Nighttime Falls: Into Water

In our small, remote town, there is a serial killer who comes out at night, every single night during autumn and no one knows his name. He has pitch black hair in dreads and it spikes out. He is a dark man. Like the night in which he comes out in. They call him Nighttime Fall. I hate that name. I don’t know why but something about it gives me goosebumps. He doesn’t have a specific way to kill but he always makes his victims suffer before they die. Considering that the police here are unprofessional and too scared to do their job here, everyone always runs to a safe place at night whenever he comes out. Regardless, many fall victim to the killer’s sick ways. Especially travelers who don’t know better. It’s brutal. There was this one day, I was in a tent in the middle of the cold woods with my girlfriend Alyssa, and her best friends, David and Zach. Alyssa scoots closer to the fire and whispered, “What if we all got murdered tonight? By the Nighttime Fall.” David laughs while Zach appears to be scared. “Don’t worry Zach, they are messing with you,” I reassure him. Alyssa backs away from the fire telling us we’re boring for not believing the danger we are in. We should’ve believed it.Alyssa told us that her uncle got murdered last autumn by this alleged killer. Nobody who ever lived had actually seen him, so we were skeptical. Alyssa loved to tell fake stories but when she tells stories involving this particular guy, she tells them differently. In a more serious tone, unlike when she tells fake tales. She likes to joke around a lot with those. Still, I was skeptical of her. While we were laughing together, telling stories and sitting by the fire, this man comes in and spoiler: it's the killer. But he doesn't try and kill us. Instead, he just sits next to me, looking visibly stressed out. So I say, “Hey stranger. Are you alright? What’s your name?” I don’t know why but I remember his name pretty clearly. His name was Dillan Addison or maybe Allison. He walks over and sits in the darker part of our area while Alyssa is talking with David and Zach. He tells me that he wants to be normal but he doesn’t know how. “Oh, I know the feeling,” I say, looking at Alyssa running around the fire dancing and screaming some stupid tunes. “No, you don’t get it.” He grins slightly and turns his head towards me. I soon realize that he has a scar on his eye. A little odd detail, until I remember the story Alyssa is old me a few nights ago. She said, “As my uncle was fighting for his life, pushing the Nighttime Fall away, he grabbed a huge freaking knife and slashed his eye. He bled all over him, it was gross. My uncle was a badass.” 

Before I could run away, he pushes me down and grabs me by my legs. I yell out, “Alyssa! Help me! Please, let me go!” I reach for Alyssa but she’s too far to notice, sitting there listening to the music cover my screams. I feel like I’m just going to die in pure loneliness at this point. I start to wonder if they will ever notice I’m gone until Zach realized and shuts the music off. “Oh my god, Morgan!” And before he could run and get me, Dillan pulls out a small handgun and shoots David and Alyssa in their legs. He shot Zach in the chest. I watched them all bleed helplessly as I got pulled out of the woods and onto a nearby bridge. I could see the edge and the water below. I began to pull my shoe loose and my foot squirmed out of my Vans and dash away. Running on the edge, the cold-blooded monster shoves me into the water. He looks over the edge for a second and then he jumps into the water and he swims like a professional and then before he catches me I try to swim down so he can't find me but he catches me anyways. We are so deep in the water that I can feel the pressure on my chest. He stabs me multiple times and slowly but surely, my lungs fill with water. It feels like my chest is on fire until finally, my heart stops. The pressure is lifted off my chest. I feel no pain. But my mind is racing. I hear Alyssa on the bridge calling out to me. “Morgan! Goddamnit Morgan, where are you?!” I hear her scream and cry. I hear David rush over to her, telling her she needs to get back inside their car. And then I see her. She had jumped into the water, in hopes of finding me. And she did. But I was dead by then. Long gone. She knew that, as did I. She swam up to the top, I could tell she didnt feel well. She began to bawl and scream and cry like she never had before. Alyssa wasn’t the emotional type. But in that moment, she became one. David lifted her cold body out of the freezing water. She looked lifeless and numb the moment she got out of the water, as if she had murdered me herself. They got back to the tent, and found a nearby cabin. It was abandoned, quiet. My vision of them faded and I appeared in this white room. It was like...heaven? I saw everything I wanted. My life with Alyssa, one more time before it all faded black. That’s it. I have no body. No matter. No existence. Instead, I am a floating conscience. Existing, only in myself. Not in the world. Telling myself stories to occupy the emptiness of my death. Reliving the story of my death. Every time, however, my memory gets faded. I’m disappearing. Even if I am gone, I’m leaving. Again and again, until eternity’s end.