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formulax · 1 year

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ANGLERFISH: Journal Entries of a Mourning Man Who Cannot See

My creative project for a class on horror aesthetics.

“So,” Andy began, one day three years ago, as we sat on his porch and watched the sunset. He fumbled a can of beer between his hands, and from the glazing over of his eyes, and the anxious biting of his lip, I could tell what he was going to ask me. “Have you seen him?”

“No,” I said, taking a swig of my drink. Andy swallowed nothing and leaned forward, arms resting on his legs as he stared at his feet.

“Good. Maybe he’s moved on,” he reasoned, though something in him, something selfish, was disappointed. I could tell from the tense, guilty way he held himself.

“Without a proper goodbye,” I muttered.

“Cristian, just—” Andy sighed. “Just try not to worry about it. Don’t look at me like that, alright, I know that’s easier said than done. If you don’t see him, good. It’s good, for everyone.”

I never understood why he said that.

❖

I was watching TV one night, when it happened. Some kind of nature documentary was on, something about the vastness of the ocean, greatly unexplored, with a myriad of possible unknown creatures. He’d love this, I thought. It’s why I watch docs so often, sunken and alone on my couch; to imagine him next to me, enthralled by the magic and mystery of the world.

First came the sound of small but thumping footsteps. They were loud enough to make me turn, but I live in an apartment, so after an initial uneasiness I didn’t think much of them. My documentary continued. It spoke of bioluminescence, the ability of these sea creatures to produce their own light. Did you know, the anglerfish sports a bioluminescent lure on its head, thanks to certain bacteria, that helps it attract curious prey?

Then, it happened. I heard the sound of a child—of him—laughing. In an instant the TV was off, and I was sitting in the dark, listening for a noise I should not have heard, with a heart that was beating too fast, and too hard, for my own good.

“Luca?” I called. I wasn’t sure if I was breathing. “Luca, you can come out.”

The TV blared back to life, and I jumped. The lights around me began to flicker sporadically; or, I thought so, until I noticed most lights were changing to the rhythm of the documentary’s soundtrack. I couldn’t help but laugh, my heart spilling over with warmth.

❖

Not a lot of people know this about me. It’s not something I really care to share with others, mostly because it’s an intensely private matter, but also because I tend to become somewhat of a spectacle whenever I tell anyone. But it’s hard to explain the things that come next without at least mentioning it.

I see dead people.

That’s the line, right? You’re rolling your eyes right now. But, that’s exactly how I told Andy. I wasn’t very good at being serious about things in college, but we were going somewhere, he and I, and I felt this strange, uncomfortable, but exhilarating urge to open up.

So, I blurted it out. “I see dead people.”

“You see what?” Andy asked me. His slight southern accent was much more noticeable back then. We were at his place, drinking bad beer. I suppose, in hindsight, I might have been a little tipsy.

“Dead people—spirits. I see them.” I glanced away and took a swig of my drink. I could feel Andy staring at me. The room was suddenly very warm.

“Cristian.” I loved the way he said my name. “Elaborate.”

“Well, you know. After someone passes on, they might have some unfinished business. So, they stay here for a while, wandering, until they figure things out. I happen to be able to see them, when they’re still here,” I explained, setting my drink down. “I know how it sounds. But I swear, it’s real, and it really sucks sometimes, like—”

“Cristian. Is there a particular reason why you’re telling me this now?” Andy asked, frozen in place, his face pale. I figured, by then, that he had caught on to the fact that I kept glancing just a few inches to his right.

❖

It’s been three years since I’ve heard my son laugh, but I know that was him. I know it.

After this long, I’m not sure whether I would ever really see his spirit, but now that he might be here, now that I might see him again, I can’t keep my mind off it. I can’t bear to imagine him there, all alone, waiting for some kind of chance to get my attention. I feel guilty. I feel horrid. What if he looks like he did when he—oh God. Oh Jesus.

God, please, I hope he doesn’t look how he did in that goddamn hospital bed.

