The Call of the Malum

The question may have been asked ever since humans began questioning, if it is the Devil who tempts men into sin, then who was it that tempted the Devil?

Or was he even tempted?

Maybe the crimes of each soul is unto them, the burden of responsibility that comes with the knowledge and freedom. Such a thought can't be foreign to us, since God is kind and just, why would he punish folks that were fooled by the Devil, unless the sins committed by them were of their own doing.

Or was there someone else, someone behind the shadows, a someone who whispered into the ears of the Whisperer, the one who nudged the once great dweller of heaven into his downfall?

Maybe there was a great Evil, someone or something that our mortal eyes were not made to see, or our minds to comprehend, that something which great, imaginative intellects have caught a glimpse of in their diseased dreams. A great and true evil, from whom all our depictions of the foul and vile have come from. The actual puppeteer behind Cain and Abel, the master of the wicked, whose existence has only been hinted at throughout history, through forbidden books, and recounts of mad men whose sanity has since been in question.

Or maybe not. It could just be our fragile human mind, which when encountering something beyond our understanding, starts questioning everything that we believe in.

On the night of September 18th, 4 days ago, I was sleeping peacefully, when I was awakened by the harshest of barn owl screeches. It was a stormy night. Rain still hadn't poured down, but the winds were tearing through the city. Even in that wild chaotic scene, the calls of the barn owl rang true, eerily calm and creepy.

I had learnt a long time ago, through many stories, that barn owls were an evil omen. Something must have creeped me out, for I couldn't go back to sleep. The native American tribe Newuk used to believe that when an evil man died, he turned into a barn owl. The eastern Indians had similar beliefs, albeit they portrayed them in a positive light.

I guess it was the native American legend that got to me, for those calls of the barn owl then felt more like calls of anguish and pain. I was always a very imaginative person, and it could have been just that.

However, just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard screams. Screams of pure terror, and a grown man's scream is one of the scariest, bone-chilling thing you can ever hear. Sadly, where I live, strange things happen at night and screams are not that unusual.

But this time, the screams were not stopping. That was unusual, so I got out of bed and walked outside. I could hear people crying. In that wild, windy night, against the then silent backdrop, for the owls had stopped their calling mysteriously, that was the most horrifying sound you could hear.

Maybe it was my natural instinct to help or just plain destiny, but I ran towards the cries. I had a flashlight in my hand as the night was deep and street lights were broken.

As I turned a corner, towards the underpass, I saw 3 men. It was dark, so they were hardly visible but as I turned my flashlight on them, an uncanny sight welcomed me.

One man had his hands covering his eyes, from which blood was coming out profusely, and he was sobbing. The man standing next to him had his hands covering his ears, from which blood was flowing like a waterfall and he was crying too. The third man, who seemed fine, turned to me.

I asked what happened and as he tried to tell me something, blood started coming out of his mouth. He looked shocked, but not from seeing all that blood coming out of his mouth, as it seemed. Then he started crying but with no sound, just a silent cry.

I stood there, traumatized by the sight. Sirens could be heard, as somebody must have called the cops but I couldn't move. The 3 men moved in an eerie fashion, and their cries were filled with sorrow, rather than horror, as if they had lost someone.

The cops came in and took charge of the situation. It was all a blur to me, I just remember one of the officers asking me about what happened and I looked blankly at him.

Since that night, something has happened. I don't know what the 3 saw, but it must have been something supernatural. Even now, as I look out the window, I see men with no shadows walking around, normal in all aspects but no shadows. It is as if the city itself is diseased and sick, and instead of people, abominations are walking around.

But it can very well be my imagination, and even as I write these words, that possibility seems closer to me than whatever my eyes are seeing outside.

I think I know what happened to the 3. The man whose eyes were bleeding must have seen something he wasn't meant to see ( He is now blind), the man whose ears were bleeding must have heard something he wasn't meant to hear ( He is now deaf ), and the man who was bleeding from the mouth, was going to say something that he wasn't meant to say ( He is now a mute).

Along that same line, I believe a similar fate awaits me. One saw evil, one heard evil, one spoke evil, and then there is me who is thinking evil. It doesn't matter if such a thing doesn't exist, because I believe it does, and all those shadowless men are actually walking the streets right now.

And that dream that I just had, where an unnamed, unnoticed Colossus was hiding behind the night clouds, only to be illuminated by the lightning of the storm, is true.

I don't know what it means, but something is brewing in these colorless streets, of which the 3 might have caught a glimpse of.

:: To the person who finds this note-

As I have reasons to believe that I might not last the night, I wrote these words to explain what might have led to my unexpected, and not yet, demise. Paper, I think, has some magic in it, and words written have a way of finding themselves on people's hands, so I write on paper, instead of on some electronic device.

Do not give this letter to Sadia, as it might pain her to read of the pathetic last few days that her best friend, and soon was to be husband, spent on this Earth.

And as a last request, call upon my friend Syed Arabi Khalique, of 4 Lyndhurst Rd, Chesham, England, and tell him of this note.

Thank you.