everything at this point, nothing works. That was the first clue something was terribly wrong, but apart from that glaring red flag, the rest was wonderful. We wanted for nothing, and honestly lived lives of luxury, trapped as we were within the walls of our own home. 

Then the evil came. The first day was one of the worst. The entire house started shaking, almost as if we were centered above a massive earthquake. Suddenly, the shaking stopped and an unnatural light flooded the house blinding us. As our eyes finally adjusted to the light, we found that we were completely frozen, unable to blink or move in any way. Not that we would have moved much anway. We were all terrified and would have been frozen in fear if we had had any control of our limbs. Then it started. Without warning, my mom flew into the air. She began shaking up and down, limbs flopping up and down in some grotesque dance. Then my father joined her, frantically failing as their bodies crashed into each other. I watched in horror as they danced around like puppets on strings, except there were no strings or anyone pulling them. Suddenly, they vanished. 

I tried desperately to call out to them, but my voice still would not work. I heard a loud noise coming from upstairs. With all of my, I did my best to move, and I finally felt a give, only to release that the evil came back, this time for me. With growing terror, I could only watch as my body was controlled by some invisible force. I felt sick watching myself move around like that. Then, the world began to spin. My vision faded out only to become clear again seconds later. I realized I was in my own bedroom. Before me, I saw the covers on my bed lift up, almost like a gaping mouth ready to swallow me whole. I felt myself being pushed toward the bed, and I could do nothing as my body was placed on the bed and the covers laid over me, including my face. I thought for one terrifying minute that whatever had done this would kill me this way, that I would die gasping for breath in my own bed at the hands of an entity I could not see or fight.

I lay there waiting for something else to happen. I could still see the light faintly through the covers, but other than that, I had no indication. My mind ran through all of the worse case scenarios. What would happen to me? What happened to my parents?. I was in the midst of trying not to have a panic attack when a booming noise rattled the house. All of a sudden, the unnatural light cut out immediately, leaving the house to once more be bathed in natural daylight. I felt the hold on my body release. Without another second, I threw off the covers, jumped out of the bed and ran to the opposite corner. My breathing was ragged and harsh as I checked myself over. No injuries, no signs of what had happened. I took a deep breath to calm myself. Then I remembered my parents. I ran straight out of my room - and straight into them. We hugged and cried, relieved that everyone was safe and scared out of our minds that whatever happened would come back. We desperately tried to leave the house, but just as before, no such luck. We all slept in the master bedroom that night.

I wish that I could say it never happened again. I wish I could say that things got better and we eventually put it off as a crazy realistic bad dream. But I unfortunately cannot. The truth is that the evil came back almost every day. The entire house shaking and unnatural light serve as our only warning, a precursor to the horror about to follow. Some days are better than others - it treats us gently and calmly, with nothing more than a few moments of flailing around. Other days it is much worse. We have been thrown against the walls, smashed into each other, and repeatedly crashed against the floor. Those days are usually accompanied by more of the booming noise. After a couple of times, we realized that the noise was actually a voice, and we tried to make out some of the words. We have never been able to understand it, though the words ‘doll,’ ‘house,’ and ‘toys’ tend to come up the most. We have tried everything that we can to figure out what it might mean, if it were some code or instructions or something to help us escape this nightmare of the situation. It has been years since we gave up trying.

Eventually, we came to accept that there was no escape. We have decided to just let it be, especially since there is nothing we can do. This is not the life I wanted or thought in a million years that I would be living. I do not know if this cycle of daily evil will ever end, and I am not convinced I want to find out what happens next if it ever does come to any end. All I know is that while some people say evil hides in the dead of night, I know that it can come just as well in the light of the day.