I woke up the next morning with that same..deadly headache. Taking some medicine for my rips and cuts, then going about my daily routine, I head to the bathroom. As I do every morning, I wash my face and brush my teeth. I glare at the mirror, remembering the night prior, remembering the hallucination.
It was a normal morning, the first normal morning for the last couple of days. At my normal desk job, I couldn't stop thinking about what happened. I shook my head, trying to shake it off and get back to work.
Around 5 pm, I clocked out and started closing the office. I'm always the last one here for the day, and it's always pretty lonely. I am a closed-off person, but having someone to talk to during these night hours isn't always a bad thing.
Shutting down my laptop, I heard a noise. I looked around, it was dark and gloomy as an office was at night. Grabbing my bag and walking towards the door, something catches my eye. I couldn't quite see it, but it moved quickly into the nearby maintenance closet.
I gulped and started sweating heavily. My hands became slippery and clammy, and I accidentally dropped my bag on the cold floor. I wiped the sweat off my face with my sleeve and grabbed my bag off the ground. Turning around to walk out of the office, I heard a crash from the hall. Nope, nope, nope, I thought as I ran out and locked the door behind me. Any sane person would run away from a situation like that immediately. I'm not an idiot like those people in horror movies, no way. I decided to head straight home that night because I was pretty rattled.
I woke up to the sound of my front door banging. Why was someone knocking on my door at 1 am? It was like someone was trying to bust it open. I get up and go to put my socks on, but I already have them on. Which is odd because I sleep without socks and don't remember getting up. Ignoring the weirdness of the event, I walk towards the door with a grumpy look on my face. I was finally getting a good night's sleep in god knows how long, and these people are interrupting it. Opening the door, I come face to face with two police officers. One female and one male officer, both pretty muscular in physique. "What can I do for you, officers?" I ask in a groggy voice while rubbing my eyes. The male officer starts to speak when the female officer interjects, "We are responding to a noise complaint at this address. Your neighbor heard banging and called us about 10 minutes ago. Would you know anything about that?"
I look back at my place and scan the area. I lived alone and was sleeping. How could I have been causing the noise? I look back at the officers, raising an eyebrow at them. "I live alone, and you just woke me up. I don't know how I could've been causing any banging of any sort," I exclaim.
The male officer nods, "All right, well if you have any dogs or pets, make sure to keep them down okay?" The two officers left while I had a huge look of confusion on my face. I walk back up the stairs to my bathroom, I need to wash my face and get back to bed; it is way too early for this. I get to the bathroom and start washing my face. All of a sudden I hear this huge bang in the other room. I slowly and cautiously walk towards the room. Peeking in the doorframe, I see nothing. What a joke, it must be my imagination, I thought to myself as I went back into the bathroom and slammed the door.
I look up at the mirror and see the other me again. "You know why these things are happening to you. It's them, it will always be them. It's not just you," this hallucination shouted at me. He's been in my mirror every night since the night of the accident. It's been 2 weeks since the incident.
I've replaced this mirror about five times now because I smashed it every time this hallucination came about. I was starting to think that this wasn't a made-up thing. That this other Shawn was real. I needed to fix myself, I wanted to be fixed. I am tired of being restless and acting like I am crazy.
I looked up and faced this fake Shawn. As soon as I looked up, a little girl appeared beside the fake Shawn. Taken aback, I fell over and started to break down sobbing. I didn't know why I was sobbing, I just..was. Struggling to get up, I manage to use the bathroom counter as a standing crutch. Still sobbing, I face the little girl and fake Shawn. My hands were getting sweaty and wet. My tears were dripping down my arms now, to underneath my hands. My hands end up slipping off the counter again, and I crash again to the floor. As I fell, the little girl and fake Shawn said something in unison. Before I could make it all out, I hit my head on the toilet and passed out.
I woke up the next morning very frazzled. I remember the night before to an extent but also..not? It was all very confusing to me as I got up from the bathroom floor. I touched my head, no good bleeding. I still had some cuts and bruises on my arms. Must've been from trying to break my fall subconsciously.
I did some chores around the house while my head was throbbing. I have been taking Tylenol, Advil, even things like adderall. Nothing has been working to get rid of this piercing headache.
I soak in the hot water, thoughts running through my mind. Flashes of the dentist's office? I don't know why I am thinking of that place. I start cleaning my body. I scrub my belly, and my head starts pounding. I see a knife stabbed deep in my stomach, with blood dripping through the water onto the shower floor. I blink and it's gone. No blood, no knife, no pain. My headache is gone too.
"What is happening to me?" I muttered as I got out of the shower in a towel. Looking at myself with wrenched disgust.
It's been six months since these bad things started happening to me had another dentist appointment. My injuries have healed from the accident, and my hallucinations have been decreasing. Things are getting better. I don't know why or ho,w but they are.
Heading into the dentist's office, I go check in with the receptionist and sit down. I smell that erotic, invigorating roses and citrus smell. I get called in, and my head starts to pound again. "Not now, this isn't the place for that," I whisper to myself as I walk into the office. The striking headache wouldn't stop; it kept hurting. So much so that my eyes were getting blurry and my hand was starting to shake. I stumbled into the room with the dentist's hygienist trying to act normal.
