Freddy

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own, or at least, not the one I thought was mine; it felt more like a reminder of all the things I didn’t do or wished I did. Something about this reflection seemed familiar; like a song you keep trying to remember but the lyrics just keep slipping away.

Yet I had this feeling of discomfort; as if the reflection knew who I was, but I still had no clue.

I sat down on my old rocking chair, and started to wander; ‘what was I forgetting? What is it, that I needed to know? Was this just another reminder from my subconscious that I could have lived my life in a more meaningful way? What was the meaning of my existence?’

Deep in my thoughts as I was, I failed to acknowledge how a shadow had taken over the room. The air felt dense and heavy, like a walk in the woods at night; unaware of the darkness in the room, I fell into a profound sleep.

The cold breeze of December coming through the crack of an open window hit me so hard I felt my soul come back to my body, violently waking me up. As I closed the window, I felt a presence creeping in and with it a familiar voice

“Hey,” he said, with a deep dark voice.

My body felt tense, I was unable to move; I knew who he was but I couldn’t turn around, I just couldn’t face him again.

“You thought I would leave you? After all we’ve been through?”

I wanted to run but my thoughts were faster than my body. I kept ordering my feet to move, but they just wouldn’t budge.

His voice was a reminder of everything dark. He was the cause of all my struggles and of all my pain. His shadow was projecting to the window as he kept moving closer; I could feel him breathing on the back of my neck. I kept looking at the moon, hoping I was somehow still dreaming, that this was just a bad joke.

“This is not real, this is not…”

“What? Let me guess… real?” as he interrupted my thoughts and finished my sentence, “this place is a mess”

It wasn’t a dream or a bad joke; it was real, as real as it had always been. He was actually here… in my room, standing behind me.

I closed my eyes as hard as I could and placed my hands over my ears

“You’re not here… YOU ARE NOT REAL… LEAVE ME ALONE!” I screamed so loudly and hard I felt as if my heart was going to rip out of my chest.

I felt his long, skinny, boney fingers over my shoulder as he finished saying,

“Don’t worry. I’ll find you when it’s time”.

The darkness that was consuming the room earlier had left; I felt a weight being lifted off my shoulder and was able to take a breath in as I saw the sunrise kissing the earth.

I slowly walked myself back to the mirror; the reflection was gone, there was nobody there, not even myself; an empty mirror, like a blank canvas.

“You don’t exist without me,” he whispered heavily

He had never left, he was here… still in the room with me. I felt his presence getting heavier and heavier,

“I’m starting to lose my patience, Joseph,” he said frustrated, as an image started to form in the mirror. I kept staring, hoping I would be able to find myself again, that I would somehow be able to finally see my reflection.

When the image came to be, it was so clear I saw a reflection of an older man turning his back at me - ‘but, how can this be?’ I sighed to myself.

I tried to reach myself in the mirror but I felt short; I was losing it. I felt myself going completely insane, I felt how my brain was trying so hard to help me get a grip of reality and just a minute before having a complete meltdown… my reflection turned its back to me, facing me once again.

And just like that, there it was; the same image I had seen the day before though it still wasn’t my own. I kept touching my face, trying to make sense of what was in front of me.

‘Is this how people see me? From the outside? I must not be getting enough sleep’ I thought.

“That’s because it’s not you,” he said, as the reflection in the mirror started to talk, “this is you”

The mirror shifted to the image of a younger man, seemingly in his thirties. The reflection was grinning, he had a beard as long as his neck, almost touching his chest and a dirty blonde ponytail. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing with my eyes. It was me… it was finally me, the mirror was showing my reflection.

“Now that you’ve found yourself again, is time I help you remember who you are and what I am doing here,”the voice kept talking. I was no longer scared of him. I felt weirdly at peace again around him. It felt like I was hanging out with an old friend. I was no longer paralyzed and was able to breathe. He sounded much calmer, as he pulled himself out of the mirror

“Let’s get you back on track, shall we?” he said happily, as he wrapped his arm around me, grabbing me by the shoulder and pointing at the mirror.

The mirror turn into a television screen, where the images were constantly changing.

“Why not start at the very beginning?” my reflection said

He showed me an image in the mirror of myself back when I was six.

I was standing in front of my childhood home and I felt good. I kept thinking I would probably see my family again or that he would help me remember what it is I had forgotten. Or why I was so afraid of him to begin with. He seemed to be just fine, now.

We walked inside and saw my mom, she was cooking breakfast. Waffles, my all time favorite. As I kept staring at her, a somber feeling got a hold of me. A great sadness was taking over me like a shadow.

“Kill her,” my reflection said

“I don’t want to kill her; what are you even talking about?” I responded, unsettled by what he had asked of me. I was still trying to process the information as he continued.

“She’s already dead. It’s not like you can be charged with murder,” my reflection said lightly. He made it sound like it was a good idea, like what he was saying actually made sense. “You will like the feeling,” he added evilly.

I tried to fight it and kept screaming at my reflection. He kept whispering as I kept walking towards the knife drawer, as if my body was no longer mine.

I started crying. My mom came running and asked what was happening. I held her tightly. All the memories came rushing back to me like a gust of wind.

“It was my sixth birthday. It was a sunny day and I was having so much fun. It was time for presents and I was ecstatic; I had opened every single gift except for one. It was standing up in the corner, felt heavy, and didn’t say who it was from but I opened it with the same excitement as I had opened every other gift. Somebody had given me a mirror to hang on my wall.