I don’t think I got an ounce of sleep; I stayed on the couch all night. All I can think about is my son, stuck between realms with a restless soul. Why should I rest, when he cannot?

Luca got sick; it happened so fast. One minute he was climbing trees, peering under rocks, the next he was frail and exhausted, a shell of himself. He kept smiling only for our sakes, maybe for self-comfort. The doctors couldn’t figure out what the hell was wrong with him, and in the blink of an eye, whatever it was, that vile, putrid corruption, had sucked the life out of him. Seven years old and suddenly gone forever. It’s no wonder he’s still here, aware of his deserved time lost but unaware of his killer.

I wish I could sleep through the month of November. But this year, I can’t. My son is here, and he needs his papa. I’m sorry, honey, for losing faith in you. I’m so sorry.

❖

Whenever I go AWOL and stop answering calls, people always call Andy. It gets annoying, the constant wellness checks from my ex-husband, but I suppose there’s no one else I’d want at my apartment during times like this anyway. He is the closest anyone has ever gotten to understanding me in a way that matters. At least, I thought so.

“Cristian,” he called on the other side of my door, voice overflowing with concern. I removed my eyes from the documentary on the TV screen and stood, expecting him to appear sooner or later. Evidently, it was later; somewhere around nine. “Let me in. I’m serious.”

I marched over as he knocked, holding the doorknob and bracing myself. “Andrew,” I said. “If I let you in, you have to promise to listen to me. You have to promise.”

“Cris, just let me in.” The youth had long disappeared from his voice, replaced by a perpetual exhaustion.

“Andy.”

There was a loud sigh. “I promise.”

I opened the door. Andy pushed it open the rest of the way, and lifted a plastic bag that smelled of Thai food. “I got takeout,” he said, stepping past me as I shut the door behind him. “You’ve been out of work for three days, and your coworkers, who care about you as a friend, by the way—”

“I get it,” I muttered.

“Are concerned,” he continued, “about why you have been dodging their calls.”

“This is infinitely more important than work, you hear me?” I reassured, grabbing hold of Andy’s shoulders. “I have been communicating with Luca.”

The takeout fell to the floor, and the lights in my apartment flickered. I grinned and shook Andy’s shoulders as he stared, pale.

“You see that? He just said hi!” I exclaimed, turning to the couch. “Will you come out for your dad? Is that what you need?”

“Is he—um—is he right there?” Andy asked, pointing with a shaky finger to the couch. I shook my head.

“No, no, I haven’t been able to see him yet. He hasn’t shown himself, technically, but I’ve heard him. I heard him laugh, and he’s been flickering the lights, and moving things around. Andy, I couldn’t go to work like this, you must understand.”

“You haven’t seen him,” Andy observed, tilting his head. Slowly, he reached down to grab the food on the floor. “But he’s spoken to you.”

“Well, no.” I shrugged, and Andy sighed, running a hand down his face. “But the lights, they flicker like—like he’s responding to what I’m saying. He likes this documentary, about the deep ocean, I’ve just been playing it for him. So he can feel safe.”

“How about you eat something?” Andy urged, walking to the table and setting the food atop it. As he untied the bag, the lights flickered again. He flinched, and I smiled. “You sure you don’t have an… electrical problem, Cristian? Have you asked anyone else if they’ve experienced anything?”

My stomach was beginning to sink. My face twitched into a frown. I flexed my hands, and balled them; stimulation to ward off the anger growing in my chest. The lights seemed to dim. “I told you to listen to me,” I said.

“I am listening,” Andy said. “And I’m not liking what I’m hearing. You said when you see ghosts, it’s straightforward. This isn’t very straightforward. You haven’t even seen him. And why now, after three years of radio silence? Are you absolutely certain, certain, you weren’t dreaming when you heard—”

There was an electrical noise, a zap, or a spark, and my apartment was plunged into darkness. For a moment, we were both silent. I heard Andy’s wavering breaths, interspersed with my own. I heard him fumbling, and breathing, and whispering to himself, until the light of his phone illuminated his panicked face. He turned on the flashlight and angled it downwards; I saw the focused light tremble with his hand.

