I can’t take this, it's too much, everyone I know is dead, everything I've seen is a lie, yet... they think I'm the insane one, that they are alive, and that everything is fine. If only they could see what I've seen, experience my horrors with me, then maybe, just maybe, they would understand and try to help me. Or they would die with me. The second option is more likely, but I don't care anymore, I just want it to stop!
It all began when I bought a camera from a weird shop. Oh, all the small details, all the little things that make you want to run away, why didn't I listen? But anyway, I went in and looked around. Lots of weird shit there, some fucked up dolls, voodoo dolls that looked familiar somehow. Anyway, one thing caught my eye: a brand new camera, cleaned and unlike everything else in the shop, normal. Huh, normal. What is normal anymore? I don't know anything anymore, I don't know if I can trust my sight, my senses, anyone else. Anyway, back to the store.
I asked how much for the camera, and the man said, "Whatever you think it's worth."
So I gave him £10 and left. I swear I heard him say, "The price is far greater than just money."
I forgot about that, until I realised what he meant. So I photographed everything and anything I saw, as you would with a new camera.
I took pictures of strangers, and parks, and birds, swans, you name it and I took a picture of it. I took it back to my house, and started to prep the darkroom. Did I mention I was a photographer? I have no fucking idea anymore, I have almost lost all of my sanity, but back to the darkroom. I had started to develop the pictures, when something seemed... off. The people in the photos looked... dead. No, worse than that. It hurts to remember, it makes me scream, but I need to tell someone in the hope that they believe me.
They were all skinny, the bones were breaking through in places, and their skin looked almost melted, like they were on fire. The birds and swans were all grey, and their feathers were bloody and rotting. And the eyes... Oh god the eyes! Every living thing in the shot, all of them, had these weird fucking eyes. They were white and bloodshot, no pupils, but they were all bleeding, they looked soulless. Worse, they looked into the soul, and I could feel their harrowing gaze stalking me, haunting me.
I finished developing all the photos, and they were all the same, the sky was red, black clouds, and the city was broken, and crumbling to the ground. Benches were cracked, buildings were half gone, cars were rusty and destroyed, and the lakes looked full of blood. But one picture disturbed me more than the rest. See, everyone likes to photograph themselves, don't they? Oh god, why did I have to see it, why me, why me?! I was like the rest, bleeding, but I noticed one minor difference, behind me in the photo was something... I can’t say what it was, but it was fucked up.
It must have been about seven feet tall, with metal sticking through him, he should have been dead, but from the looks of him, he already was. He looked worse than the rest, he looked like he was halfway through rotting, his skin was loose and peeling off him, maggots were eating away at his face and limbs, yet he never stopped smiling, the smile of a madman, even through the pain and the blood. That smile will haunt me for the rest of my days, as what I saw does.
I played it off at first as a trick, but I never went near the camera again. Did I mention I was a photographer? Oh shit, I'm fucking losing it!!! It's killing me to put all this down, but it's imperative everyone knows.
Even though I never went near the camera again, it was too late. I was starting to see the world as it was, if I looked at someone for too long, I saw the eyes fading, the sky darkening, the skin shedding and ripping, until I had to look away and regain control of myself. I lost everything during this time, my friends, my job, my house, I couldn't do anything.
Yet whenever I saw my reflection, when I started to change, that thing appeared behind me, still smiling, yet when I turned around he wasn't there, his reflection remained. I started to think I was crazy, until he appeared in front of me. He first appeared when I was looking at my friend for too long, and as it all faded, I noticed the thing walking up behind him, and when my friend turned around, he saw nothing. That was the last I saw of my friend, as he gave up on me and walked off. Then that thing, it looked at him, and looked back at me, still smiling. I looked away, and the sky and ground returned to normal, but when I turned back, he was still there. He then walked off, seemingly invisible to everyone else.
This continued for a while, until he stayed and... He talked to me. Well, he tried, he opened his mouth to reveal emptiness not present in any normal person's mouth, and I heard screams. Not his, but many screams, like they were being tortured. Then he simply smiled and walked away. After a while, I could understand him, and he talked of 'his kingdom' and 'his reign of suffering.' Then he spoke my name. I have never told him it, but he spoke it. That's when I realised, I knew what he was, who he was, and what was happening to me.
He is God. He is Satan. He is all deities, all gods, all rulers, and we are in His world. We have denied His existence for so long, we can see it as children, it's why we have imaginary friends, and scream at nothing, because our parents can't see. As we grow up, we lose sight of this, because we develop reason, which tells us that it's not possible. Science is a cover up, none of it exists. The camera, God knows how, shows the truth. This is our Heaven, our Hell. We spend our whole lives trying to earn our right to go to Heaven, to avoid Hell, but we are already there. We are all dead inside, and we are all in some kind of Purgatory, just waiting for the truth to be revealed. Now I can see it in all its glory, all its pain.
And that's how I ended up like this. I tried to warn everyone, to show them the truth, all the while I was being mocked by our Saviour. Fuck all that righteousness bullshit, he is a masochistic prick and he fucking loves it, he didn't send the Devil down to Hell, he is the Devil. He created this realm and left us to our own devices, and once we discover the truth then we are free from our illusion, but we are all dead inside, people just don't realise it.
So now I'm going to die on the outside as well. Might as well finish it, after all, what is going to happen? I'm going to hell? I'm in fucking hell already! Everything is ready to go, let's do this. Smile at this, you prick. I'll see you again in a minute.