The Compilation

I've Been Watching You

I've been watching you for some time now. You probably knew deep down that I was there, but you could never quite see me.
As a child, you would sob and cry to your parents about the monster under your bed or the demon in your closet - oh how I would relish those tears and screams! The way you hid underneath your bedsheets at night - praying that they would shield you from my gaze - would bring a smile across my face; sometimes even a light chuckle, to which you would cower even more. The way you would squirm and whimper when you heard my approach only made me more delighted. Those years I reveled in so much, and long to relive.
But as with all walks of life, you eventually grew up, and your gradually maturing mind created defenses against me, rationalizing every noise and feeling you attained while I was present. But that didn't stop me; no, it only enticed me!
I learned more and more about you with each passing year - all your terrors and phobias, your doubts, and your mortal weaknesses - both physical and mental. The way a small insect scuttling across your skin would cause you to jolt upright and swat at yourself; those times when your mind weighed heavily on you and you questioned everything you did, regardless of importance; all those times you became injured - the finest being the ones you inflicted onto yourself voluntarily; I was there for it all, savoring every moment with gleaming eyes and an ear-to-ear smile.
Maybe then you saw me.
The way you would turn your head when you caught glimpse of me for just a moment out of the corner of your eye game me hope. The way you would jump when you would hear and feel me breathing down the back of your neck showed me that you recognized my presence to an extent. That uncanny, ritualistic way you would inspect your room every night before you tentatively extinguished the light showed me that I was not forgotten entirely.
But as before, you tried to push me away, degrading yourself even further and accusing yourself of being so foolish as to believe in such things. But that didn't stop you from checking under your bed and in the closet now did it? And every time, I would quietly laugh with glee as you searched in vain.
I would continuously invade your dreams, exhuming every fear to the forefront of your subconscious mind, bombarding you with nightmares of all kinds, forcing you to wallow in despair. Oh the horrors you were made to confront!
You tried to fight sleep for as long as you could, downing the caffeine by the mug and taking pills to keep you awake, but you knew you wouldn't last forever; you knew it and so did I. And I would wait calmly, watching you as you hopelessly battled your own body, but all with no avail.
You would wake up night after night in a cold sweat, sometimes bawling your eyes out, and cursing the heavens for your misfortune.
You eventually stopped going out and quit your job. You avoided anyone you could and would belittle everyone you couldn't. So morose were you that even your own family - your very flesh and blood - did you disown and cared not for any longer. Your significant other eventually left you, unable to bear the burden that you had become.
You started to find solace in the bottle, preferring to drink alone in your nearly empty home, and would pass out drunk almost nightly, which only made the torment all the sweeter - you couldn't resist me!
But then, one night, you seemed a little different than before.
You seemed more jovial than past evenings, gallivanting around with a wide grin upon your face, a spool of thick rope in your hand and a chair following close behind your heels as you dragged it in your stead.
I watched attentively, quickly realizing what you were brooding, my smile growing ever the wider.
Your spine did not snap though as you had hoped, and what you had presumed would be a painless death was thrown into the wind.
You clawed and chocked as your lungs were deprived of air, your legs thrashing and straining for something to stand on, but the chair had been already been kicked aside. Oh how I had been waiting for this moment!
And as the last vestiges of your life ebbed away and your final breath echoed inside your now lifeless house, your body convulsing and shaking in its dying throes, your dimming eyes filled with such dread as the finally met the sunken and hollow ones that are mine.