“Cristian,” he breathed, shaking his head. “Come on.”

“He’s here,” I said. “It’s him.”

“This is not my son,” Andy declared, raising his shaky voice. “This is not our son!”

“Your son,” I repeated, scoffing. “Interesting.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Things are clearing up now,” I said, nodding to myself. “I see now. Andy, I’m sorry that he couldn’t show up at your place, I’m sorry I can see things you can’t, but you don’t have to try and pretend this isn’t real to make yourself feel better.”

“Feel better? FEEL BETTER?” Andy laughed, exasperated. “At least I’m working on feeling better! Every time I talk to you, on the other hand, it drags us both backwards! I try, you know, to push you forward, but you never internalize a word I say. Instead, you keep waiting for a call that will never come.”

With a quiet gust of wind, an object flew right past Andy’s head, and embedded itself in the wall beside him. He froze; we both did. With caution, he lifted his trembling hand, and the phone’s beam of light rose with it. He turned it upwards towards the wall, and his breath left him. He stumbled back and shouted. I held a hand over my mouth, feeling my own hot breath against my fingers.

It was a knife from the kitchen, wobbling, with its point firmly stuck in the wall.

“Jesus Christ,” Andy yelled. “Jesus—Cristian, we need to get out of here.”

He reached for my arm, and I pulled away. The knife stilled in the wall. “No, you need to get out of here.”

“Oh my God! Are you insane?”

“He didn’t do any of this when we were alone,” I said, stepping away. “You’re making him mad. He just needs to adjust, and you need to go.”

“You just want me to leave you in a house with a poltergeist?” Andy’s voice was frantic, dripping with misled terror. My face reddened; I felt my heartbeat.

“I taught you that word, don’t go around using it wrong!” I pointed towards the door. “Get out!” I lowered my voice, and leaned towards him. “Before you turn him into one.”

I couldn’t see Andy’s face, but I could feel him fuming. I could remember the intense blue-eyed glare and the proud, puffed out chest.

“I’m coming back for you, I’m not leaving you here,” he said, and with a huff, he marched out. As the door slammed shut behind him, the TV came to life, and the documentary resumed.

“I’m sorry,” I told my son. I sighed, quietly, lamenting progress lost. “I know it’s hard.”

❖

A poltergeist is just a spirit that causes threatening or harmful physical disturbances. It isn’t anything evil, necessarily. Just an angry, scared, frustrated soul, trapped and unable to leave, but not quite sure why. I’ve seen plenty of them, and have had enough terrible life experience to resonate with their rage. It’s a pain I can understand, on some degree.

Andy will come back, and I am afraid. He’s too stubborn for his own good, and if Luca becomes a true poltergeist, things will go south fast.

❖

I saw him. For a split second, I saw him.

I was heating up dinner, frozen lasagna, when the oven turned off on its own. Again, I heard my son’s precious giggle, and running footsteps somewhere in the apartment, towards my bedroom. Forgetting my food, I called my son’s name.

“Luca?”

“Papa.” It was a whisper in my ear. I couldn’t help but flinch, and I spun around, looking for him, expecting him to be there, tugging my sleeve, looking up at me with that ever-curious stare. But he wasn’t anywhere near me. “Papa,” he whispered again, and finally my eyes settled on the door to my room.

There was a small silhouette peeking out from my bedroom. His hair was brown and tussled, and his skin was pale with death. The eye I saw was wide, and blank. His fingers scraped against the doorway and made a grating, uncomfortable noise. Upon my seeing him, his face seemed to scrunch up, and he disappeared inside my bedroom.

