The quiet is almost too much to bear sometimes.
After a while, the brain fills in the blanks for sanity’s sake.
You hear patterns, tapping, humming, the gnawing of rats in the walls.

 

Dull at first, low and echoing sounds in an empty home,
Then melding together until it consumes your thoughts and all you can focus on is the incessant tapping.
Next, there’s a knock on the door, but it’s locked.

The pills must be kicking in,

The door keeps banging, like some beast demanding to be let in.
So you fortify the locks on the door, mental traps to keep it away.
Hallucinations aren’t so easy to forget, though.
The beast finds a run around,
It deactivates the traps, picks the lock, and peers in at you
The hairs on your arms raise at the sound of creaking on the kitchen flooring.

When is a door not a door?

The creaking fades out, and for a moment you return to reality, but it’s short-lived.

The banging door resounds through your aching skull, frantically, distant concerned words fading away.
A stillness fills the air, the cold seeping into your bones and goosebumps raise
You lick your suddenly chapped lips, scanning the seemingly empty room.

When it’s ajar.

The murmurs of hesitance grow louder in your head, uttering words of caution.
They grow quieter as the door is heard slamming shut.
It’s in the room with you. Out of the corner of your eye it extends its bony limb.

It’s there now. Breathing down your neck. You can feel it, smell the decay, and you can almost taste the rotten flesh that hangs off of its frame.
But you’re too late, Its hand brushes against your back.
It’s got you now.

 

Imagination can be such a dangerous thing if you let it wander.