The Yellow Raincoat

This is a bad way to start anything but I guess I have to be honest... I don’t do anything anymore. I mean that’s a heavy statement to make but it’s pretty true. Not that this is a recent thing, it’s just gotten worse. I recently finished college and like most grads I can’t find a job. You know how it goes, can’t get experience without getting a job and can’t get a job because you don’t have experience. It’s a shitty cycle, and it starts to get to you. You can only keep yourself motivated for so long before that drive just disappears.

As I was saying, it got worse recently, most of my friends have all found employment or moved away. It’s wasn’t their fault my social life took a nose dive, I just kind of stopped trying. It was like I was too nervous to even ask people to hang out. I had this unshakable fear that somehow during the process of talking to them, they’d realize what a shitty person I’d become. And that they had absolutely no reason to associate with me anymore. Even when I got the courage to ask someone out I never actually wanted to go anywhere. I didn’t have the energy to do anything. The times I did somehow manage to leave my house I just became absolutely drained emotionally the whole time. So I just stopped leaving my parents’ home. Sometimes I didn’t even turn on the lights in my room. Just sat in the dark checking the internet waiting for the day to end so I could sleep again.

I’ve always been a dreamer, maybe it’s from having a creative mind or something. Sleeping was my way of getting out, it was the only part of the day where it didn’t feel like I was a complete failure. I had no responsibilities, I could just close my eyes, rest and not give a single shit about anything going on. It was a natural progression that over time I starting sleeping more and more. The dreams I had while unconscious were interesting, and no matter what I did I couldn’t achieve a single thing in the waking world ... It got so bad, I couldn’t even be awake for longer than four hours at a time.

When you’re sleeping that much it becomes harder, and harder to keep track of what was a dream and what actually happened. This consistent nap stuff went on for almost two months without interruption. Well aside from various shouting matching with family members over how I’d become a burden... I knew I should have spent more time looking for a job, but it was like every time I would go to try my mind would lock up and I’d just get too exhausted to do anything... Maybe part of me had just accepted it was pointless to even try anymore. I suppose it was a matter of time before the stress of being alive got to me as I slept.

Everything was so crystal clear, the images my mind played out were almost a perfect representations of the real world. I could feel the texture of objects, touch anything and my brain would process it with such unbelievable clarity. Every dream started to feel linked together somehow, as if I was watching one story play out...

There were always gigantic buildings, like skyscrapers that twisted and turned in impossible ways. Sometimes they’d coil around each other, and it almost seemed like they were forming spider webs. Just looking at them gave you this dreadful feeling that they were going to collapse at any second. Around the inconceivable formations you could always hear metal being grinded, stretched and pounded on. The buildings themselves always seemed to be completely impossible to enter... It was as I looked at the buildings that I noticed the reflection in the glass. There a figure dressed in yellow jacket behind me... I could never seem to find it when I looked for the source. Even in the reflection all it did was stand there, and watch me from a distance... I wasn’t sure if it was even capable of moving... It just seemed to be completely bound to the reflection of the glass...

When I was able to pull my eyes away from the glass I found something else out about the world I visited at night. The dreams always had other people in it. I’d remember talking to them but at no point would I ever call them anything, it was almost like they didn’t have names. I don’t even remember knowing anyone who looked like the men, and women that populated the world my mind had constructed. I’d spend most of these dreams doing normal things, eating, ranting, and gambling on occasion. My dream friends seemed... real in their own ways. They each had their own way of reacting to things. They’d talk about family members I’d never meet, or just go on about their hobbies. It was the closest thing I’d had to real conversation in weeks, it just happened to be in my own little dream world... It was just like the time I still had friends, back when I made the effort to leave my house... Well except for one strange moment that occurred in every dream. Without fail as I was sleeping one of the people would always ask “Is it watching you?” in this sort of panicked way.

Once while I was in a dream about drunken game of tag. It happened in-between rounds, when everyone had stopped to grab a new drink. One of the people involved just grabbed me and dug his fingernails into my shoulders and just shouted the question at me. Even in a dream the list possible responses to that aren’t much more than a stupid unfitting ‘What?!’. After that the guy just looked at me just as confused as I was... for a single second it was as if something was watching me. Slightly out of sight but my eyes still picked up that yellow colour...

Things like that went on for a couple of weeks, sure it was a slightly unsettling but it still seemed better than being awake. It was easy enough to ignore that one moment of disorientation, still maybe I should have paid more attention to what was going on around me... The buildings were changing slowly, it was almost as if they were growing out. They became more complex in the way that they twisted and formed, and the sounds from inside rumbled louder and louder. Once I had noticed the changes it was only a few days before they had completely blocked out the sky...

That’s when my friend’s changed on me. They didn’t ask me ‘Is it watching you?’ like one of them had every other single night. No, the panicked words that fell out of people’s mouths simply became “I should go now... it’s here now.” I didn’t understand what was going on to make everything change. Sure I’d been sleeping a little more than normal just see how the dreams were going to change... but how was I supposed to respond when these dilutions built itself as one thing and then all of the sudden changed completely.