“Wait—Luca,” I breathed, abandoning the kitchen and running for the bedroom door. Just as I reached it, the door slammed shut, and I was left placing my hands against it, tapping it, desperate beyond words to see him. “Luca, honey, you can come out,” I begged. “Luca. You can come out. I’m sorry if I scared you, okay? It’s going to be okay. I don’t care how you look, I just want to see you, I just want…”

I glanced back towards the front door, and I huffed. “Are you worried about your dad?” I asked. Through the crack in the bottom of the door, I saw flickering light, and the shadows of two small feet. I gasped, and covered my mouth, smacking the door again with my free hand. “Oh, oh Luca, it’s okay. I’ll talk to him, I’ll keep you safe. No one’s gonna hurt you, I won’t let it happen.”

I watched, in horror, as the two shadows disappeared. “No—no I can—Luca please,” I cried, hot tears welling behind my eyes. “Please.”

The door opened, and I stumbled inside. And my son wasn’t there, not under the bed or in the closet, not anywhere. I ran my fingers through my hair, gripped it tight, and cursed.

No one is going to step foot in this apartment. Not Andy, not anyone. He is scaring my son.

❖

Luca loved the ocean with the enthusiasm and fervor of any child. Through his interest, I absorbed plenty of information that still lays somewhere in my mind, filed away next to my memories of him. Memories of ocean-themed birthday parties, toys, decorations, clothes, school supplies. Memories of playing pretend, and being the big bad shark who always, always turned good in the end. I remember these things. I remember how he smiled. You can’t forget something like that.

But I see him there, smiling, laughing, and then the memory corrupts, twists, transforms into a sinister reminder of his hollow face, his labored breathing, his crying, his restless sleep. Beautiful brown curls sticking to his forehead with sweat, dark eyes glazed over with exhaustion, terror, confusion, small hands holding a stuffed shark like a lifeline. He’s hooked up to breathing tubes, heart monitors, IVs, wires, a mess of tendrils that keep him alive but make him look almost inhuman, almost monstrous.

From my chair I see the woman leaning over him, who no one else can see. A woman who died in childbirth, still in a gown, long dark hair in a sagging bun. I see her whispering in my son’s ear, and I want to tell her to go away. I’m sick of seeing ghosts everywhere I go while my son lays, still alive, in a hospital bed. I tell her to get away from him, he’s not hers. The heart monitor beeps. She looks up at me, holds out her hand, one parent to another. I do not want her help, but still, I do not approach even to take her place.

She knows something I do not. She cradles his face, and to my shock, she can touch him. I stand. Luca wakes up. He turns his head. He looks at her, and he sees her. She tells him it’s okay. He looks at me, and he is scared, and then he is gone.

I scream, and machines beep, and connections sever, and Andy comes, and even though we’ve been divorced for a year he holds me, grabs my clothes as I sob and look around, look for Luca, but he isn’t there, he isn’t anywhere.

And it just plays over, and over, and over, and over, and I can’t make it stop. No matter how many stupid documentaries I watch I can’t make it stop.

❖

Andy returned again at night.

“Cristian, you don’t know what you’re doing. Let me in.” His voice was cold, but there was a slight waver in it. He was afraid.

“I have it under control,” I growled, pressing my forehead against the door to stare through the peephole. He was glaring through the door right into my eyes, a hand in his pocket. “I can handle my own son.”

“Okay, Cristian. Then tell him to move on.” His voice dropped and gained an edge, underlining his command.

I held my breath. “What?”

“You can see ghosts. You know how this works. Tell him it’s time to go, time to end three years of prolonged suffering. Time to rest. I’m sure that’s what he really wants.”

Behind me, a cabinet slammed open and shut. I turned and chewed the inside of my cheek. “You don’t understand,” I warned. “You should. He needs to warm up to ideas, he won’t listen to me if he’s not ready to hear what I—”

A pot hit the wall right next to me, and I recoiled with a yelp.

“Cristian!” Andy’s voice. “What was—you know what, that’s it, I’ll unlock it myself.”

I heard the jingle of keys, then a cacophony of doors slamming, pots and pans flying, and plates smashing. I had forgotten. I gave him a key. WHY DID I GIVE HIM A KEY? I pressed my body against the door, and held the knob before he could turn it.

