Stranger Still
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IMAGE BY NICK MAGWOOD FROM PIXABAY
I sit up desperately, dreams fading with each breath. I check the corners; one, two, three, four. Dresser, desk, basket, picture. Clear and empty. In the living room, is my buzzing phone. Cold breeze through the window, warm blanket over tired limbs. My head sags back, and I’m sinking.
The stranger shuffles their cards leisurely, leaning back into a cushioned chair. The table illuminated in the dark of the throne room, the endless halls echo as the cards spread afar..
“Kings,” they say, black teeth clacking. My fist closes around a chess piece, the statues in the room cackle.
“QUIET!” The stranger bellows, hushing them. I startle at the edges of the white knight digging into my palm.
“You haven’t yet gone, are you afraid to show your hand?” The stranger laughs breathily, sending shivers down to my bones.
“It’s hurting me, I can’t play,” I beg. The stranger’s cards glow, royal figures coming alive under candlelight. Diamonds, clubs, hearts, spades.
“Yes, it’ll hurt. It always does.” The stranger’s head lifts, their eyes nothing but holes of pale flesh. “And it always will.”
“Not if I can help it,” I whisper into the quiet of my room. I’m on my side now, body frozen. Was I talking to someone? Corners, the corners. One, two, three—there! He’s here. Long and static, head up to the ceiling, arms spread; fingers contorted. The black mass, still and watching. I clench my eyes shut.
“What, you don’t like me in the daylight?” The stranger mocks at the edge of a cliff.
Ravens peck at my head, a crown of blood dribbles down and my eyes disappear. Big breaths, one, two, three—
I’m on my back. My eyes won’t open. Keep at it, it starts with the fingers. Claw, grasp, twitch. I hear a door creaking—my door? —and footsteps. They stop beside my bed. Please, I don’t want it. The bed dips, my heart jackhammers and my breath quickens. A weight settles beside me. Something pulls at my blanket. My mind screams and thrashes while my limbs stay still. The pulling stops. Somewhere far away, I heard shrieking laughter.
I leave my body, floating through the wall, over the city, into the stars. Through the dirt, down towards the earth’s core. The magma is warm like the summer sun. Twirling now, through the oceans over neon jellyfish fields. Spinning faster, to the crushing depths of the seabed and up through the swaying pines. Up further, to the bathroom tile of my childhood home, a short rest on the ceramic. Knocking on the door—one, two, three—OPEN YOUR EYES!
I’m here again, my fingers are moving. One twitch is all it takes to throw my arm over—I’m free. I sit up, exhausted. The light from outside has barely changed, I can afford a little more sleep. I check the corners, one, two, three, four. Dresser, desk, basket, picture. Clear and empty. Cold breeze through the window, warm blanket over tired limbs. My head sags back, and I’m sinking.
Delina Murray
Delina spent the majority of her childhood and teenage years either face-deep in a book or eyeball-to-pixels with a television. Now, she dissociates on the regular and has rebranded her maladaptive daydreams as “creative skills”. She’d like to publish a novel some day, if that fails she’ll move into the mountains with a horde of canines and wait out the apocalypse.
