Eternal Pen's Sandbox

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Frosted blades on a cold night, in which my fears are realized.

As he emerged from within the thick fuzzy cocoon he had made on his couch, he was aware of several things. Thing one was the buzzing alarm on his phone had roused him from sleep. He picked it up from within a crevice of the couch and silenced the irritation. Thing two was the pitch-blackness of the outside, pressing against the window across from him as if it wanted to come into the house and swallow him up. After fumbling with the lamp on the table, he eventually located the switch, lighting the tiny living room faintly. A sense of calm reverie returned to him. As long as he could see his surroundings, he was safe.

While he sat there blearily blinking out at the dark, he remembered a few other things. The first was that the opening shift waiting for him at his job started at about 3:30. The next was that if the man wanted to arrive on time, he would have to hurry. The forecast called for freezing temperatures last night, so he would have to spend a precious extra few minutes scraping the ice off his car. He forced himself off his spot on the couch, tilting his neck to relieve the pressure of the tight muscle there. He despised his chosen location on the sofa, but it had become part of his habits long ago. When he tried to sleep in his bed several nights ago, he had been consumed with overwhelming anxiety and needed to move back to the sofa.

He willed himself to move forward but was distracted, his mind foggy and wandering. Paranoia drew his gaze to the window facing the front yard. It was far too dark out, owing to the lack of streetlights and the new moon. Rather than peering out onto a road, it was as if he were staring downwards into a deep abyssal well. These early morning shifts would be his death. He took a moment to decide on a motivation to prevent himself from curling up on the couch. Food. With this in mind, he spurred himself onward.

He undressed as he made his way down the hall, leaving a small trail of clothing to the bathroom door, which he entered silently. He flipped on the light switch and blinked rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the harsh fluorescent lights. With a slight hesitancy, he pulled back the shower curtain and stepped inside the tub, twisting the knob on the shower and allowing the initial blast of cold water to wake him up as the curtain fell into place. He waited for the water to heat up, but by the time he was finished cleaning himself, it was barely lukewarm. Another expensive problem he would need to get looked at. The man quickly dried himself, terrified to let the shower curtain hide his view of the bathroom for too long.

He remained somewhat damp as he tugged on his work clothes, a black shirt, and jeans, which he had set on the bathroom counter yesterday. He began retracing his path towards the living room but stopped short of its entryway and turned left into the kitchen. A half-empty pot of coffee sat underneath the machine on his counter. He never finished the coffee he brewed yesterday and likely would not drink the whole pot tomorrow. Shrugging to himself, he grabbed a mug from a nearby cabinet and poured himself some of the black liquid, dumping the rest down the sink. He forced himself to drink the terrible, room-temperature brew as he opened a foil package of cinnamon toaster pastries. His microwave beckoned, but it was far too loud to use in the early hours of the morning, and he did not want to attract any attention to himself. The theoretical creatures scattered within his darkened home would hear it and pay him a very unpleasant visit.

Through the tiny window hidden behind the sink, he could see a widened and well-trimmed trail behind the house, beneath which a pipeline lay. During the day, joggers and dog walkers often traveled it. At night, it was usually empty. But on a scarce few mornings, there was someone on the trail. On those mornings, the man would strain to see who it was as he ate his meal but could never make out more than a long, thin silhouette. Sometimes it would stop directly behind houses as if looking up at them, casing them, sizing them up. One morning, the figure stopped behind his house, and the man could not bring himself to continue getting ready for work or even leave the window until the person was gone. Today, he was pleased to see the trail empty.

Once he finished eating his breakfast over the sink, the man quietly removed his enormous ring of keys from a rather gaudy ceramic bowl on the counter and made his way to the front of his home, where a thin checkered coat had been hung on a rack. He slipped into it with the practiced hand of one who had followed this routine a million times, and who would follow this routine a million times again. He probed his pocket, checking for his wallet. Once, he had traveled to work without it and been unable to obtain the meager and bland lunch he had become accustomed to. It was a mistake he would not like to repeat, as starving himself was not a fun prospect by any means. As he dug deeper, the robust worn leather greeted his fingers, the hard metal clasp scraping against a fingernail. Certain that he had everything he needed, he opened the door.

The man's eyes widened as he began sprinting down the stairs toward his driveway, where he confirmed one final interesting fact. His car was not there. Sensing his heartbeat quicken as he panicked, he looked around, spotting the dark form of the car parked on the curb just a few meters down the road. Had he done that? He couldn't seem to recall. He took a deep breath and chuckled slightly. "Sleep deprivation is a bitch." A fully coherent thought. He didn't often have those in the morning. He long ago had started merely going through the motions. But here, his ritual had been interrupted. Everything from here would be unpredictable. Strange and new. Why had he parked on the street?