But he was always stronger than me, and after a few good pushes the door gave way, and he grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me aside. “This isn’t tracking,” he told me, holding me by the shoulders as I shook my head and tried remarkably hard not to hear him. “He wouldn’t do any of this, I know I’m making sense right now, he was never an angry kid, never violent, you are being haunted by someone else.”

I forced out a laugh. “You’re wrong, Andy. I saw him. He spoke to me.”

“What?”

The lights shut off, and the front door slammed behind us with a click of the lock. For the second time, he and I were confronted with darkness. I heard his breathing, felt his hands squeezing my shoulders too tight.

A single light flickered dimly on: the light in my bedroom. Following the tug of my heart, I started to move, but Andy held my shoulders. “Cristian, what are you doing?” he whispered, pulling on my jacket, breaths fast and fearful.

I smiled. “Andy, it’s okay,” I said, nodding my head towards the light. “I think he’s ready to see you.”

After a moment of hesitance, Andy let go of me. I stepped slowly away, and moved towards the light, smiling wider, getting giddy, ready to talk to my boy, ready to help him, ready to avenge myself, make a new memory, be a better father. I felt Andy moving behind me, heard the quiet steps of his boots.

The door to my room was cracked open. I reached out, pushed it inwards. I stood in the doorway and scanned the empty room. “Luca?”

“Papa.” A child’s hand, slow and gray, reached out from under the bed, palm outstretched. Andy inhaled and seized my arm, but I waved him off. I took a step forward, then another. Then, I knelt, and lowered my head to see my son.

“Hi,” I said. Luca cowered and watched me, big brown eyes glazed over and terrified. I tried to keep smiling, for him, but his skin was sickly, and his hair was slick with sweat. I couldn’t fight the tremble in my hands, but still, I reached out and held his, rubbing my thumb over cold skin. “Hi, honey, it’s okay.”

His eyes flicked to Andy. I nodded and motioned for Andy to kneel down. “This is just dad; he wants to say sorry. Andy?”

When I turned to look at him, he was still standing in the doorway. “Cristian,” he breathed, eyes wide.

“Andy, come on,” I pressed, struggling not to raise my voice. If he could just—

Andy shook his head.

“Cristian, I shouldn’t be able to see him.”

I opened my mouth to counter him, and froze. He stepped back, petrified, beckoning with his arms outstretched towards me. Andy can’t see ghosts. The hand, the hand I was still holding, gripped mine, and squeezed, fingernails digging into skin. My face went hot, and pulsed, and my breathing started to quicken, and in the living room, the documentary played.

Did you know, the anglerfish sports a bioluminescent lure on its head, thanks to certain bacteria, that helps it attract curious prey?

I turned my head back. The Anglerfish was grinning, with a mouth that stretched too far, and eyes that were open too wide. It giggled, then laughed, then cackled.

The light went out. I heard Andy shout, felt him grab my arm and pull me. The claws in my hand held on, dragged, and I yelled as pain sprung from my hand up my arm. I saw Andy’s silhouette lunge forward, saw him stomp down on the limb holding me hostage. There was another laugh, one that echoed all around us, and the claws set me free. I scrambled up, gritting my teeth and holding my wrist. My hand throbbed and stung. I felt blood dripping down my palm, to the edges of my fingers.

“Cristian!”

“Andy.”

“What is—what is that thing? How do we stop it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But I think it’s hunting us. Andy—Andy.” I fumbled for his arms, slid my good hand into his. “I’m sorry, Andy. I’m sorry for what I said to you.”

“No, no no no no! Tell me later!” Andy yelled, yanking me out of the bedroom. Together, we ran for the front door. An agonizingly familiar figure in the way stopped us short. The Anglerfish cocked its head, in a form that did not belong to it.

“Papa, I thought you’d be happy!” It stomped its foot. “I thought you wanted to see me!”

“You’re not my son!” I snapped, cradling my hurt hand, afraid to look.

“Does it matter?” the Anglerfish asked. It held out its arms, and some instinct deep within stirred, twisted my stomach, told me those arms were too long, and that head was tilted too far to the side. Its disguise was slipping; no, that thing was not my son.

