Demon's Playground
As a young man dismisses the last of his guests, he lets out a deep, refreshing breath. Even in a room full of nice people, sociable people - however complete strangers - he is still so tense. The lights, the movement, the commotion, it all seems to make the knot keep in his mind coil even tighter. The last person hustles out the door to catch up with their company, and the unacknowledged young man presses the door shut gently behind her. Used to such ignorance, the man trudges indifferently away from the door, feet heavy with unexplainable exhaustion. No matter what he does, whether it is he lay on a couch reading a book or cut and prune everything down to each blade of grass on his estate, he always seems to be unreasonably exhausted by the end of the day. He shuffles lazily down the hallway and into the master bedroom. Not even bothering to close the door, he quickly changes out of his daytime clothes and strips down to his briefs. Goosebumps spread across his skin as the cold night air rushes around his uncovered skin.
With a slight shudder he pushes the door behind him shut and quickly makes his way to the large, king-sized bed placed in the center of the bedroom. However, he has to use only his hands to find his way, feeling his way past the dresser, the trunk at the foot of his bed, and finally the nightstand before he reaches his bedside. The the room is pitch-black; no light is bothered to be lit and the only window is partially blocked by the bed’s headboard. Even then, only a foot of it is able to poke out above the wood. Usually the moon lights the room enough to make it easy to stumble across, but tonight is a rare night; tonight, there is no moon in the sky. The young man quickly pushes the comforter and sheets aside, allowing him to slip in underneath them. The sheets are cold and slightly uncomfortable against the man’s bare skin, taking their time to slowly warm from the heat radiating from his body. As the man lay on his back waiting for the blankets to warm up, he stares up at the ceiling, or what he thought is the ceiling. The lack of light left him only able to use his memory to place where the ceiling fan is, where the door of the room is, and even leaves him second guessing up from down and left from right.
He closes his eyes and pulls the covers closer to his chin, mentally pleading them to heat him up faster. He wants nothing more than the black to fade away into the color of dreams and a life he could never really have. A life that is actually worth living; whether it is a life of slaying the zombies and other creatures of the night that had mysteriously taken over the world, or a life of caring for the girl of his dreams after meeting her while scuba diving on Mars.
But as he stares at the back of his eyelids, all he sees is a darkness that is identical to the night surrounding him; no brilliant colors, no glorious heroics, no swooning ladies, just blackness. The man grows weary and opens his eyes once more, hoping that if he simply stares off in one direction for long enough, his eyelids would eventually droop shut with exhaustion.
Or, at least he thought he opened his eyes. He has physically felt his eyelids flutter open, but mentally he cannot find a difference between the darkness of his mind and the blackness of the night surrounding him. He lifts a hand to his face to physically feel with his own fingers that he has opened his eyes – to prove that he had actually done it. The man cringes as his finger accidentally brushes roughly against his naked eye. They are undoubtedly open, but that only increases his awareness of the pure blackness that cloaks every particle of matter around him.
So much so that the man swears that it lay across his skin like a blanket, even covering the parts of his body under the bed sheets. It surrounds and smothers his entire body like a burial shroud. He twists his head from to the side, trying to shake off the vexing sensation. It seems to float off of him, particles clouding upward like disturbed sand on the ocean floor, but then settles back into place on his skin. The more aware that the man becomes of the impossibly physical nature of the darkness, the thicker it seems to become. It begins to feel more and more like an actual cloth spread over him as he jerks his body back and forth, trying to remove the thin membrane from his skin. He scratches at various places on his body in attempt pull the absurd entity from his body. It presses, heavier and heavier, against his neck and arms. Sweat begins to glisten across his skin, a product of his effort to remove it and the stuffiness of the darkness – now as thick as a fur blanket. The tips of his fingers and nails feel slick against his skin. The shroud seems as though it is clinging to him; the moisture exuding from every pore on his body causes it to stick to his skin like a wetsuit.
