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By the Light of a Different Lantern

Would you know it, if you fell down the rabbit hole?

By Luther KrossPublished 2 years ago 14 min read
1

"Lydia, no!" Cam screeched as she shoved him away from her with all her might.

Cam felt the ground leave his feet. He was weightless for a split second before gravity took over again and brought him crashing down the staircase to land in a crumpled heap at the bottom.

The world swam on both sides of his closed eyelids. Cam felt pain in so many places that his nervous system threatened a full shutdown for a few moments.

Cam's eyelids fluttered open and Lydia came into focus, standing at the top of the staircase. Her chest heaved with her every ragged breath. It occurred to Cam that she was probably crying as a result of his accidental tumble. But, he heard no sobbing; only her ragged breathing.

Lydia took a few steps down the staircase, her joints snapping and popping as her body twisted in strange ways. As the light hit her face, Cam realized that it wasn't really Lydia. Not anymore.

Its head listed to the side, and its eyes and jaw snapped open as one. The thing shrieked like a banshee with a pack-a-day habit, and dropped to the floor, its hands and feet skittering like an overgrown spider down the stairs.

Cam scrambled to his feet, pushing despite the pain, and ignoring the few seconds where he'd felt faint. He bolted for the front door and clawed blindly at the knob for a few desperate moments before coming to his senses, focusing on the task at hand, and opening the door.

Once the door opened, Cam flung himself through and slammed it shut. He saw the Lydia-spider's eyes glaring at him in the fraction of a second just before the door closed fully. Cam spun around, putting his back to the door, only to find himself standing in the middle of the woods.

"What the- Where am I?" he spat, turning back around, only to find that his entire house, hell his entire neighborhood, was gone.

Cam quickly realized that there was nothing where the street had been except trees. "Hello?" He called. He looked around, perplexed, his eyes darting every which way. "H-hello?" Cam called again. His voice echoed back to him, empty and dead.

The light drained from the world in a rush of husky grays and pitch black devouring the blue sky. Before he could comprehend it, Cam had been plunged into a deeper darkness than he'd ever known.

The trees that he could see just moments ago had disappeared in a choking cloud of black. Despite being outside, Cam felt surrounded. Trapped. As though the cloying darkness were pressing in, crushing him from all sides.

In the surrounding darkness, something skittered across the forest floor. He could hear whatever it was breathing, panting hungrily in pursuit of its prey.

Cam made the move to take a step forward, but found himself nose to bark with a tree. He turned to his left and right, only to find more of the same. Every which way he turned, Cam found himself boxed in by wooden sentries. The air, already stifling, became stale and humid. He was aware that he was now drowning in his own carbon dioxide. He tried to move a hand to his face to brush the sweat from his brow, but found that he could not do so. Cam found that he couldn't move any of his limbs. He was encased in a wooden box, with barely enough room to squirm.

Cam's heart began to race and his breathing became fast and heavy.

This can't...this can't be happening. It can't be real. How the hell did I even get here?

As the question really sunk into his mind, an idea began to form that gave him a fading glimmer of hope.

I'm dreaming. That's got to be it!

Cam squeezed his eyes shut and focused all of his energy on waking up. He'd done it many times in the past with similar nightmares, and in almost every case, he'd woken up in his bed - sweaty and shaking - but otherwise unscathed. If he could just focus hard enough, he could do it again.

With each passing second, Cam felt the oxygen depletion in the box growing more severe, but he did his best to pay it no mind. It wasn't real, after all; therefore, it simply wasn't worth his consideration. Within moments, he would be waking up in his bed, covered in sweat, and breathing like he'd just run a marathon.

Instead of a tight wooden box, Cam found himself laying in bed. He thrust himself up from the bed looking at his hands as though he couldn't believe he was seeing them. Cam rubbed his hands over his face a few times and then looked around his room. Everything was as it should be. His room, always neat and tidy, stood as immaculate as ever in the space surrounding him. Relief washing over him, Cam stood from the bed and stretched. A smile took over his face.

"See? Just a dream, man. Nothing to worry about." Cam shook his head at his own stupidity and made his way to the small bathroom attached to his bedroom. He flipped on the light, and went about relieving himself, all the while whistling a jaunty little tune. He wasn't sure if it was something he'd heard somewhere or something he'd made up on the spot, and it really didn't matter. The fact was that he had once again bested a nightmare and could now go back to bed and get some real rest.

Flushing the toilet, Cam turned to flip the light switch and something in the mirror caught his eye. There was a large red splotch on his neck, just above his clavicle. "Holy crap," Cam muttered, stepping closer to the mirror and craning his neck so he could see the splotch better. "What is that?" He ran his fingers over it a couple times, and realized that the area felt hot to the touch.

