With a sudden gasp for air I woke up, it took me a moment to calm my heavy breathing and collect my thoughts. I was in my room, all alone, with the heavy rain thundering against my window. As the sound of lightning boomed outside, I looked at the clock. It was 3:15 in the morning. Somehow waking up in the middle of this particular night didn’t felt good to me, maybe it was my imagination but there was this sense of uneasiness, of impending loss in the chilly air. But my parched throat dulled them and I got out of bed, to the kitchen for a glass of water. Having quenched my thirst, I returned to My room or so I thought…

It took me a moment to adjust to the room’s darkness but, the darkness being the least of my concerns, what I saw instantly chilled me to my very core. I simply stood there, paralyzed beyond my beliefs, by the door looking at the horror that lay in front of me. In my room, on my bed was a silhouette similar to a human, ever so silent yet painfully loud. It was under the bed sheet lying perfectly still as if a dead body. There was so much blood curdling evil exuding from the silhouette that the whole room was drowning in it. I felt weak in my knees, like my insides had gone so hollow yet I felt so heavy that I was unable to move. I was shaking n sweating profusely.

I wanted to scream, call for help or even cry for that matter but no words escaped my mouth. I wished so desperately for it all to be just a nightmare but, I knew better. Clutching on to the last strands of courage or foolishness, that I had left, I walked into the room. Hoping desperately, for it to be a hallucination or a trick of some sort, I pulled on the sheet.

To my profound relief, there was nothing beneath the sheet. Maybe it was all in my head. But a second later I realized how wrong I was as I felt someone push me from the back. I landed face first on the bed, I tried to turn around and face the entity but something or some dark force held me in my position. I felt such immense pressure, like my chest would cave in, that it made it hard for me to breathe. I felt like my heart was going to be crushed, I started choking on every breath I took……. And then came the low raspy icy voice that could even pierce steel – “you will now know the Void, for I’m you.

Before I could even comprehend what it meant, crushing blows made contact with my body and for the first time I knew fear, fear of not knowing what was happening to me or why, fear of what more was to come, and worst of all fear of dying!!

With each blow it was getting harder for me to breath, tears rolled down my cheeks as It dawned on me  that this might be my last day...despair n pain filled me up to the brim. I was going to lose my family, my friends, and everything else that I cherished.  

That’s when I made up my mind; I was not going to be the one to lose everything. With a last surge of strength and courage I pushed back, and suddenly there was no resistance. Just like that everything went quiet and I could hear my own ragged breathing accompanied by the pounding in my ears. The pain from all those blows was still fresh but that didn’t stop me from running down to my parent’s room.

I don’t know what I had expected to see but, the scene on the other side of the door was definitely not in the list.

Somehow I had entered my living room and on the couch was a family of four enjoying a movie together with popcorns. And I realized that it was my family – mom, dad, sis and me. But something felt odd, like a missing piece of a puzzle. I looked around the room searching for something, anything out of the blue, or the ominous presence that was in my room, anything and that’s when I noticed the clock . It was spinning like crazy. Then it struck me like a gunshot, the family on the couch was mine except for the fourth member that was supposed to be me but …

There was a dark outline of a man sitting in my place seemingly lost in conversation with my family. And they treated it no differently either, like it belonged with them. It was a constantly moving black mass of smoke with no features whatsoever , just a dark silhouette. Slowly yet steadily it was drawing in the entire essence of the room into it along with my family. And the worst part was that nobody seemed to care or even acknowledge me for that matter. Nobody paid any attention to the fact that instead of me there was this swirling black smoke sitting with them, engulfing them, pulling them in patiently and that’s when the silhouette turned to me and I knew what it had meant earlier. I heard its familiar voice again, this time, in my head - soon all of this will be a part of me like you!  accompanied by a menacing roar of laughter.

I wanted to shout and warn them of the demon but nothing came out…. With tears flooding my eyes I raced towards them and realized that the closer I went the farther they appeared from me….I frantically tried to run to them but the distance only seemed to increase. All my efforts were in vain. Soon what was supposed to be a scene of my living room, looked like a distant movie being played on a screen which kept on moving further away from me, fading into nothingness.

I was left all alone, surrounded by the darkness , to wander through the realm  eternal – devoid of creation itself!