The Pendulum { Original }

[ADMIN]

A little choppy, I think, but I wrote it a little while back and felt like posting it anyway.

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It happened only a few nights before. Only a few. Now they come more frequently, pounding at the door, waiting to be let inside. Two of them. Three of them at once. Every time I awaken, fear wells inside of me. The room is filled with them, with these creatures from my nightmares. Somehow, the door was opened to let them in. The taint that fills the room is almost unbearable. I can smell them. I can see them.

One, with its face smashed in and its eyes bulging with vessels I never thought existent, lies on the floor. It’s staring at something, but I’m too tired and scared to turn my head. Its body is shriveled and contorted, its legs chicken-like and its arms like long, thin sticks with razors as fingers. I think it’s the ugliest. Makes me want to throw up the pizza I ate last night.

I look to the clock at the opposite side of the room. I always had to adjust myself on the top bunk to see it, but this time there is actually something blocking it. Focusing my eyes, I see another, peeking over the end of the bed like a child expecting a treat. Its glazing red eyes tell something different, though. He’s waiting. I sit up quickly, as if having a sudden revelation, and I stare at it blankly as it rapidly slinks away into the darkness behind the desks, like a mere shadow, a figment of my imagination. I want it to be, but the unusual pitch darkness of the room tells me to face up to it. They’re real.

A sound pounds the air, like a deep gong, swaying, beating, getting more silent as the seconds tick by, until it reaches a note of utter simplicity, low but ever so mesmerizing.

It sounds again, ringing in my ears like a prolonged bell toll.
I turn my head, and the room starts spinning. I feel nauseous. Sick. As if the air is trying to choke me.

My vision clears, though the sick feeling remains.

A little girl sits in the middle of the floor, dressed in white clothes. I can’t tell if it is a natural glow that surrounds her or if the clothes themselves give off the luminescent glow. My roommate seems not to notice and continues to sleep soundlessly on the bottom bunk.

One might think it strange to see a glowing child sitting on your floor in the middle of the night, but the creatures in the room took away what shock I had.

The pounding gong rings again, and my eyes are drawn to the object swinging rhythmically from the girl’s right hand. I can’t take my eyes off of it. Its silver surface glitters with every sway, casting a glimmer of light on the pale tile floor. Absolutely beautiful. My breath catches in my throat.

The pendulum sways back and forth, and my ears catch the pounding in the air again. It emanates a taint. The taint I feel seeping into my skin, making it feel like sticky tar. My skin is burning! I feel like I am drowning in it. It is seeping into my bones! I have never felt anything so revolting.

Suddenly I can hear every pounding beat of the pendulum, and every beat pounds the taint deeper into my bones. My body begins to tremble, the cold dancing with snowflakes on my skin.

The girl looks up at me, stares me in the eyes. I freeze in place when our eyes meet. The beating of the pendulum gets louder. The world has turned upside down. I feel as though I am burning alive, my skin melting like wax, and yet the surface of my skin is ice cold. Black eyes. Endless depths of darkness.

I want to cry. My family is suddenly before me. Dead. Charred. The stench of burning flesh and hair fill the atmosphere. Then my friends, acquaintances, and even those who I have never met. All die. It seems to last an eternity, but I know not a single second has passed.

I close my eyes and jerk away, trying to rid myself of this. These things cannot hurt me. As quickly as I realize this, it is all done. Over. Finished. Or so I believe. The taint is gone. The dark of the room has returned. And I can breathe again.

For days, the sound of the pendulum haunts me, taunting me. There is now a fear in my heart. A fear of this evil that was ever so present in my room that night. Evil’s taint is strong, but I do not fear the taint itself, only those who have given it supreme power over their minds.