Blood and tears dripped and fell onto my crappy carpet, in my crappy apartment, in this crappy city. The TV was still playing, rehashing the same program, over and over, waiting for me to come back, to sit down and watch. It occurred to me that there was something worthless about my life. It occurred to me that when I stopped being a father, and when I could not help my son pass on, I ceased being a functional human being. I had a job, but I heard their talk. They’d watch and wait for me to plunge underwater again, to call in sick under the enormous weight of grief, staring at a TV screen, trying and failing to remember the good and forget the bad. And through it all, Andy held my hand, would always hold my hand, no matter how far back it held him. There he was again, next to me as I dragged him somewhere he didn’t deserve to be.

I freed my hand from his grip. “Let him go,” I ordered the Anglerfish. “He’s not your target, I am. He never fell for your trick, never followed your lure. I did.”

“Cristian, I’m not leaving you,” Andy said, hands finding my face. I shoved him back, and my shredded hand stung.

“I’m done dragging you down with me, get out of here!” I yelled. I turned to the Anglerfish. “Let him go, and I’ll stay with you!”

The creature was silent for a moment. Then, it grinned, that too-wide grin, and it looked between us, as if considering who might be the better meal. I blinked, and it was gone. I sighed, and reached for the door, pulling it open and letting the light flood in. I turned back, and Andy was crying, the blood from my hand staining his jacket. He was never one to cry.

“You can’t do this,” he begged, reaching for me again. I grabbed his jacket and shoved him outside. “Cristian, you just made a deal with—no, you’re not doing this, I’m not letting you.” He stepped forward, and I held his shoulders, hands trembling.

“Andy, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I told you those things, it wasn’t fair of me. I’m proud of you, for moving forward, and I’m sorry you spent so much of that time hanging back with me. I love you, and I’m sorry, but you have to let me face my own problems. Go. It’s letting you go.”

“What if you can’t face it?” Andy asked, shaking his head. I sighed.

“Better one of us than both of us.”

Andy hit my chest with an open palm, and cursed. “I’m coming back for you,” he vowed, voice cracking. I forced a smile and let him go. He stepped back into the hallway, breathing hard, fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white. I nodded to him, and he stared back, afraid, unsure, regretful, but more than anything, incredibly tired.

The door slammed shut, shrouding me again in darkness. I closed my eyes, and tried to take a deep breath.

“You never answered my question.” The voice came from behind me, and I turned, facing the specter of my son. Its eyes, uncannily bright, glinted with malice. “Does it matter? If I am not your son?”

“Of course it does,” I hissed. I was shaking with terror and rage. I wanted this thing out of my apartment, out of my life, and I would not let it fool me again. I would not let it take a child so happy and warm, curious and brave, and warp him into something so unrecognizably evil. I would steel myself. I would fight back.

The Anglerfish laughed, as if reading my thoughts and seeing my supposed resolve. It stared at me, through me, and it seemed to tell me, If you say so. And its feet lifted from the ground. Its body twitched and convulsed, crackling in a simulation of broken bone, but still it was cackling, butchering Luca’s soft giggles with sharp edges. Despite my rising bile and my weakening legs, I covered my mouth and forced myself to hold my ground.

Then, the head jerked back, and from the mouth of the broken, vile body burst the outline of a tendril in the dark. Then another from its chest, another from its arm. More and more sprouted from the body, leaving it convulsing against the motion, cracking and popping, until the thing that was left was limp, and no longer recognizable as human.

And still, I saw my boy. I screamed, stumbling away and tripping over myself. I landed hard on my back, and as I wheezed, the Anglerfish hovered closer. Sobbing, hardly breathing, I dragged myself away from it, from the broken pale body, from the mess of tubes and wires, from the silent, monstrous thing that lured me in and would not let me go.

Finally, I was backed up against the wall, and the Anglerfish dragged dead, small feet against the floor. All I could do was heave and cry as it got closer, and closer, and closer.