I sit in the chair and look up at the small television. Trying to keep my eyes open, not even noticing the dentist walking in and talking to me. The TV flickers to three people: "No, not you guys, stay away from me, no, stay away!" I start screaming, eyes wide open now.
Flaring my arms, completely done with all these nightmares and hallucinations. I run to the corner and look back at the dentist, dental hygienist, and now the receptionist running into the room. Their entire bodies start to break down into blood, guts, and skin. It was like they were melting into the floor. Once they break down all the way, it's just guts. The pile of skin, organs, and blood starts to stick together again. Starting to build themselves up again, beginning with the dismembered legs.
Pushing myself more into the corner, scratching at the wall. My fingernails peeling off and my fingertips blistering. From the gross legs, a torso starts to form on all three of these monsters, then the heads. It was a dismembered version of the little girl, the car crash victim, and me. Except they were all smiling now and started walking towards me.
They are five feet away from me now, my heart is beating out of my chest, lungs expand as far as they can go. In desperation, I lunged at the crash victim, punching his face multiple times. He..no, it fell with no expression or wince of pain. I grabbed his neck and smashed his head into the floor multiple times. His head broke open, and he stopped moving. One down. I needed to get out of here. Turning my attention to the girl, I kicked her in the face. Blood spurting from her nose, I threw her into the wall and heard a huge crack. She also stopped moving. It must've been her fragile spine. Two down. I look up and come face to face with my doppelganger. I lunge forward and grab his neck. Squeezing like my life depends on it, my fingers start gripping harder and harder. Sweat pouring down my face, I start grinning; "This is the end of these stupid nightmares! No more bothering me anymore! I was never crazy! Never! Never! Never!" The doppelganger smiles, closes his eyes, and lets out one more breath of relief before he stops moving.
There isn't much blood on me, however, it has pooled around the little girl and the crash victim. Trying not to step in, I walk towards the door. Five people, including 2 cops, come rushing down the hall and stop in front of me. The two cops were the same ones who stopped by my house that night. "What happened? People said they were screaming and banging," one of the cops exclaimed. The other cop pushed past me and stopped in the doorway; "You've got to see this, partner," the cop says as the other one pushes past me now. I also look back, afraid of what they'll think of me.
I see two dental hygienists and the dentist lying on the ground in the exact positions in which I killed those..monsters. Shocked, I fell to my knees; "This doesn't make any sense, they were monsters. They've been haunting me for weeks," I muttered. The cops look at each other, then at me, at each other; "This guy's having a mental breakdown and needs to be detained," one of them says into her radio. They start to handcuff me as my body starts shaking and my vision goes blurry.
I wake up in a prison cell with padding. I talked to the guard and I passed out. They are keeping me here until my trial, and the charges are 1st-degree murder. My lawyer tells me I should plead insanity, but I don't know what to do. When in lockup, I was shown something on a guard's phone. It was the police tearing down the dentist's office. They had something to do with people going crazy after all. Did they do this to me?
I lived in this cell for a couple of days until my hearing. I pleaded insanity and was charged with NGRI, not guilty because of insanity. I would be sent to a mental hospital and kept there until I was healthy. Ever since the doctor's office, I haven't had any nightmares or anything, I feel normal. So I should be getting out pretty quickly because of how I was speaking to the therapists.
Almost twenty days of seeing a bunch of therapists and living in this facility. I haven't made any friends nor have I tried to. I'll be out in ten days, the therapist says, because I seem normal. I am required to be here for thirty days at least due to the law, but I'll be out soon.
That night, I was reading a book when an officer slid a note under the door. I got up holding my reading light and opened it; "You still have more work to do."
I threw the note on the floor and looked at my cellmate, who had a face full of confusion. "Who knows about our specific conditions-" I started to say when his face flickered. Flickering as fast as I could blink between the little girl, the car crash victim, and my doppelganger. My mind started to race, my heart started to beat, and I started to have trouble breathing. The flickering face finally stopped switching. It was someone that I never thought I'd see again. The dentist who did this to me.
Without even thinking, like it was a primal reaction, I lunged at him. Smashing his face into the cell bars several times and cracking his skull. I was full of rage and an uneasy feeling. I start smiling; "Haha, haha, HAHA! You're dead! Dead! Dead! Forever!" I scream. I keep on punching and beating the body into something unrecognizable.
I looked up at the three guards now at the cell door while laughing maniacally. I saw the dentist again and the two hygienists. They were smiling and laughing at me. I threw myself at the door, without any care in the world of the pain I was in. Trying to grab anything I could to kill them while laughing. The door opens and I lunge out with my fists balled.
[TV Click]
"Now getting into the crime segment, we have some tragic news. In the local mental facility, there was an incident. A patient by the name of Shawn Polter suddenly went berserk, killing his cellmate and attacking three guards," exclaims one of the reporters.
The other reporter starts speaking: "Backup officers had come with weapons drawn and shot Polters after he had killed three other guards outside his cell. It was stated that there was no intention of killing this man, but only to subdue him. The officer is taking responsibility and was fired not too long after the incident. Polter had a week and three days left of his treatment and was presumed healthy. This is a tragic incident, and we pray for all their families. Lastly, two notes were found in Polter's pocket. We can only show one of them at this time, which states"
"Help Us"