Into The Darkness ~ Mercedes Galarza

The sun was setting as the moon was rising. Darkness creeps in, consuming anything and everything in its path. Day turns into night. The streets are pitch black except for the moon and a couple of streetlights here and there. A man stands outside, panting breathing heavily, trying to catch his breath. He starts grunting in pain, his head feels like it’s spinning wildly, he can’t control the madness inside of him. The only noises you hear are the man grunting, tearing ripping, bones cracking, and then…a really deep and loud howl. The man had now shape shifted into a beast. A big hungry beast. The beast had an enormous appetite, luckily for him, there was another man walking on the sidewalk in a hurry trying to get home. The beast had not been spotted by the man. Slowly the beast crept up behind the man, quietly stalking him in his footsteps. The man starts to get nervous as he feels a pair of eyes watching him. The beast smiled wickedly, and licked his lips as he slowly crouched down. In less than two seconds, the beast pounced on the man’s back, biting into his neck. Blood rushed down the man’s chest and back. The man yelled and screamed in pain as he tried to get the beast off of him. The man tried to get away but failed in his attempt. The beast leapt and bit his leg and ripped off a big chunk of flesh. The beast growled and snarled as he dragged the man off the sidewalk, leaving a trail of ruby red blood. The man laid there, limp, immobile, unconscious, dead, as the beast bit and chewed on his remains. Satisfied, the beast licked the blood off his lips and ran off into the darkness of the night.

 

           It was 3:00 am, and Tony Rattza lay in the alley behind the apartments where he lived. Slowly, Tony flipped over onto his back. He groaned at the discomfort, and then suddenly he opened his eyes. He looked around confused, as to why he was sleeping outside, “Whoa, what the…what happened? Why am I out here?” he thought. It was still dark outside. Tony couldn’t see very well. Tony jumped up trying to get a hold of himself. All he could remember was that horrifying nightmare he had. His body cringed as he remembered. Not knowing what to do, Tony ran into his apartment before anybody saw. As he was unlocking the door, he noticed his hands were all bloody. He started to panic, trying to figure out what had happened. He ran to the bathroom and saw his reflection in the mirror. His face was covered in blood, his shirt was ripped and drenched in blood; so were his pants. Tony started to have a panic attack. “Oh my god! Wha— How did I get all this blood on me?!?” Tony was having trouble catching his breath. He searched his body to see if he had any wounds but found none. Tony felt queasy.… He had no idea what had happened that night, why he was all bloody and why he woke up in his alley. Suddenly he remembered the dream he had. “No…that’s impossible…. It’s insane…I can’t be that…no not me…” he thought. Tony shook his head as if everything that just happened would fall off his mind. He decided to just think about it later and get ready for work.

            All day at work Tony couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. He tried so hard to get those images out of his mind, those crazy thoughts those insane ideas out and gone. But he couldn’t. His head hurt so much that it felt like someone was hitting him with a bat. His body cringed at the thought of being that horrendous beast that he dreamed of, that is if it was a dream….

            Tony’s day felt terribly long…. It felt as if he had been in his office a million years instead of a day. He felt sick to his stomach…. His face was pale and just remembering all the blood that was all over his clothes and how bad it smelled just made him even more sick. “This is going too far. I need some time to think to myself. There’s no use trying to ignore what’s going on. I-I dunno, I gotta get out of here…” he thought. Tony got the rest of his day off and decided to head home and drink coffee or something. When he opened his apartment, the stench of the dry blood rose to his nose, and made him gag. He sprayed some Febreeze hoping it would help out a little bit. Tony turned the news on to see if anything would come up that had something to do with what happened to him. Suddenly a news report shows a picture of the man from his dream, the man who got slaughtered by the beast. They said his body was found almost completely torn to pieces. “Bite marks” appeared all over his body. The reporter promised to have more details and information on that case as it came up. Tony felt his heart drop to the pit of his stomach. He remembered that face ever so clearly from his nightmare. As for the man who turned into the beast, he could not remember what he looked like. His face was a blur….

            “This isn’t happening! No, it’s not happening. Not to me. This is insane—I’m insane! No…I need to just stay low, not tell anyone about what happened in my nightmare or how I woke up in my alley…. This never happened.”

            Tony tried his best to push everything that he’d been through that day to the back of his head and just continue his normal life.

            Two weeks passed…. Some days were good, others were bad. On his “bad days” Tony would see bits and pieces of the horrifying nightmare, and hear the terrifying screams of the man being attacked. Tony hardly got any sleep. He felt as if he was a zombie with a troubled mind. A week later, Tony had another “nightmare”. This time it was a woman being attacked. Again the beast used the same technique that he used on the man, stalk then attack. The shrieks of the woman were even louder than the man’s. She cried and yelled her lungs out as the beast chomped down on her flesh as if she was a chew toy. Blood splashed everywhere, on the floor, on the wall, on the beast and on her. The woman died instantly. You could tell the beast enjoyed his dinner when it was quiet. Once he was finished with his meal, he let out a ferocious howl and ran away under the full moon.

            Tony couldn’t believe what was happening, he just couldn’t. He finally started to give up on trying to convince himself that he was not that beast from his nightmares. Two horrifying nightmares, two murder victims, and waking up in the alley with your clothes ripped and bloody twice was more than just a coincidence. “I have issues, I’m a murderer! I—I can’t go on like this…I have to tell someone. I—I just have to….”