His ability to move lessens with every hot, stifling breath that escapes with his moans and groans. The man’s breathing quickens; his lungs complain for air that the night has blocked from his parted lips. His throat burns and voice turns coarse and rough with every yell. The weight of the darkness seems to get heavier and heavier as the night wears on; every second feels like an hour. The man feels a steady increase of pressure on his body, particularly his chest, like the shroud of darkness that cloaked his body thickens threefold with each exhale. But not only does the external parts of his body feel the burden, but his head begins to ache, like someone is forcibly pressing onto his brain from all directions. He thrashes his arms and legs about in attempt to throw the covering off his body. He tries desperately to grip onto hit with clammy fingers. But the pressure remains a restriction to his movements, practically pinning him to the bed where he laid.
His thoughts become clouded with panic. He has lost control. He tries desperately to get a grip on reality, only to find that reality seems as far away as the light switch on the other side of the room. His heart pounds in his chest, threatening to break free from his imprisoning ribcage. His whole body seems to thrum along to the beat. His breaths come out short now, his lungs tired from the suppression of the cloak that quells him. His eyelids feel so heavy, like someone is pressing their thumbs into his eye sockets, and he still isn’t quite sure if his eyes are closed or not. He prays that they are, though, because of the sounds.
He hears the whispers, the snickers, and the dealings of the demons – the instigators of his nightmarish suppression. They taunt him, urging him to rise from where he lay; to get up and try. They laugh and cackle as his body twitches away from their touches and strokings as they ran their razor sharp nails across his torso and limbs. He feels their maniacal gazes pressing onto him, impossibly amplifying the burden that disables him. With each forced raise of his chest, they snicker longer and mock him further. They hiss in his ear how pathetic he is, how useless he is – not only in that moment but throughout his life. The demons remind him how utterly alone he is, in that huge bed, that magnificent house, with no one to come to his aid – no one for him to call out to, to confide in, to love or love him in return. They harshly whisper that the only company to even pay attention to the young man in weeks are the demons themselves. They tell him about how he should thank them; how he should praise, seek out, and glorify their attention, while no one else bothers to give him theirs. They press, lay on, and fondly stroke the barrier of darkness that restrains him, pressing him deeper and deeper away from reality, into an unending abyss.
The young man is merely entertainment to the demons, and he knows this. He would have thought it a sick game to play. But this is the game of demons, cackling and raving in their notorious playground of the night. And with that in mind, the young man once and for all lets go of all hope, all self-control, and his will to live even one more second of this terrible existence. It is a game to be won, and he has been out of the running from the beginning.
As he lets go, he falls. He falls away from not only the demons, the cloak, and the darkness, but his loneliness, his lack of conviction, and his feeling of uselessness to the likes of humanity. He falls away from reality. He falls away from the daunting of what’s to come tomorrow, and the disaster of what yesterday had been. He falls until there is nothing; he falls until he is nothing.
The demons boo as their toy spirals out of their grasp. They grumble as they move on to the next amusement to be found in their playground. And it is with one final thud, the man is set free; his soul releases into the clear unlimitedness of oblivion.
Days passed, and the man’s body lay, broken and bruised, yet peaceful in a tangled mess of blood-spotted bed sheets on his floor. It is only when the weekly maid came knocking on his door that people began to take notice to the recently desolate mansion next door, because. It remained unmoving and unanswered. With much hesitance, a young woman (to whom the young man paid kindness too once upon a time) clicked the door to the residence open. She found it unlocked, as it had always remained so that anyone may comfort the man with their presence for the brief moments they desired a place to stay. As she made her way through the house, she checked each room, unsure of which is the bedroom. After many a trial and error, she came upon a surprisingly intricately designed door, compared to the bland colors of the rest of the house. Raising an eyebrow, she turned the handle and stepped inside, freezing at the scene that lay out before her eyes. With a pathetic cry, the young woman stumbled towards the door, panic surging through her veins. She felt as if she is going to be sick as she made her way out of the hellish house.
The doctors later described to the witness that the cause of death of the “serene, private man in the estate down the street” is nothing more than a spontaneous, yet long-built up case of pure insanity.
