Encountering Darkness: The Great Pursuit (Book One)

Chapter Four

When he awoke the next day, he noticed that the sun was mostly covered. He felt a little better from what he experienced the other day, but he stopped. He put his head down on his pillow and groaned. Pete remembered that today is the day he dreaded. He had to lay on his bed for a while because the pain of what was to come today was pumping throughout his whole body. His whole body was shaking, not with fear or pain, but with anger. He grabbed his pillow and pounded his fist into it.

Once he forced himself to get up, it wasn't so bad, but he was kind of dizzy from getting up in a haste. He thought for a moment what he would do today, but nothing came to him for a while. He had to think long and hard for what he was supposed to do today, but after a few moments it came to him. The festival was coming up soon. He needed to prepare for it.

Realizing his error, he laughed because the festival wasn't for another couple months. He thought maybe he labored too hard on his work and needed to take it a little easier. Pete got up and got ready for the day.

He walked around his house passing through all the mess of it, trying to think of what else he forgot. He looked around at his house and noticed that he wasn't keeping it up very well, which was odd for him. Pete, trying to kept his mind off of the painful things that would come today, did so by cleaning his home.

First, he went to the living room and then to the family room, which was the dirtiest because he stayed there the most. Then he went to the hallway, which is adjacent to the front door and cleaned that part well. He then went upstairs and cleaned the couple of rooms there.

After he finished, he noticed it was 11 a.m. Pete looked outside and realized it was dark and rainy. He thought it was strange that he would clean his house for around 2 to 3 hours straight. He checked the calendar and noticed that it was still the same day that it should be.

After checking the calendar, Pete then walked around his house and got angry that it wasn't any cleaner than when he first awoke. He knew he did a good job with cleaning his house, but it was still dirty! He realized he must have been in a dream once again, or maybe just moved to a dream, but he couldn't be sure.

Now he had a whole day to do what he wanted, but wished it was yet another day since he had so much free time. Instead, he had today, which was the dreaded day on which no one was around to keep him company. He sat in his chair and felt isolated from the world, and he thought about the wasted life people had.

He turned on the TV and watched a football game. It seemed that college football was on, and after a few moments the game had his whole attention. He noticed that the people on the screen started to get fuzzy, and soon it seemed like they popped out from the screen. He quickly shook his head and then the doorbell rang.

Pete guessed he was tired, so he dozed off, but he at once got up to answer the door. When he made his way to the door, he opened it with hesitation. There was a blinding light outside, so Pete initially shielded his eyes. It took a couple minutes for him to become reacquainted with the outside world.

Before him was what he thought to be the milkman, but only for a second, and then it was someone else. Pete looked at the person, but couldn't make them out because he was too dizzy and groggy to tell. As his head stopped spinning, he noticed that the guy was in white, and he produced some type of noise. He stepped closer to the thing in white to hear what it said, but instead noticed it snickered at him. Soon, this person laughed straight into his face and took all the breath out of him. As Pete looked for this thing's face, he couldn't find any, but only a black endless void that surrounded where this person's face should be.

Pete took an even closer look at this person, and he noticed that this thing really wasn't covered in white, but instead a light red that was dark around the neck. He also noticed that this person carried a foul smell that was so familiar to him.