#madness

I find myself staring at the brick wall in front of me again. After another heavy night of drinking I find it abnormal to regain consciousness in the same place several days in a row. I'm outside of the abandoned hospital downtown. An eerie place to find yourself on a foggy morning. It seems no one is around, though you can hear the sounds of the city already busy. I light up a cigarette and proceed to check my phone. It's 7 a.m.

I can't remember how it started. All I know is that I have to turn them on. All of them. The lights. Something is in the darkness. I get a glimpse sometimes. When it gets close. When the lights flicker. I can hear it breathing too. Whatever it is, it's not a nightmarish collection of body parts barely clinging to life. It sounds fit, strong. It sounds like a hunter, biding its time.

It all started with a slight itch on the tip of my right middle finger. I absentmindedly scratched at it, and continued playing Minecraft. I soon forgot about it entirely, as a Creeper blew up the house I had worked on for an hour, as Creepers often do. I cursed and began to rebuild.

I rest for a while. Now is time to get up and try once again to find an exit. Walking and looking for markings on the walls, a stain, a scratch, a spider web I haven't seen yet. Nothing. Perfect walls, untouched. I examine one of them looking for imperfections. Nothing. The maze looks like a work from Nature itself, a little trap created by the forces that rule the universe so they can have fun watching vermin like me struggling for a little bit of sunlight.

Sometime during the night of August 16, 1952, the small town of Ashley, Kansas ceased to exist. At 3:28am on August 17, 1952, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake was measured by the United States Geological Survey. The earthquake itself was felt throughout the state and most of the midwest. The epicenter was determined to be directly under Ashley, Kansas.

A little girl’s parents went out for a business dinner so they hired a babysitter to watch her. “Can I have some ice cream?” the little girl, Holly asked after supper. “Sure” the babysitter, Beatrice said. “Where’s the freezer?” “In the basement, so are the nuts, cherries and candy and stuff.” When she went down to get the ice cream, she looked out the window to see a little girl standing outside. This didn’t strike her as too suspicious and she simply brushed it off.

12/02/11

Jonathan Felix sat back in the chair after affixing the final electrodes to his skull. He is currently reclined in one of the most expensive private scientific investments in the world, and today was the fruition of his, and many others, efforts. The aim of the project was to open a human beings mind and allow them to perceive one of the spatial dimensions above the mediocre three.

“I never was a huge fan of myths, legends or any folksy wisdom for that matter. Spooky stories to tell around a campfire had no value to me, except good entertainment of course. You know, a man can spend his whole life living in ignorance, maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be … but sometimes, one is yanked into the unknown without a reason, facing consequences larger than life! Would you call that fate doctor?”

The noises had started around two in the morning, and while the house tended to make noises during such frightful snowstorms as this current one, these noises didn't sound normal for a shifting house. I lay awake in bed, not daring to move. The sounds were not scaring me, let me get that straight. I am not scared by much. No, the sounds were confusing me, that was all. I wasn't sure what to make of them. They seemed to be getting closer, so I silently got out of bed and picked up a knife I keep…

I looked in the empty room for a sign that I wasn't alone. I didn't want to feel alone. Companionship has been lacking in my life for so long and I don't even know what it means to love someone anymore. I am a metal barred door trying to close but inevitably there is the door-stopper, never allowing me to get past.

From: —— @ —— .com Re: entries/information requested re: compiling psychological profile Written below are the journal entries of Christopher Young, brother of Daryl Young, found saved as individual files on his personal computer, with file names Prologue.doc, Ch1.doc, Ch2.doc, etc. Apart from being compiled into one document, they have not been altered in any way. — Prologue

For the tenth time that day, Lucy's phone rang. She knew that, because she had been counting. And for the tenth time that day, Lucy ignored the shrill sounds of the phone. She didn't much care for it, it was if anything annoying and too persistent for her taste. What she had learned, was that persistence got you killed. Much like curiosity. And she would be giving into both those things if she were foolish enough to answer the phone.

The demon looked much as I expected it to. Standing at roughly twice my height, its skin was cracked and burnt as if it had been pressurized under heat high enough to charbroil humans and strong enough to snap metals like twigs. Though hunched over, its vestigial wings flapped futilely as it threw itself against the barrier of table salt I'd scattered around it - all eight of its compound eyes blinking in confusion, and finally - understanding.

There are times within a person’s life when they will curse the limitations of their own human body. While it can perform many actions there are moments when it is simply not enough. Have you ever tried to swim underwater for long periods of time? Perhaps you have been beaten senselessly by a hulking bully. It could be that you are late to your destination.

When I was a kid, I was a huge sucker for Barbie dolls. Really. I didn't care for them like other girls did; giving them baths and cleaning them up and going to sleep with them, but I did like playing with them. I was usually playing around with the outfits, having them talk to each other, stuff like that.

The bell rang and I lifted myself from my seat and headed out of second period. My back was killing me from sitting in the hard, plastic chair for the past hour and a half; I was ready to get out of there.

I'm a surgeon. Now, I've seen my fair share of strange medical events, But one event that I saw still haunts me to this day.

I stirred from deep within my sleep, unsure of what had woken me, but too tired to put any further thought into it. The mist of an unfinished dream swam around my head, distorted and fading with every second.

Last year, I spent six months participating in what I was told was a psychological experiment. I found an ad in my local paper looking for imaginative people looking to make good money, and since it was the only ad that week that I was remotely qualified for, I gave them a call and we arranged an interview.