That's when the itching started. At first, Cam tried to scratch gingerly at the spot, but as the itching intensified, he scratched more fervently. A chunk of skin came loose from his neck and blood pulsed from the open wound. Cam screeched at the sight of himself in the mirror, and then screamed even louder when he saw what lurked beneath the now missing chunk of flesh. An eye rolled around wildly inside the wound in his neck.

"No. No, this can't be happening," Cam said, leaning closer to the mirror. "I'm awake now."

His reflection winked at him before lunging forward, through the glass, grabbing Cam by the shoulders and shaking him. "Don't be so sure, cully. Dreams are tricksy things, so they are."

Cam reared his fists back and slammed them into the mirror, shattering it into a million fragments that exploded into the air, shimmering and gliding through space in what seemed to be slow motion. A fluttering began deep in Cam's belly then. At first, it was the feeling of butterflies, reminding him of the first time he'd laid eyes on Lydia, but it quickly became a painful roiling in his guts.

Something shot up from the depths of his innards, slamming its way up through his windpipe and out of his mouth. It began thrashing wildly and Cam could feel it stirring his insides into mush. In a large floating fragment of mirror, Cam saw a bloody hand sticking out of his mouth, flailing about the room. In seconds, Cam felt the plunge of a second arm, making space alongside its companion and breaking through his jaw.

He could feel himself coming apart at the seams as the arms began making way for something else. There was a distinct, pop and Cam's world became darkness once more. His arms were above his head, encased in something, save for his forearms, which seemed to be free. Cam realized that he couldn't breathe. Dirt pressed in on him from all sides, threatening to fill his nostrils should he move the wrong way.

Two hands grabbed Cam's hands and began pulling him upward. With a few tugs, Cam's head was freed of the dirt, and he took in great gasping gulps of air. When he saw who'd lent him a hand, Cam recoiled in terror. "No, please!"

"Cam?"

"Please, don't kill me. I don't know what I did, but please-"

"Cam, honey, what are you talking about? Kill you? I..."

"Lydia?"

She looked at him, tears streaming down her face. She nodded. "It's me, Cam."

"Is it really you?"

"Yes, now give me your hands, we don't have much time. She's coming."

"She?" Cam asked, holding his hands out towards Lydia. She took his hands and began pulling. "She who?"

"It's-" Lydia huffed, pulling harder, "we don't have time! Help me, damn it!"

Despite his limbs being encased in dirt, Cam did his best to aid Lydia's efforts to pull him free. Though he had no idea who or what terrified her in such a way, Cam knew he didn't want to be around when it arrived. As Cam was pulling his legs free of the dirt, he noticed for the first time that they were in a cemetery, and it was dark.

"I can smell you," a gravelly feminine voice rang out in a sing-song tone. "I could smell your rotten soul for a thousand miles, you detestable piece of human filth."

"Oh, God," Lydia gasped, "she's here." Lydia scrambled to her feet, trying to help Cam stand. "We have to go. Now."

Before Cam could even begin to question her again, Lydia pulled him away from the grave he'd just escaped and into the thick woods beyond the cemetery. As he and Lydia bounded past trees, over roots and rocks, Cam realized that he could hear their pursuer somewhere behind them.

"There's no use running, maggot! There's nowhere for you to hide! Your soul is mine!"

Ahead, Lydia led him this way and that, in what seemed to be random directions. He thought for a moment that she was simply toying with him. That perhaps she was acting as an agent for the creature pursuing them, until she said, "Almost there. Just a little further!"

Lydia crashed through a stand of brush in front of her, dragging Cam out of the woods and onto a rocky outcropping stretching out into the ocean. At the end of the peninsula, where land met sea, stood an enormous lighthouse, its light shining perpetually out into the darkness, swooping in lazy circles.

"There! Go!" Lydia shouted, shoving Cam towards the lighthouse.

"Go? Where?"

"To the light, Cam! Follow the light!"

Behind him, Cam heard a massive explosion, when he turned around, he saw a beam of the purest white light tear through the lighthouse roof and into the depths of the night sky.

"Where does it..." the words died on Cam's lips as he turned back to Lydia just in time to see the thing that was chasing them burst from the treeline.

Its gargantuan head resembled a twisted version of Lydia's face. Its jaw hung, distended. Massive fangs, dripping with saliva, encompassed a writhing mass of tentacles protruding from its throat. The rest of its body slithered out of the treeline into view, and the beast towered over them. It screeched into the night sky before lunging forward and ensnaring Lydia in its slimy appendages.

"Lydia, no!" Cam screeched.

"Just go, Cam! Run!" Lydia continued screaming as the thing's tentacles retreated, drawing her down into its gaping maw.