Would it frustrate you, or leave you hopeful, if I ended it here?

❖

I don’t like to talk about my father. At one point, when I was a teenager, I almost wanted him dead. But I’d like to think I’ve grown since then, just a little bit. Now I just hope that when he dies, it’s quiet, and it’s alone. I hope that no one knows what to do with his body, and I hope he wanders the world, eternally unsatisfied. I don’t want him to wish he hadn’t left me and my mother, because I cannot say things would have been much better if he’d stayed. At least, when he was up and gone, I was not called a devil child for talking to my grandmother who had died years before. But I often wish my mother could have been spared the heartache entirely. What son wouldn’t?

I wanted to be better than him. I wanted to have the house with the yard, I wanted to pass on my mother’s recipes, and I wanted to make new traditions. I wanted to be present and be loving to a family of my own. If I had a son, I told myself, I would be what I wish my father could have been for me. I would have the family I wish I could have had as a child. No one, alive or dead, could keep me from that.

The divorce was the fault of no one, nothing but human nature. Young love falls through when you get older, and there’s not much you can do about it except sign the papers, move out, and move on. Still, I was up every night, pacing blindly in the dark, petrified that somehow, I would become my father, like it was some kind of inevitable, genetic truth. God bless Andy, for refusing every offer to stay together, to try again when it was so obviously done with. Friendship still came easy to us, and Luca bounced between homes like a champ, and for a second I thought it would be alright. I thought maybe I wouldn’t be such a failure, even if that’s how I would inevitably be seen. I could still be a good father to my son.

After his death, I clung to it. I could help him. I could still be a good father to my son. And I am still clinging to it, my unachievable goal.

My son moved on. Why can’t I?

❖

In the morning, there was a knock on my door, then loud banging, then the jingling of keys. I was sitting on my couch, and National Geographic was on, something about octopi, and camouflage. Andy burst into the room, out of breath, looking around frantically, hand against his chest. I turned the TV off and scrambled towards him. His eyes flicked, paranoid, towards me.

“Andy!” I exclaimed, arms outstretched. But he turned away, and walked past me.

“Cristian!” he called, running towards my room. I walked towards him, rubbing my arms, face twisting to a frown.

Something emerged from my room, pulling the door open just as Andy reached for the handle. I shouted, and started forward, until the creature revealed its face. I froze.

It was mine. “Andy,” the Anglerfish said, breathy, feigning panic. It held out its arms, and Andy fell into them, swaying, holding the back of its head. I looked down at my hands, and shook my head. It dawned on me that I was not quite breathing, anymore.

“No.” I reached out to grab Andy’s shoulder, to pull him away, but I couldn’t seem to find a grip, and he didn’t seem to notice at all. “No no no.”

“I’m so glad you’re okay—you—are you okay?” Andy smiled through tears and checked the Anglerfish’s false face. “What happened?”

“ANDY!” I screamed. He did not hear. Andy can’t see ghosts.

“I faced it. I faced it, and I won,” the Anglerfish declared, shaking Andy’s shoulders with a grin just too manic to be me. It faded quickly, and the deceptive thing cast its eyes down. “But Andy, I’m not sure I want to be alone anymore.”

“I can stay here,” Andy offered, and I cursed, running my fingers through my hair.

“Can I stay at yours?” the Anglerfish countered. “I really wanna get out of here, man.”

“Of course, Cristian. I’ll make you something to eat.”

The Anglerfish hugged Andy again, squeezing tight, and it cast its gaze up to me. It grinned at me, with a mouth too big and eyes too wide.

❖

ANDY PLEASE COME BACK. FIND THIS JOURNAL. ANYONE. FIND THIS JOURNAL AND SAVE HIM. THAT IS NOT ME. THAT THING IS NOT ME. I CAN’T LEAVE THE APARTMENT PLEASE GOD DON’T LET IT TAKE HIM.

#anglerfish #still living #my ocs #my writing #for class #horror #sorry about the formatting

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