Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28393265-20160926161646

September the 23rd, 2016.

My buddy James came over to my house for the weekend, as it was our tradition, to play video games. At the time we used to play the newest Dark Souls, while anxiously awaiting the DLC.

While James wasn’t the most punctual person in the world, on that rainy evening, he showed up at exactly 8:00 PM – like clockwork. I congratulated him for being on time, for the first time I can remember – mockingly of course.

He brought six cans of beer – Desperados – our favourite. We had a smoke in my backyard and then proceeded to go upstairs to begin our nightly gaming session. While I was more of a learn everything yourself type of gamer, James would prefer to watch walkthroughs and whatnot prior to playing the game himself, and as a result, he often knew about different game mechanics way before me.

We played and we mocked each other for our failed attempts at defeating the Nameless King on our own, and that’s when we heard a noise downstairs – kind of a loud bang, as if something had smashed right into the glass door leading to the backyard (It happened at exactly 10:00 PM). It was my turn to play, so we both agreed that James is going to be the one to check it out – after all, what could have made that noise? Probably a fox or a dumb bat.

As I was playing the game, I looked at my watch to see how long it’s been since he went downstairs, and it’s only been five minutes at the time, so I figured there was nothing going on and James just decided to have a cigarette’s all. After ten minutes since his departure, I finally managed to defeat the boss on my own, however, the excitement quickly wore down as I had realized it has now been over ten minutes since James went downstairs to investigate the noise, and I didn’t hear from him yet.

Slightly worried now, I quit the game and rushed downstairs to check on James. Oddly enough, James was standing in front of the glass door, motionless, staring into the distance. As scary as that looked, I was never the one to believe in the supernatural (such as ghosts or demons). I figured he’s just observing a fox, as they had been known to hang around the glass door because of the trash we kept just outside until every Wednesday. I took the opportunity, hoping he didn’t hear me coming downstairs, and started sneaking towards him. When I got close enough, I made a dumb noise and pushed him from the back to scare him, but he didn’t seem to react at all.

I was unsure of what the fuck is going on at that point. He behaved just like the people you see in the horror movies, but as I already mentioned, I didn’t believe in all the fairy tales, it was all bullshit to me.

I tapped him on the shoulder and said:

“James? What’s up man?"

He then turned around slowly, looked at me, and went to the living room to lay down in his bed without saying a word. Now, when I say he looked at me, it was rather disturbing. His eyes seemed… unresponsive, as if… dead. My first thought was that James had smoked weed again, which he allegedly quit, but surely I would smell it, had he really smoked some, right?



I followed James into the living room, asking him what the shit is going on, and why is he not talking to me at all. As you can imagine, I was pretty angry at the time, it’s okay to play a prank on your friends, but there are limits you know? He finally replied in a rude, fuck off type of way:

“Just leave me alone”

I’m not an aggressive person by any means, but some situations can push me beyond my limits, and that was one of them, however, I stopped myself from launching a verbal assault on James and instead, just walked upstairs to lay down in my bed because I didn’t feel like playing anymore.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of the front door slamming shut. I ran downstairs to see that James left my house. I was at a loss of words. How many times in a person’s lifetime does that happen? They invite their friends for a cool night in, and then their friends ignore them, behave like a bunch of dicks, and leave in the early morning without saying a word, especially when it’s raining, like it still was. I immediately called James to ask him what his deal is, and oddly enough, he picked up the phone and seemed… NORMAL this time. I asked him why he left so early and why the fuck he ignored me last night and all I got was:

<p class="MsoNormal">“What are you on about man? I have to go to work in the afternoon! And what do you mean I ignored you last night?”

<p class="MsoNormal">It seemed that James didn’t remember anything that happened last night after he went downstairs to check on the noise, because when I told him about it, he just laughed, and told me to “put away the shrooms”.

<p class="MsoNormal">September the 30th, 2016.

<p class="MsoNormal">Not counting the last fucked up Friday with James, the entire week was okay. I worked my ass off the whole time and decided to take a few days off to indulge myself in video games. I moved to James for that time. We were both bachelors so there weren’t any problems with the situation whatsoever. No siblings, parents or girlfriends living with us, bugging us about anything. All we cared for, was getting drunk and playing video games.

<p class="MsoNormal">I arrived at James’es house at around 7:35 PM, unpacked my stuff, and proceeded to play video games with my mate. As time went by, we talked - apart from gaming of course - about girls, movies and work, until the clock hit 10:00 PM. Again, like clockwork, James stood up, and just went outside without saying a word. I was beginning to worry a bit more now, as I remembered quite well, what happened exactly a week ago. I followed him quickly, as the strangest of thoughts started flowing through my head. Thoughts regarding the supernatural, which as I previously mentioned, I never even considered.

<p class="MsoNormal">What if James is fucked up? My first thought, followed by:

<p class="MsoNormal">What if James is POSSESSED?

