The Imminent Scream

TIS

I live in Victorian London, England. It was noon on Monday and I had just finished work. So I decided to catch a short break outside the café in which I work as a Barista. I had a coffee in one hand and my phone in the other. I wore some jeans with black boots and a white shirt.

The moment I walked out of the café, a sense of unfamiliarity overtook me. Although I've been around this area for almost a year, It felt like the first time I was truly here. I took a glance around me and found a bare amount of people near the town square. Odd.

I leaned against the wall and took out my phone and started scrolling through my chats while drinking my Espresso. I tried looking for someone to text with but found no one, I took a peek at the time, the clock read 2:21 pm on my phone and put it back into my hoodie pocket.

At the time the sun didn't shine, the clouds were hanging in the sky, the air felt heavy, and after a certain amount of time, there was only a single person left in the square. She was a young woman around my age. With one person left in the square other than me, I noticed her observing me. The time was 2:35 pm. I waited for her to move on. Now it was 2:45 pm. What did she want from me?. It started to get chilly.

At this point, I felt her gaze becoming more menacing and soon her expression changed to one of scorn and she moved on without a word. I watched her until she disappeared around a corner, and heaved a sigh of relief, but a sense of forbidding befell me.

And then, suddenly time felt like it had stopped, the clouds stopped moving, people slowed, the whispers of conversation died away, the main square clock hands stopped moving.

"ARHHHHHHHH," screamed a voice.

My eyes snapped open and I dropped my coffee. The scream rattled my bones. In the moments that followed, the pain that was being expressed vividly in the sound called on me to run, but my knees were locked and my body unresponsive. My fear took over and I started to mumble, "Oh god, oh god, oh god."

The scream was ear-piercing. A chill ran through my spine, tingling throughout my small frame. My palms had become sweaty and damp, beads of sweat rolling through my brow accompanied with thoughts created from distress and fear.

"ARHHHHHH," screamed the voice again.

I felt a hand running up my spine, and heard a whisper next to my ear, "You're next," I pinched myself and turned, where I imagined the voice that whispered in my ear would be. No one. This put me on high alert which unnervingly allowed me to come back to my senses, and the first thing I noticed was that the scream came from the corner that the woman had gone around a few moments ago.

I tried calling people I believed who would know what to do in such a situation. No one picked up. I realized that I was alone and that I had to do something, First I called the cops and informed them of my location and what I was about to do. Then I moved closer to the origin of the scream. When I reached the corner I took a peek around the corner. Nothing there. I slowly moved forward step by step, eyes flitting, ears perked, feeling the wall as I walked, with my mobile in hand.

"Help," something whispered.

It came from an alleyway to my right.

"Hel-ARHH-."

Stillness.

"hehe,"

I turned around, and again. No one there. The shout had come from further down the alleyway. I moved deeper into the alleyway and saw that the walls were covered in graffiti. A thick fog rolled in and covered everything from the ground up. I had been walking along with one of my hands on the wall, now I felt something sticky... and unusually wet. With that, I kept my hands to myself and pulled my hood drawstrings tighter, almost covering my face completely.

I walked a bit further and the scent of copper filled my nose, I inhaled and realized that the entire alleyway was reeking of the smell of copper. My throat became dry. I coughed to clear the feeling of rust in my throat

Although I couldn't identify what my hand had touched earlier on the walls I could sense that it covered the walls of the alleyway, as though it had been splattered on the walls. I felt uneasy walking through this street. That was when I saw it, A small figure lying on the ground, as though it was sleeping peacefully.

I reached the form, crouched, and shook it, hoping it would show movement. After several tries failed, I waved the fog covering the form away...revealing a mangled body with its limbs cut off. Cuts were present all over the corpse, with blood pouring from the places where its limbs were supposed to be. A pool of blood had formed around the remains.

I leapt away from the mutilated body and brought my palms up to my face, they were covered in blood. The copper scent was truly the smell of gore. The remains of the man were facing upward with his face depicting fear and shock. He was frightfully pale. I sat next to the body trembling. The air was frosty and cut my skin. I bit my lips till they bled, I chewed my fingernails down to their beds. My lips aching, my fingers sore, I got up and dusted myself.

It was 3:06 pm

There was a trail of crimson black blood behind him with his limbs at different spots in the trail. The man looked like he had been trying to flee from something. His mouth was in the shape of a shout. His neck had fingerprints. I moved towards the corpse that lay mere inches from me and closed his eyes. He felt cold. Dead.

I ran out the alley, stumbling and horrified by the gore which had filled the lane. My vision blurred with tears, suffocating with the smell of blood and the sound of blood dripping. I could still remember his expression, that was filled with fear and pain. His pale looking face haunted me. I reached the main road. I remembered the cold I felt from touching him, my mind was racing with questions.

"How did he die? Why did he die? Who killed him?"

The grotesque image came back to my mind, the man lay there staring up at the dark clouds, blood pooling around him, the trail of blood following him, his limbs along the path of blood lay in unusual angles, his arms fingers bent back further than normal, his legs, one thrown upon the dumpster with blood flowing down, the other next to his torso with broken bones and shaped nothing like a human leg.

I felt something hit my skin, a droplet. I looked up whilst running and dropped my phone along the way. I didn't look back. I didn't want to remember that scene from back there in the alley. The smell of the sea clung to the air, and the rain started pouring. I slowed down to catch my breath, I rested my hands on my knees and tried catching my breath.

"Hehe," laughed a voice

My breath caught in my lungs. I felt my heart beating in my throat. I slowly shifted my eyes to focus on the direction the sound came from. There it was. A creature upside down and staring at me. It had its eyes gouged, its ears cut. Its mouth sealed. Its nose was missing. It might have been my imagination and yet...

I knew it was once longer human

My skin crawled and goosebumps appeared. I blinked, and the creature vanished. I went rigid for a few moments then fell onto my back. People walking by me glanced at me but paid no heed. I looked around, the adrenaline pumping through my blood faded. The events that had unfolded that day fatigued my mind and body. Before I fell unconscious I read the time on a clock ahead of me, It read 4:23 pm, I saw a crowd gathering around and the face of the woman from today afternoon. And that to me was the most unnerving thing in the entire day.