I thought it was an odd gift for a six year old but I asked my dad to hang it on my bedroom wall. The next morning as I was looking at myself in the mirror, the reflection changed. It became a shadow that had a big smile. I remember him saying: ‘I’m Fred or you my little boy can call me Freddy’ .

He became my best friend. We would play all the time and he would tell me many different stories from his time spent in hell, where he said he was from.

He said to do everything he asked and in return he would give me all the freedom I wanted along with all the toys in the world.

Then that day came to be; the day mom was making waffles.

“Kill her”, Freddy coaxed.

“I can’t do that, she’s my mom,” my six year old self responded, crying.

Freddy turned into a big shadow with a very deep voice. It stopped feeling like happy Freddy and we became one. As he opened my mouth up wide I heard my jaw cracking but sensed no pain. I felt him taking over my six year old body; it was like I was sharing a small bunk bed with a massive grown man.

I felt alive and exhilarated but my soul felt trapped at the same time. I had no control over what I was doing and as surprising as it was, I didn’t feel like fighting it.

I grabbed the knife and gouged my mom’s eyes out as she screamed in pain, asking 'why?’ Somehow I felt nothing, felt no sympathy towards my own mother, as If I had been ripped of all human decency. I couldn’t help but smile and even thought back then that cutting her throat open would be just as fun.

I giggled as I saw her head rolling backwards. The white, clean, squeaky kitchen became a vivid red room, like a playground just for me. My three year old sister started crying so loudly I wanted to rip my ears off, I couldn’t take it anymore. I thought the best way of shutting her up was to cut one of her arms off, but her cries became incessantly worse… much worse than before. So I stabbed her a couple of times instead and rolled in her blood.

The kitchen felt like a bloody slip ’n slide with no one there to stop me. I played with my mom’s head and thought ‘I can never be as happy as I am in this moment’.

Freddy was growing bigger but the ecstatic sensation that I had was starting to fade away as I saw my dad's car pull up in the garage.

“I love my dad, please don’t make me do this to him… I don’t want to kill him, I don’t want him to die” - I try pleading my case to Freddy, I was almost begging him not to.

Freddy ignored me, becoming more and more impatient by the minute (I was almost able to taste his thirst for blood) as he possessed me once again.

My dad walked in the kitchen and with horror in his eyes he screamed and dropped his bags to the floor. He let out a cry so loud, the whole neighborhood must’ve heard him. He was sobbing as he got ahold of what was left of my mom and my sister's body. He sounded desperate as if he could fix them and somehow put them back together.

Freddy was holding our body from one of the corners of the ceiling, I felt my head falling backwards like a crab that’s been hanging upside down. I was feeling profoundly sad as Freddy kept dragging our body around, then jumped on my dad’s back and twisted his neck with my hands.’

“You’re a murderer,” Freddy said, as my body came back to the room where I was uncontrollably crying. “No need to cry, you did get away with it. But… you’ve been gone for way too long now, living in this fantasy world of yours. Forgetting who you truly are and your purpose of your existence; but no worries, I’m here to wake you up and help you remember.”

“I’m not a murderer… you… you made me do that… I didn’t want to… I didn’t want to kill my family… I loved them… I… I… I loved them all and you… YOU TOOK THEM AWAY FROM ME!”

I screamed at him, I felt helpless and sick to my stomach; I felt so disgusted with myself and the memories I had. I had this knot in my throat and felt like throwing up. The guilt in my head and the stare in my dad’s eyes were driving me insane.

“You’re mom was a whore, your dad was a simp and your little sister; well, she was just annoying. All she would do is…”

“SHUT UP!! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!” - I interrupted him, covering my ears, screaming and punching the mirror so hard it shattered all over the bathroom, cutting my fist open with its pieces.

“You think breaking a mirror and throwing your tantrum is going to get rid of me? The mirror was never my home… my home is everywhere on earth… I AM YOU.”

Freddy suddenly turned into this giant shadow (bigger than the shadow he turned into back when I was six). He had a deep, demonic voice; it sounded as if thousands of spirits were talking at once, as if millions of tortured souls were roaming the room. The lights went out, the room shrunk, the sun was no longer out and the moon had run away. The room was cold, it became dark and I felt a huge void.

I wanted to end this, I wanted the pain to go away, I wanted Freddy to go away, I didn’t want to feel scared anymore or to live in fear. I wanted my body back along with my thoughts; I never wanted to hurt anyone ever again, I no longer wanted to be Freddy’s slave. I wanted to break free, but I feel weak and small.

I kept thinking I had it in me, that I could get rid of him, that I was going to be the one to end him; but how?

My mom’s cries were echoing like voices in an empty room inside my head, my six year old hands covered in blood were the image I had ingrained; and that sensation, that bloody little happiness I had in that kitchen so many years ago was still a part of me.

I had no right to live with what I had done, I had to somehow end my suffering and end Freddy with me. And so it came to me, an idea that was shining so bright like the rays of the sun, I finally felt like a hero about to save the day.

The courage came to me and I finally knew what I had to do. I grabbed one of the pieces from the broken mirror and cut my throat open. I couldn’t have prepared myself enough for the excruciating pain I was feeling, but I felt like this was my purpose, this was my only way out and as I lay bleeding to death, gasping for air, I kept looking into the broken mirror at the reflection that wasn’t my own.