Curse

3:12 AM

"Freak"

*Giggles.*

"They called you a freak."

The word slithered into Rihaan's slumber, not as a memory, but as a breath against his ear: "Freak."

His body locked—a curled fist of muscle and fear. Fingers nailed themselves to the pillow. The blanket over his legs was a dead weight he couldn't feel. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic prisoner, while his breath froze solid in his lungs.

"Who—" he tried to say, but his voice was dust. "Who are you?"

Rihaan struggled to open his eyes, only to find himself standing in the corridor outside his room. It was filled with the darkness of the void. The air that filled the space was damp and cold.

His eyes strained against the nothing, searching for a line, an edge. And then he saw it. An impossible, undeniable. A window. Set in a wall that had never held one.

*tick* 3:14 AM

He began walking in that direction, the hollow voices constantly itching his ears. His bare feet knew the feel of these floorboards—the third one always creaked. He was ready for it. The creak never came. The silence of its betrayal was louder than any sound. His legs moved faster... faster... and faster until he was chasing the window, which seemed close, close enough to grab, and he put his head out to reach the outside world, or so he thought.

The corridor was stretching into infinity, and the window stretched along with it.

“Freak,” almost a hiss, over his ears. He froze. In the utter silence, the cold, the dark, he stood perfectly still, as if he waited…. Waited for all this to end with a snap. But alas! He was mistaken; the window began moving, it came closer… closer… and closer until he stood facing the window.

"That is me." He saw himself on his bed, crumpled and breathless. In that moonlit room, where the moon was covered by the clouds, casting a partial shadow. Again he can see himself struggle against the will of the shadow.

He stood there just for the instant when he saw the door to his room open from outside, but there was no evidence of it happening in the corridor. No creak, no push, no edge, not even an inch of light.

The window lunged. Not the glass, but the frame—a perfect, black rectangle eating the world. It didn't hit him; it passed through him. A shock of absolute cold, a sensation of being briefly detached from reality. And then it was gone. He was alone in the infinite corridor, the taste of static and soil on his tongue. The window had left nothing behind, not even the memory of a wall.

*tick* 3:15

He stood there all alone in that infinite corridor. The silence grew, and his childish part began anticipating an end, but he was wrong again. Another window bloomed, but this time, he stood right behind it. He took a step ahead and peeped.

"F..Fath...Father"

His father had him by the hair, smashing his head toward the table's edge.

Not once, not twice, but thrice, he banged his head on the edge of the table, then kicked his own son in the stomach after he lost consciousness.

Then his father walks toward Rihaan, who stood at the window, smiled, and walked through him, like air. Rihaan turns to find himself in their old apartment. His eyes now focused on his father, beating his mother frantically. He could hear her mother's cries for help, and he could see himself fallen, helpless and dead weight, on his mother.

A tear ran down his eye. He wanted to cry, he wanted to help his mother, but he only stood there, still and pathetic. As his father stood and took a baseball bat in his hand, he smashed his mother's head. Rihaan could not bear it; he closed his eyes. The sound of the bat hitting flesh didn't stop. It changed. Became the sound of his own heart, pounding against his ribs in the dark

*Tick* 3:16 AM

All of a sudden everything vanishes. Rihaan now stood beside his crumbling body. He can see the stress his body was under, and the sound of a creak attracts his attention.

The door to his room is opening. The same way it opened before. And there stood the figure of concentrated dark, a cut-out of nothingness. It was present, but it did not exist. It was an absence that had learned to stand up.

He saw 'it' creeping in from that corridor door, gradually becoming something from the tinted air of dark. It stood tall and reached its hand out to Rihaan.

The hand looked rotten, the smell of the air was of soil, and the air was getting dense every passing second. As the hand neared him, he walked, increasing the distance between him and the hand of the shadow. He eventually reached the end of his room, his back stacked on the wall. They hovered in front of his face, forcing him to close his eyes again.

As soon as he closed his eyes, all the hollow voices he heard were gone; the only sound was his heart and the sound of the breeze that filled the air. The room seemed empty now. As he opened his eyes, there was no shadow in the room.

And when he sighed, he felt a touch on his shoulder.

*tick* 3:17 AM.

*panting* He wipes off the sweat on his head\, his hair completely wet. He was tired\, and when he turned his head to look at the clock\, the color of his face turned white.

"Not again!" He exclaimed. But he wasn't able to speak clearly because his throat was dried up. Then he notices his hand, his hand already digging into his shoulder.

It hurt. Not like a bad dream. Not like fear. But like something that derived from the claws of it. Something real.

The pain was like it was cut, but there was no blood.

He would rather not look. Looking would make it real. However, the pain was a question his skin was already answering. He forced himself to look.

A bruise was there. Dark. New. Still forming. Five marks pressed into his skin. Engraved in his soul.

Fingers or the claws of those who see him.

He stared at it, hoping it would disappear.

It didn’t.

He looked around the room. The bed. The door. The walls. Everything was where it should be. Quiet. Normal.

Too normal.

Nothing had followed him out.

Nothing was standing there.

And yet something had touched him.