The Face and The Girl: Part Two
By SW Carter
Edited by EnvyMachinery
Oh, yes, my dearest family and friends. I appreciate immensely you returning out of concern, or maybe a deadly curiosity. After the night I met the faceless woman, I thought I was merely losing my mind. When I found myself riddled with nightmares and hallucinations, what other conclusion am I to draw? Let’s start with the nightmares, and then I can tell you about the Deirdres and their… games.
When I first returned to my abode after seeing the terror of the bus stop girl, things appeared to be mundane for a few days. Sure, I could hardly sleep, but that describes the majority of my nights. Every few hours I woke, turned over, and drifted back into an apnea-filled slumber. Until, the fever set in, and a strange shadow of a feminine figure always peers at me from the corner of my eye.
“A nonstop torrent,” that’s the description one could give of the sweat that poured from my body. Dramatic chills swept through my core, and I would have attended a hospital with all haste if I could stay awake long enough to turn the keys in my car. This period lasted about two weeks, and I am unable to recall drinking or eating. Yet, I live, and my fridge emptied, so I must have quenched my appetite for food and drink at some point. It appeared my new friend wanted me alive.
Absolutely, the girl, always present, strokes my cheek, whispers in my ear the most leg-trembling tales about the land beyond as I slept, and the sights that would drive me quite mad were revealed by my mind’s imagination. A barren land of pain and suffering unfolded to me like a jack-in-the-box pops from his prison, and it pulled me deep to reveal the machinations of its dark emperors.
Three of them I saw in lands of Panic, Fatigue, and Wrath, and a shadowy expanse beyond the initial three impossible to illuminate with the brightest of lanterns. I walked all four realms, although I can only recall the freezing feeling of a pained confusion in the fourth. These twisted locations scar my mind to this day and I regret what I must pass on to you now.
‘The Land of Panic,’ one might imagine such a realm to be riddled with medieval torture devices designed to induce fear. Such things refuse to be. Instead, I describe to you a barren land of human-like figures writhing below my feet in consistent and steady insanity. I walked on top of these twisted and naked forms, for they covered the ground so utterly that if soil existed I couldn’t relay its color to you now. In the middle of this realm, a fifty-foot-tall, olive-skinned woman with an angelic voice whispered to the forms in an attempt to comfort them. Comfort did not come; instead, it only appeared to make their agony worse. She spoke in a strange, ancient tongue, and I recall only the number of words: nine. I do not know her face, for to look upon any visage of a dark emperor produced only lapses in my already unreliable dream memory.
I soon lost the ability to walk and began to crawl, the bodies below me constantly producing their deafening wails. For a long time, I thought I might join them. The temptations echoed through me many times to just give up and accept my fate, but finally I crawled over the last form and fell into the Realm of Fatigue.
It feels impossible to recall how long I spent in that place. Every time I drifted back into sleep, unable to awake for more than a few minutes, I would be there on the soft pillowy, ground. Beneath the blue skies, I slept in the warm embrace of this newfound heaven. In the dream, hours turned to days, which gave way to years. Just as my body was about to crumble into dust from neglect and age, a pale, clammy hand pulled me up and led me deep into the land. Stopping at the point where it felt to be the deepest and most exhausting, a feminine form appeared attached to the hand and gathered me into an embrace.
I felt comfortable, and the change caused the noisy lands of before to feel so distant. I embraced the figure back, and, for a moment, I thought I might be there forever. Then, suddenly, behind the feminine figure, the bus stop abomination appeared with a devilish smile. Her head tilted like a confused dog, her body shivered as if she stifled a powerful laugh, and I knew this to be a trap. Survival demanded I leave, and I found my lost energy. Tearing away from the figure, I stumbled back and tumbled into a deep pit.
The pit ended when my body slammed into red soil with a powerful thud, and the Land of Wrath revealed itself. I leaped up from the ground, cursing myself. How dare I let myself be so foolish!? I ranted and raved, kicking and throwing sand about. I felt a fool! I and everyone I knew would pay. I looked to and fro and found a massive rock. Picking it up, I sped towards a direction that just felt like destruction. I desired to destroy everything I built that caused such indecency, and I found the only object that could represent all.
A massive wooden sculpture in the shape of a man, this figure felt familiar to me. No, it was me! I hacked into it with my rock, tearing into its form, and not realizing I fell into another trap. The statue kept re-growing every bit I chipped off. I cried out in anger, unable to destroy that which I thought obscene. In my rage, I threw the rock into the statue’s face, the head shattered into pieces, and the land was suddenly shrouded in darkness.
My anger left me as the realm shrouded in shadow, a land of utter confusion, absorbed my very soul. I remember very little. I just remember being afraid and turning around every five minutes, unable to find my way forward. No figure appeared to help me, nothing appeared natural or obvious, and it was just me and the voices. Voices echoing all around me trying to tell me direction, insulting me, praising me, hating me, and loving me. Nothing made sense, and anything important that I saw vanished from my mind upon waking.
Awaking from the shadowy expanse, I finally ended that horrible journey and broke my fever. I couldn’t even see the woman of the bus stop around me, although I felt her presence. I sat up, turning on the lamp that stood atop my night stand to see a piece of paper with a name written on it next to my glasses. My sleep haze clearing, the name slowly crept into focus: Dr. Deirdre, Therapist.