There stopped being people around all together after a while, and the air carried an uncomfortable weight to it. When I looked up towards the sky, I could see the buildings that entrapped the sky were slowly constricting. The idea of it all falling down stopped seeming like slight concern, and became an undeniable reality. The sound produced as everything shock and moved around in the world was unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. It was a loud pounding that made the inside of my skull felt as if it had been ripped open. Like something was slowly grinding away at at my brain. Every dream after this point was just wondering through this slowly decaying land and trying desperately to keep my head atop my body. Some nights I swear I could see that yellow thing move just barely out of my line of sight. It was getting brave and almost letting me almost see it then... Still any attempts to find on my terms it ended up fruitless.

It started to mess with me when I was awake, it stopped feeling like I’d slept at all. My head would wake up pounding just like it had been in the dream. At a point I just tried to do anything to avoid sleeping. At least while I was awake I could numb the sting inside my skull with pain-killers. The only problem was when you’re downing three pills every two hours it makes keeping your eyes open becomes difficult.

Despite my efforts I finally did fall asleep, and this time the dream world was nothing more than twisted metal forming claustrophobic hallways. The pounding sounds rang out all around, god it seemed as if it was the very fucking heartbeat of whatever beast had consumed my dreams. I had to run, there had to be some way out of this place. The sound grew louder and louder, as if it was testing my will. It wanted me to quit, sit down, and give up just like I had on every other aspect of my life. It was in my crazed moment of utter madness that I saw it. At first what I had found was just a large opening, it was almost like the inside of a chapel. The metal twisted and formed in strange patters that seemed to symbolize something that was beyond my grasp of understanding.

In the middle of the room, was where I first saw it, it looked like a man in a yellow raincoat. In a moment of complete fucking stupidity that I yelled ‘Hey!’ at it... A profound feeling of regret instantly filled my stomach as it twitched and struggled to simply turn around. It was almost as if after each and every basic function it fell apart... One moment it would look like some sort of human the next it would be closer to an animal. Each and every single breath this monster took caused my brain to scream. It was like my eyes couldn’t process what was in front of me and it was grabbing every memory, every thought, every single day of my life and trying to make have a shape. It must have known what was going on in my mind. There was a second among all the clashing occurring in my skull, I swear I heard it laugh.

The wailing within my mind grew louder and louder, It must have gotten closer. My brain wouldn’t work, it couldn’t tell my eyes to shut, or my legs to work. I couldn’t run, my eyes were locked on to it... They were still desperately trying to pin some sort of form to the monster. Through the pain I somehow saw the texture of its skin, something about it caused my mind to connect it to the first thing it could think of... a goddamn rain coat.

It was so close now... It hid inside its hood, the outline of eyes stood barley buried behind the black tar like liquid that leaked from its ‘face’. I could feel it’s breath as it got closer... And I was just trapped there, as if my feet were hammered to the floor. I knew this was where I was going to die, this is how it all fucking ended. I was going to watch whatever it was devour me alive with the jaws my mind was unable to fully process. I felt it rip at my skin I saw my organs sprawled out over jagged shapes still impossible to describe. No tears, no screams... I just watched my mind lost itself to both the sight of it and the pain of every single movement. The last sounds I heard were the grinding of teeth as it devoured my flesh...

And then I woke up... covered in a horrible cold sweat. I sobbed, and screamed before I finally realized that somehow I was actually awake. Part of me wanted to cry tears of joy after that. None of it was real, I was perfectly fine and everything was all right. It was all just a dream... It was going to all be normal again... it was all just a simple nightmare and nothing more.

It was freeing it a way, it felt like it was all over then. No matter what happened next it seemed like I’d faced the worst. Whatever that monster was, it was gone forever. I could get back to being normal... Maybe even start leaving my house again. Everything felt like it was going to be fine. Up until that horrible sense of exhaustion sneaked up on me...

My eyes got heavy and before I knew it I was back in its chapel... My arms and legs bolted to the walls, no matter how much my struggled there was no way to free myself. And then I realized it... around me were the people I’d see in my dreams just as trapped as I was. And in the middle of it all. The beast in that fucking raincoat, He’d approach every single person pinned to the wall and slowly eviscerate their forms pulling biting twitching in illogical ways as he did so. Every single movement he made sent my mind into a dizzying frenzy. The crushing motions of every single step it took triggered a chorus of screams, slowly building and building until the second it reached me... Its neck snapped and twisted in an indescribable way as it struggled to turn its head towards me. Somehow during all of the screaming, and rampant panic it allowed my brain one moment of peace. A single second to see his teeth curl into a grin before its hidden red eyes flashed an unholy red light before finally... I felt it, its nails dug into my legs, I felt my muscles and skin slowly split before finally being ripped apart...

I was trapped inside this thing’s heart... It ruled here, a horrid god within a chamber of metal. Compared to that I was nothing more than a pathetic scrap of rotting meat. Destined to face its jaws over and over... Something it would never let go of once it had sunk its teeth into. Its claws and jagged fangs dragged across the metal walls behind me. Through what remained of my shredded form, I learnt one thing in those last moments... Finally I knew what had caused the sounds I’d heard since this stated...

Every time I close my eyes to sleep I find myself in his chapel. Torn apart each and every night I dare sleep... While I’m awake it’s difficult to focus for even a second knowing what monster eats at my dreams. It’s getting to me, I’ve been trying to tell myself over and over again it’s just a dream... It just all feels real... I don’t do anything anymore, I can’t... It stops me, it has me terrified of even closing my eyes... I’m not sure how much longer I can last. Even now it’s becoming uncomfortably tempting... It would be so easy... I would just have to down all of those pain-killers... That would stop everything, then I could rest...