A New Life

Alright, so about three months ago, I finally moved out of my parent's house and into the unpredictable and mostly unforgiving world of adulthood. I was eighteen by this time, and more or less optimistic about what the adult life had in store for me. A good majority of people are at this age, but odds say that this taste of independence will end up truly being the greatest fear of all young adults. That far away and nearly fantastical age we dream of as kids suddenly hits us essentially out of nowhere, and look who's the asshole that's unprepared.

But anyway, when I finally moved out of my parent's house, I moved into a nice apartment in Philly with a fairly cheap rent. I had had a decent paying job already at Walmart that I had gotten during the summer (yes, I am very ashamed about that), and so I didn't have to act as a sort of parasite towards my parents. It was nice living there. It had a simple living room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom.

So I lived there for a while, driving to my community college by day, going on the internet and eating like a horrible fucking pig by night. It was routine, and I think it's obvious to say that it got pretty old after a while. But there wasn't much I could really do, being an eighteen year old working at Walmart and all.

So I came home from school one day, did my typical routine, and went to bed a few hours later. I think it was about 11:30 that I put my blankets over my body, laid my head on the cold pillow, turned off the lights, and tried to go to sleep. After attempting going to sleep for 15 minutes, I heard something that absolutely scared the shit out of me. Now you have to imagine being in my position; completely alone in the dark, it's near midnight, and you expect nothing but complete silence. The peace was disrupted by a man's voice, a very loud one might I add, and it was coming from the bathroom. And I knew it was coming from my bathroom; it was right fucking next to me. Immediately after my blood pressure rose from the horror I experienced after learning there was an intruder in my home, an immense force of uncertainty and panicking curiosity hit me, as questions came into my head. How did he break in without me noticing? When did he break in? What the hell does he want from me? Why is he in my bathroom? All these questions came only an instant after I heard the voice. I realized only seconds later, after I had collected my thoughts (though only a little), that the man in the bathroom was singing. It sounded like he was mimicking Frank Sinatra, or at least playing his songs out loud for me to hear for God knows why. Every once in a while though, the singing would stop, and I heard the sounds of violent banging on the walls of the bathroom, before the singing started again. I sat quietly for a few minutes, contemplating the next move I would make while still being scared shitless. I knew I would either quickly and quietly get the hell out of there and contact the authorities, or try to confront this stranger myself. For some reason, I really have no idea why, I chose the latter. Maybe it was because I thought subconsciously that this person had violated the very essence of my independence by breaking into my apartment. I owned this place; it was the first thing that belonged only to me. I was going to make this fucker learn this, one way or another. In a rush of exuberance, anger, and yet subtle fear, I grabbed a knife out of a drawer in the kitchen as I heard another set of banging noises from the room. I hesitated after I heard this, losing my confidence in my ability to fight, to defend what was mine, but gradually regained it when I heard the singing again. I had to do this; I had to at least scare this lunatic off. Only if he had a gun would this be a problem. And yet with this possibility now in my mind, I still opened the bathroom door ready to appear as threatening as possible.

In the bathroom was a large, naked bald man with no eyes. There was an abnormally large and permanent grin carved into his face as the lyrics of Frank Sinatra came out of it, perfectly resembling the voice of the man himself. He was skinny enough for nearly all of his bones to be visible through his dark, bloody, and seemingly decaying skin. He was swinging to and fro as he sang, like he was dancing gently, yet still very awkwardly, like he was a child learning how to dance for the first time. He towered over me by a few feet, and as my entire body numbed out of disbelief and utter horror at what I was looking at, I simply stood and looked at him as he was singing, dancing, and dripping blood, his own or someone else’s, onto my floor. A few seconds later, he convulsed violently at an impossible speed while inevitably banging his head on the walls and flailing his arms around like they were rubber. He then took control of his arms again, and viciously and slowly tore off a piece of his skin while still convulsing, with each gash revealing an eye lying within, gazing at me with agony in it and a stream of tears coming out, before slowly sinking back into the covers on his body that was his skin. He had stopped singing only for those few seconds to make what sounded like low-pitched and grotesque sobbing, before singing again once the convulsions stopped. I dropped the knife, picked up the phone and dialed 911.

"911 what's your emergency?" "I... there's..." "I'm sorry sir, can you speak up?" "I... don’t...” "Sir, are you alright, can you tell me where you're calling from?"

It was then that I dropped the phone, and walked out the front door of my apartment. I kept walking without any thought as to where I would go. I just kept walking, and eventually started crying uncontrollably and vomiting the further I went. I thought of absolutely nothing except about what I saw back there, and eventually even that didn't get too much thought put into it. All I knew then and what I know now is that God is dead, and that was His corpse.