Cam turned and dashed toward the lighthouse as fast as his feet could carry him. Behind him, he heard Lydia's screams becoming the choked, garbled noises of someone being crushed to death. It was all the motivation he needed to pour on the speed. Cam hadn't run much since high school, but his body still seemed to know the drill. He pounded down the long stretch of rocky ground at lightning speed, coming nearer to the lighthouse, faster than he'd imagined possible.

He slammed into the massive wooden door, clawing at its handle. The sounds of the beast slithering closer filled his ears next to the steady hammering of his heart, but the door wouldn't budge. "Come on. Come on!" he grunted, giving the handle one final twist. The door swung open on rusty hinges and Cam dove inside, slamming it shut behind him.

The creature slammed into the steel door, denting it. Cam grunted a laugh. "My dream...my rules," he spat, turning toward the staircase. Looking up into the bright light above, Cam was struck by the idea that he now stood at the foot of the stairway to Heaven. If there is such a thing.

Outside, the creature slammed into the steel door again, spurring Cam into taking the stairs two at a time. As Cam made his way closer to the shimmering light above, he heard the creature withdraw from the door. Seconds later, he heard its bulk slithering up the outside of the lighthouse, pacing him in his race for the top.

Cam's heart jack-hammered in his chest, nearly drowning out all other sound as he pounded his way up the stairs. He stumbled when he reached the top, lurching to an awkward halt. Cam's body went numb as he stared up into the warm light above. "It's...beautiful..." he mumbled, just above a whisper.

In his periphery, Cam saw the Lydia-beast's leering face outside of the lighthouse's glass chamber. It smiled at him and shrieked laughter as it opened its maw impossibly wide, the tentacles writhing their way up out of its throat. Cam could feel himself being drawn into the light above. The world inside and outside the lighthouse grew dim, fading away with each passing second. The beast drew back and headbutted the glass, shattering it, and sending shards into the air. Its tentacles filled the hole left behind, grasping at Cam's legs and feet. Rather than ensnaring him, the creature's tentacles passed right through him, as though he were made of nothing but air. The creature shrieked its frustration, and Cam looked back just long enough to flip it both birds as he ascended further into the light.

The first thing Cam heard was Lydia's sobs as she held his broken body in her arms. Then, he was assaulted by the blinding light above. Blinking, Cam tried to bring the world into focus, and he saw Lydia's tear-streaked face.

"You're alive," she muttered.

"Yeah," Cam grunted. "I think so." Lydia continued sobbing. "It's okay," Cam whispered, trying to reach out and touch her face, but finding himself unable.

"No," Lydia said between sobs, "it's not okay. The fall was supposed to kill you."

"What?"

"But, that's just like you, isn't it, Cam?" Lydia said, her tears giving way to a sneer. "You always have to ruin everything."

"What? Lydia, I-"

"Don't worry, babe. I got this."

Cam thought he'd recognized the male voice speaking just then. When the owner of that voice stepped into view, Cam's heart leapt into his throat.

"L-Larry?"

Larry stopped next to Lydia and put a hand on her shoulder. She stood and went to his side, putting her arm around his waist. "That's right, chump. Larry." Larry kicked Cam in the gut. "Surprised to see me?"

Cam groaned from the fresh pain imparted by Larry's foot. When he was finally able to draw in enough of a breath, he muttered, "I...what-"

"Do I really need to spell it out for you, Cam?"

Lydia pulled Larry in for a deep, passionate kiss, filled to the brim with intertwined tongues and soft moans. "Getting the picture now, honey?"

Cam tried to take a deep breath, but the pain in his chest caused the breath to catch in his throat. He groaned again and flopped onto his back.

"This is more than I could've asked for, you know?" Larry said stepping closer to Cam. "Seeing the great Cameron Berk brought to his knees. Proverbially speaking, of course." He knelt down and turned Cam's head toward himself. "We're tired of living in your shadow, you selfish piece of crap. When you die, we'll finally get what should have been ours all along."

Cam chuckled, and then groaned at the pain it caused him. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Larry sneered. "You smug little maggot." He pinched Cam's nose with one hand and clamped down on his jaw with the other. "This is more than you deserve."

When Larry was certain that Cam was dead, he stood and kicked him in his dead guts and spat in his face. "Good riddance." He looked at Lydia. "Make the call."

Lydia stepped away and grabbed her cell phone, dialing nine-one-one.

"Nine-one-one. What's your emergency?"

"It's my husband!" Lydia cried, laying it on thick. "He fell down the stairs. He's not breathing. Oh, God, I think he's dead!"

psychological
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About the Creator

Luther Kross

I am not merely an author. I am a conduit to the many worlds beyond this one. Step into the darkness, if you dare. Welcome to my little house of horrors. Here, you will find many a dark tale in just about every variety you can imagine.

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