<p class="MsoNormal">My hands shaking slightly, as I walked down the stairs, leading to the front door of his house. Slowly, I grab the door knob, and I opened the door. What I saw back then… it’s difficult to describe. James was standing there as the rain was falling down on his head, eating a rat... let me be precise here, an ALIVE, fucking rat, still wiggling, scratching at his hands, and trying to escape his grasp, as James bit its head off. Blood spraying everywhere as he chewed on the poor thing. I ran up to him, knocking the animal out of his hand, YELLING curses I have never used before, and that’s when he whipped his head in my direction, said something incoherently, and pushed me back so hard, I fell down on my bare back, into a puddle.

<p class="MsoNormal">I was absolutely terrified! I got up quickly and bolted into the house, locking the front door as quickly as humanly possible. I ran up the stairs, into the main bedroom to look out the window, to see what that lunatic is doing and… he just stood there. The same place, the same position as I had last seen him, except for his head, which was turned towards the window, and his eyes – dead again, staring at me through the glass. I was in such shock I couldn’t move! After about a minute – though at the time it felt like hours – I managed to grab my phone and call the police while observing James from the window.

<p class="MsoNormal">Before the cops arrived, James disappeared into the darkness, literally. His body turned into a black, foggy substance and it just disappeared. I had never been so scared in my life. Everything I believed to be mere stories made up to scare the gullible, turned out to be true. I was at a loss of words. It’s difficult to describe how many thoughts were coursing through my head: god, devil, angels and demons. I didn’t want to believe in any of it, but what else could’ve happened to James other than possession? People can’t just evaporate! I went to the bathroom to wash my face from the sweat and that’s when I noticed what seemed to be a cross… except it was upside down, covered in blood and… scratched INTO the wall, behind the shower curtains.

<p class="MsoNormal">I told the police what had happened, except I left out the more unbelievable parts… It’s not like they’d have believed any of it anyway, I know I wouldn’t. They wrote everything down and told me not to worry, one officer was nice enough to offer me a ride home too, just in case James was lurking around, waiting for me to get out of the house on my own.

<p class="MsoNormal">As I got home, I couldn’t sleep, I dared not sleep. As tired as I was, the adrenaline was still coursing through my veins and I kept pacing between one end of the house to the other, scanning through every window - looking out into the darkness - for James.

<p class="MsoNormal">It was dead silent, it even stopped raining a while ago and as I looked at the clock, it showed 3:30 AM. I must have been walking around my empty house for hours by now, and I finally needed to use the restroom. As I closed the door behind me, that’s when I heard it. An impossibly dark voice, whispering, but loud enough for it to be coming from my own mouth, saying:

<p class="MsoNormal">“I know you’re in there. You cannot hide from me. You, are MINE”.

<p class="MsoNormal">My entire body started sweating profusely again, chills running down my spine, my hands shaking, teeth chattering. I locked the door, turned off the light, and just sat there, on the toilet. Scared witless as what I thought to be claws, scratched at every window in the house, slowly heading towards the glass door. I’m petrified, unable to move or utter a single word while, IT started banging against the door. Each bang getting louder, and louder until the unmistakable sound of glass shattering, followed by oddly sounding footsteps.

<p class="MsoNormal">The footsteps… they’re getting closer and they don’t sound human, more like… hooves. By now, it’s in front of the restroom door, and I can hear him… or it… I don’t know what to call him anymore, breathing heavily and slowly.

<p class="MsoNormal">As the door gets ripped from the frame, I can see James standing there, except he doesn’t look like himself anymore. He looks like the devil himself from the drawings and illustrations you can find on the internet, except… real… and thousand times more terrifying. A tall, humanoid monstrosity, covered in blood and dark grey fur. Goat like legs, thin waist expanding to a broad, human like chest. Horns sticking out of its shoulders and head… which resembles that of a ram, and it’s red, piercing eyes, staring right at me. It’s slowly extending its long arm towards me and...

<p class="MsoNormal">I… wake up. Covered in sweat. It takes me a while, but I finally realize that it had all been just a dream… Just a fucking dream! I’m overcome with relief as I check what time it is. It’s 3:30 AM and I need to use the restroom. I get out of bed and walk downstairs to the toilet, to answer the call of nature, silently hoping that I won’t dream of that again when I go back to bed. That’s when in the corner of my eye… I can see a cross, an upside down cross, covered in blood… scratched into the wall. I turn my head towards the cross, only to see the same sentence I head from James in my sleep

<p class="MsoNormal">“You are MINE”, written under the bloody symbol.

<p class="MsoNormal">I fall down to my knees, feeling the same dread I experienced in my dream. Tears streaming down my face, onto the dark, blue carpet and at this moment, an incredibly sharp claw taps me on my back, on the same side where my heart is and I can feel every muscle in my body, flexing and relaxing rapidly, over and over again.

<p class="MsoNormal">I’m slowly losing my vision, everything gets blurrier by the second and a voice - the same, dark voice from my dream – whispers into my ear:

<p class="MsoNormal">“I told you, you’re MINE”.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">I'd greatly appreciate any feedback as to why it was rejected. I'm not English by birth, however, I think I know the language rather well, and I can't see any mistakes unfortunately.

<p class="MsoNormal">Cheers! <ac_metadata title="The Devil&#039;s Call (unreviewed)"> </ac_metadata>