The Arrival

I watch in horror as the stranger approaches my door. His twisted visage a macabre mockery of human expression, his lips curled in a sardonic smile. I can hear him humming a discordant melody from my vantage behind the curtains. I flatten myself against the ground, hoping that he hasn't seen me.

My heart skips as three bangs in quick succession intrude upon my solace. A loud thud and the demon retreats, his machinations deployed upon my doorstep. I steel my resolve and peek through the mail slot. A brown paper box lies in wait, unadorned and unassuming. I can only imagine what it may contain.

I clutch my chest and concentrate on my breathing. Four counts in, hold, four counts out, hold. I unpack my mental toolbox that my therapist has helped me craft for this very moment.

"Visualize your success, then reach out and attain it." I can hear his dry, clinical voice in my mind like sandpaper upon the walls of my psyche. I huddle in the corner and close my eyes, trying to project myself into victory over my anguishing affliction. I breathe in - One, two, three, four. I breathe out - one, two, three.

In my mind, I open the door and step outside. The world is bright, the air hot, perfect for a cold glass of lemonade. The branches of the great elm tree in my front yard creak as unseen zephyrs whisper through the leaves. Sprinklers happily burble in other front yards as the screams of joyful children fill the air as they leap through the spray. Upon my porch, the high pitch whine of mosquitos surround my head the droning buzz growing louder, louder. I push those thoughts from my head and cling to the positive.

A cat lounges in the crook of the branches lazy and content, its soft, fat belly warmed by a shaft of afternoon light. It yawns, showing needle sharp teeth ready to mangle and rend. I shake my head to clear it. Positive.

A snail tirelessly creeps across the porch leaving a trail of shimmering slime. I blink once and it is joined by another. Then another. From the shadowy corners of my front step, thousands of snails ooze forth. I press myself against the door as they slowly invade my domain. Fissures open in the cement and eyestalks appear from the abyss as more reinforcements arrive. They're upon the posts, upon the steps, upon the door, the spirals of their shells drawing me into tighter and tighter concentric circles of despair.

I hide my face in my hands and count. Breathe in. Breathe out. I peek through my fingers and the nightmarish visions have subsided.

I crouch down to inspect the brown paper box left by the minion of evil. I feel eyes upon me, the whole world closing in around me. The world is too bright, the air is too oppressively hot, thick like soup that catches in my throat, threatening to strangle me.

I tear into the box with reckless abandon. My head swims as the uncontrollable darkness nibbles at the corners of my vision. A manic obsession compels me even though my subconscious screams to retreat to the safety of the indoors, but a box delivered must be opened. The last of the packaging falls away and I behold what lies before me.

Time stops and my blood freezes in my veins. The face of pure, unadulterated fear stares back at me, captivating me with its cold, penetrating gaze; it looks past my corporeal exterior and weighs my very soul. Time loses meaning, and I lose track of myself. Words that I didn't even know that I knew spring forth and arrange themselves in a delicate yet beautiful pattern that seems tantalizingly familiar yet altogether alien, like some dream half remembered before it happens; as soon as I grasp for it, it disappears as if it had never been. A myriad tapestry of adjectives and descriptors fall from my lips and shatter upon the floor as I lose the ability to describe what I see before me.

I become aware of a distinct pop, and suddenly my ears are overloaded with a vast multitude of air particles assaulting my tympanic membrane. My eardrum holds for the briefest of moments before it gives way to a terrible shriek that tears its way across the limits of my audible perception until I cannot track it any further. As a testament to its passage, it leaves a sharp ringing in my head, a final salute by frequencies that I will never be able to hear again.

The primary wave hit me then, slamming into me like an invisible fist while passing unhindered through my skull and sending ripples of agony throughout the aqueous mass that I use as an anchor for my consciousness. The brain is quite busy with other things at the moment; it files the damage away for later processing.

Presently, I open my mouth but whether it is to unleash a guttural cry of defiance at the ignominious inevitability or to stand there jaw agape at what could almost certainly be imminent and unavoidable doom is beyond my comprehension. Perhaps it was simply because it had been a while since my last inhalation. How long has it been exactly?

In.

One.

It makes no difference, for just as soon as my mouth fell slack, I close it again as the first shards of shrapnel begin to pelt my face, etching their signature upon my face as witness to their passing, a grim signature of their sojourn, scrawled in blood.

Through the oncoming cloud I see a horror manifest right before me. It rears its ugly head and smiles at me in a chilling manner. It is a mindless thing, it only has one purpose and that is to consume all until all is consumed, a purpose that this horror seeks to fulfill to the best of its abilities. It has burst forth from its confines and it hungers, lashing out in all directions as it searches for food to augment its power and continue its survival.

I close my eyes as the inferno rips through the air as it makes its way to me, sinewy tendrils greedily exploring my front porch, feeding the insatiable hunger that drives its very existence along and to the brink of madness. My succulents wither and are blown asunder, their clay pots bursting in miniature orange novas.

I feel my feet leave the ground and my eyelids are forced shut from the advancing pressure. The tongues of fire are upon my face, testing my supple exterior experimentally to see if it enjoys the taste. The fire seems to shudder in anticipation, and my skin begins to blister as the fire happily expands its existence by destroying all around it, as natural as breathing.

Two.

Time stretches again, and I lose track of myself once more. I decide that it would be better to not be present and blissfully drift back to that place of pure thought, pure emotion and pure existence. A lifetime passes, and I distantly wonder why I am still floating in this void, having seen no bright light or slide-show of my entire life, merely flashes of anguish.

Once again, I am rudely and unexpectedly yanked into this reality by my own brain with a hundreds of warning klaxons signaling up and down the latticework of my nervous system. While I was gone and away from myself, the machine that is my body continued to run; it knew what needed to be done even without my involvement.

Three.

I wince as my burned and battered form protests to this treatment, but I ignore this sensation and greedily take in as much air as I can stand until I feel fit to burst. The acrid stench of charred flesh and hair mixes with dust and other unpleasant particles, but I take no notice; there's nothing so sweet as the taste of breath undeserved. My body, the great machine that it is, begins to run a self diagnostic which I delegate to the unconscious. Presently, my breathing becomes slow and rhythmic, keeping time with the pulse of survival.

Four.

I awake suddenly, my limbs aching from being cramped in my small corner. The sun has continued its march across the sky, the dying rays of amber spilling through the slits in my curtain and casting my study in a sickly orange glow. I crawl across the floor and peek outside again. The brown paper box is still there, untouched, unknowable.