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Doomsday Diary

As It Always Was

By And I am NightmarePublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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The house stood dark and cold, as it always was. There was a candle in the middle of the room, but a strange candle. It glowed with sliver fire, the undertone of power and love. There were no windows or doors open, as it always was. There wasn’t a sound in the house, as it always was. But the one thing out of place was there were people in it. They didn’t make a sound. They didn’t breathe. Their hearts didn’t beat. Because these people weren’t alive. Then again, they weren’t dead either. Not really. The door banged open with a sudden jolt, enough to scare away even the nonexistent rats and termites. Even such animals were wise enough to stay away from that house. Humans, however, are not so wise. Standing in the doorway were three people. A young girl with a long face and red hair, an even younger boy who’s face was so unimportant it would be a waste of time to try and describe, and a hook-nosed man with very white teeth. The hook-nosed man looked inside the house with an air of disappointment and irritation at his own disgust. The hook-nosed man had perfected the art of looking down his hook nose at small people, which he did now at the young things. He wanted to say something, but there was an oppression of aggravation that imposed upon him to stay silent. The children wanted him to venture first into the house, and he wished the same of the children. Yet after several moments of cold silence, the hook-nosed man placed his foot among the icy boards. They did not creak, nor make an effort to sound and fill the silence of the dim residence. He put another foot upon the primordial wood, and the children followed in nervous suit. As they neared the center of the house, where the little grey light the open doors had shed grew thin, the hook-nosed man stopped, unable to bear the frozen silence. He did the worst thing he possibly could have done in a house such as that. He opened his mouth. Before the first notes of sound had erupted from it, the doors shut as if they had never been opened. A dusty blue light lit a circle on the floor around the hook-nosed man. The children were nowhere to be seen. He whirled around and around, unable to find his way out of the circle, or escape the horror unfolding. He turned a last time, and came to face a young girl. He leapt backwards, unable to scream. It was then he saw it was the little girl with the long face, and near her was the unimportant boy. They looked strangely grey in the cyan light, their skin almost alabaster. He grew closer to them when they did not move, and reached out and touched them. Stone. Cold, hard stone. Statues of the children he had once knew, as if the house had known they were coming. Or…perhaps…the children themselves… the realization came too late, and the dark ended it.

They weren’t ghosts. Or zombies or skeletons, nor any other form of living dead. They simply were. The brown one rose first. It had once been a girl, perhaps, all those years ago, but it didn’t matter now. It didn’t have a name, as the rest of them, and was silent, but they heard.

The time is now.

We must be free.

Too long have we waited in this darkness.

Send ye to him.

For only he can.

Benedict Morose was almost normal. He had a normal house and normal parents, who had a normal job. The different thing about Benedict was that he only cared for two things. His sister Mary Annette, and his mother’s heart shaped locket. His mother was an entirely different matter, and she was very normal. This was perhaps the most grievous thing about her. She worked for the World Company, which almost everyone did nowadays. The World Company owned everything. If you needed or wanted anything, you would buy it at WC. And if you wanted to buy anything at the WC, then you would have to have money. The only way to get money was to work there. The people thought it would be a good idea to have one store for everything. They had also thought it a wise idea if they only had one, in the middle of the United States. The WC was in Kansas. It *was* Kansas. It took up the entire state. The only problem with the system was....everything was empty. Every shop, stall, department store and business had been ripped out of the ground. Instead of unique buildings and lemonade stands, there were grey houses lining the streets. The surrounding states--Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Missouri were where all the people who worked for the WC lived. All the people. All the people in the world. There was nowhere else to work, nowhere else to purchase anything. So all the surrounding states had been stripped of everything unimportant, and instead were lined with packed grey houses, one next to the other. Both Benedict’s mother and father both worked at the WC. Everyone worked from morning to night, and since they lived two hours away, they were up at four in the morning, and came home at ten or eleven. Benedict and his sister stayed home and waited, with absolutely nothing to do. And thats what they did. Benedict loved his sister because she talked. Everyone else was silent, and the only things that ever came out of their mouths were WC propaganda, or “be good children now.”. But Benedict’s sister talked. She would chatter about how lovely the dog they didn’t have was, or prattle about the next door neighbor’s daughter, even though the next door neighbor didn’t have one, in an attempt to fill the pressing silence that guarded the house. The only thing Benedict’s sister didn’t talk about were things that actually existed, such as the big grey house that was across the street from them. It was empty. The big grey house that no one ever went into or came out of. There was only one empty house in the entire state, perhaps in the entire world, and it was in front of Benedict’s own. But Benedict wasn’t interested. Not until the whisper came.

It wasn’t dark. It was simply nothing. The hook-nosed man was no longer a hook-nosed man. His new shadowy form pressed against the cage of black glass. He was desperate to be free. So were the others. He didn’t know what was out there, but he knew it must be something. Was he even male anymore? Was he even human?


The whisper was of ice and shadow. Benedict felt it in the back of his head, but he wasn’t scared. He heard whispers in his head all the time.

Save us.

We cannot help you.

The locket will guide you.

Free us.

Insert the key.

Benedict wasn’t a genius. But he knew how to understand a whisper when he heard one. He stood in front of the big grey house, the locket clasped in his hand. The whisper had told him to unlock the door. It was clear to him. The locket was the key. The lock on the house’s door was already open, but he had to protect himself. Benedict wasn’t scared. He wasn’t nervous or shaking. He just wasn’t quite sure. If the trapped souls inside had gone against all the world to be inside, did they not deserve their punishment? He had seen the children and the hook-nosed man across the street that morning. Were they too trapped inside the appalling prison? And did they deserve it just as well? Benedict hung the locket above the lock. If someone wished otherwise for the trapped souls, perhaps they would steel their courage to finish the task. But the spirits had done nothing to deserve freedom, and everything to deserve punishment. Benedict smiled and walked away back to the life he would have, whatever path it would be. And the house stood dark and cold, as it always was, and always would be.

psychological
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About the Creator

And I am Nightmare

I am a budding writer, and still only a teen. I love any support that comes my way. I am also a Dark Empath, psychologist in training, and baker.

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