"Day 15.
Today I finally saw it, no I saw them. People. Yes, people. They were in a car, driving to God knows where. They didn't hear me yell for them to stop. Yes, I yelled. Even at the risk of leading it over I yelled. I don't want to be alone. Wait for me. Please.
Outrageous. I spoke to Hargave today and he shared my fury on Dr. Miller's proposed theory. Absolute nonsense. Hargave agreed with my ideologies. Dr. Miller and his incompetent team's proposal broke away from conventional rational thought to the realms of fiction and dreams. Such grand delusion. Hargave however left me with something to ponder. What if…..
Today I made an observation that shook me to my core. How is this possible? It beats any form of conventional logic. How could the sun possibly set three times? Could I have seen wrong? Could it be an illusion? I saw it, noted the sunsets down. There was no night, no dawn, just dusk. Impossible! I saw wrong.
Head East! It will keep following you.
Don't stare!
Don't stare!
Don't stare!
Head East! They went East.
I scavenged four loaves of bread today and the mirror was quite bright. The wind seems to be in a good mood. Why is everything so foggy?
….what have I done?"
***
Elias held the brown notebook in his hand, his brows furrowed in confusion and his mouth stretched in a thin line.
He recognized his hand writing as his but, he didn't remember ever writing these words. Still, it didn't beat the fact that the penmanship oddly resembled his, letter for letter.
From this, he drew two conclusions. Either he didn't write this or he didn't remember writing this. These two were different.
Elias tapped his temples, a habit he developed when he became senior librarian, his gray eyes peering deeply into the book. Despite his posture of concentration, he was lost in thought. His mind tried to rationalize everything he had seen since he woke up today. The empty streets and the strange notebook, both seemed to venture into the realms of the paranormal.
Initially, he hadn't thought much of the silence and the empty streets. Perhaps they were still frolicking in the city square. This was the party city after all. But when he had dressed up and taken the elevator down from his penthouse, he noticed the abnormalities immediately. There was no one in the reception hall. Considering the fact that this was the only eight star hotel in the city, the absence of people was enough to ring alarm bells.
All morning he had roamed the city, entered, shops, apartments and parks. Yet he found no one. The only discovery he had made, was finding this black leather journal in his overcoat with his initials engraved in gold on the cover.
'EM'
The content of the journal shook him to the core. Either whoever wrote it was going insane or worse…
He was already insane!
Elias knew one thing for certain. He didn't write that one page entry.
Yet it seemed like he did.
He hadn't spoken to Hargave in years. The last he saw of him was back in his graduation to become a scholar where Hargave had sincerely congratulated him. Then, they had split ways, promising each other to keep in touch but woefully failing to do so.
And this Dr Miller, Elias couldn't recall meeting anyone who bore that name much less discussing theories with this fellow.
Looking at the final parts of the entry, Elias closed the journal without much thought. Those were the ramblings of a madman. He couldn't care enough to deduce those.
In all, he decided not to take this one page entry of the journal seriously. He had other matters to resolve, beginning with where everyone had gone.
The sky churned, clouds rolling over each other like something alive. The sun slowly sank into the horizon, casting its last few embers of light on the lone figure that sat on the park bench, lost in thought.
As darkness crept in, they also looked, at the man sitting on the park bench. He hadn't noticed. The lights in the buildings that flickered on as if someone had just turned the switch, the shadows that inched forward, slowly creeping towards the bench, the sounds from the park.
Soft.
Measured.
Not footsteps…but something else. They were rhythmic, the seconds between each tap. One. Two. Three. Too perfect. Too steady.
They watched as the man stood up, the shadows inches away from him. He dusted his coat and straightened his tie, walking off into the distance. They drew nearer, watching his lanky frame. They watched as he walked, his gait slow and unsteady as he was still lost in thought.
They shifted uncomfortably. Why hadn't he noticed? Couldn't he see?
The hands that reached out.
The dread that cried out.
Suddenly the man stopped, the confusion quickly draining from his face. In its place was shock.
Slowly, Elias pulled out the red leather covered journal and opened to the only page that contained an entry.
Scribbled hastily at the very bottom was a sentence. The words were tiny the handwriting was messy, clearly foretelling the haste and desperation in which they were written. But that wasn't the point.
Elias remembered!
Yes he did.
When he stepped out of his apartment this the morning, he had scribbled a note in the journal. Something had happened to him. Something terrifying, and his haste to escape, he had written a warning to himself.
A short one.
One he had hoped to never forget.
Written at the bottom of the page were the words…
'…don't look back'
Elias shivered.
Something was wrong. Something was wrong. Something was…
Creak!
The sound of a door slowly opening came from behind him.
Elias shuddered, chills running down his spine. He turned, slowly, until he faced an open door.
It revealed a dark room, dark, yet something darker stood at the corner. As he peered into the darkness, Elias remembered the words from the journal, repeated thrice to emphasize how dire they were. He had dismissed them as ramblings of a madman.
Don't stare!
He shuddered once more.
No!
No!
No!
As he gazed peered into the darkness, his instincts flared. Fear beyond anything he had ever heard seeped into him, cold, chilly, freezing.
As he stared into the room, unable to take his eyes off.
What lay hidden in the darkness was gradually unveiled before his very eyes.
His body begged him to flee. His mind was blaring with alarm bells. Every inch of his consciousness yelled at him to take action, to run.
But he wouldn't.
He couldn't.
And the darkness that stood in the corner of the dark….smiled.