He began crossing the lawn in front of his house, walking towards his car, white blades of grass snapping and crackling beneath his feet. Now that his short panic attack had subsided, he could feel the cold that had slowly begun biting at his hands. The man zipped up his coat as he gazed forward. His car's glass windows glistened, frozen over in that unique way, spiderwebs and swirls of white etched into the sheet of ice. It was beautiful, even if it was inconvenient. He reached the sidewalk and crossed it in a mere moment as he produced his keys. A subtle shift could be felt in the atmosphere as he exited the protective barrier formed by his property. Unlocking the car door, he gave a firm tug, pulling it free of the ice and exposing the darkened interior of his car. A discarded fast-food wrapper lay on the passenger seat ahead of him, smelling of nothing but grease. It was a remnant of his dinner the night before.

Somewhere in the black expanse outside, a soft crunching noise. "Another early bird," the man reasoned, "Someone else up at this god-forsaken hour." Leaning down, he reached across the console to the driver's side, sliding his key into the ignition and turning it. With his other hand, he opened the glovebox and began digging for the ice scraper. The engine roared to life and began to hum, eager for its well-practiced journey… but that would have to wait a moment. He withdrew his weapon of choice and pressed the button to defrost the car before straightening. The crunching had stopped. He had not heard a car door. He squinted, peering out into the dark across the road. "Maybe an animal." the man thought. He didn't believe it, however. The night sky was beginning to weigh heavily on him as if a cold cloak lay on his still-damp skin. A tendril of fear started squeezing at his throat. Anxiety began to bubble up to the surface again. Different than before. This feeling that had him by the neck was far more ugly and wretched.

He forced himself to close the door and began using his appointed tool to chip away at the swirling patterns of ice. Slowly at first, but gradually picking up speed, he worked to free his windows of their cold tomb of frost. Images were forcing themselves to the front of his mind now. Unpleasant ones. Someone out in the dark, watching him. Waiting. He stopped scrapping for a second as he walked to the opposite side of the car, now with his back to the other side of the street. The crunching of frosted blades resumed as he worked on the transparent nuisance. He fully scraped the driver's side rear window, now moving as fast as possible. He was sure he had never performed these actions so quickly in the hundred thousand times he had done this. Finishing the front driver's-side window, he stopped again, whirling around to face the dark. He wished his heart would stop pounding and hoped beyond dearest, sweetest hope that his brain was merely playing a cruel joke on him. The distinct noise of a footstep on pavement sounded.

It took him a moment to spot the figure. Motionless, it lurked directly between two cars parked on the curb across from him, stock still as if hoping he wouldn't spot it. Hoping it hadn't squandered its chance to catch him. "It" was the only way he could describe the figure facing him. Inhuman. Ghastly. Hard to comprehend. Slowly reaching behind him, he felt for the door handle. It watched him silently. Were it not for his eyes already being adjusted to the dark, it could have passed for a person at its current distance. The short black fur on its body seemed designed to imitate the appearance of a jacket and a pair of sweatpants. The rounded, toeless foot sticking out from the dark and onto the road could easily be mistaken for a shoe. His voice was caught in his throat, and it took him far too long to vocalize. Something, anything. A strangled word passed over his lips, a half question. "Hello?" His mind started screaming as his numb, reddened fingers closed on the handle. It tilted its head to the left. Too stiff and angular, a natural movement made unnatural. The feigned emotion of the not-person sent him careening beyond the bounds of rational and coherent thought. The chill going up his spine was not from the night air. He slowly became aware that he was shaking as the need to flee became all-consuming.

He quickly spun back around, yanking on the door. But the metal object didn't budge, the ice holding it prisoner and damning him. Behind him, the thing shifted. There was another footfall on the unlit road. Then again and again, rapidly crossing the street. It was after him! It was coming to get him! Another pull, with all his might, freed the door. He slammed himself through the porthole and into the seat and tried to draw shut the door. To make himself safe. The thing did not allow that relief. It had reached the car and began fighting him over control of the accursed car door just before the latch could click into place. He was forced to stare directly at his incoming demise, with its face now a mere a few feet away from him, contorted from the effort of its struggle. Tense moments passed, and his strength was beginning to fail him. He couldn't hold out. Now the gap was one inch, now two. Every instant was an eternity. Outside, the beast drooled some, letting out several grunts of exertion as it slowly worked the door open.

Light flashed upon its face. A truck had turned the corner up ahead, coming down the street. A horrible visage stared into the car at him. The creature's maw cut across the lower half of the face in a jagged line, looking for all the world like it had torn through the skin to bite at him with crooked and yellowed teeth. The eyes, ears, and nose, were shiny and smooth and flat, looking as if a facsimile of a person had been drawn onto a pale stone by some disturbed child. Arms terminating in ugly, twisted, and sharp hooks could be seen attached to the outer handle. Despite its tall and lean frame, it was terrifyingly strong. His fingers were slipping from the inner handle of the door.

The entity frowned, releasing his shield and slinking around the rear of his vehicle, hiding from the oncoming truck. He quickly brought the barrier to its proper resting position, locking the car. He pumped the break as he shifted the running vehicle into drive and then slammed his foot on the gas, shooting forward as the truck passed alongside him, a look of stunned disbelief on the other driver's face. He took off down the road. Looking backward as he accelerated, the man checked to see if he was escaping. Through the half-defrosted rear windshield, a silhouette cast by the taillights of his savior showed the thing was now clinging to his trunk. It shook as if laughing at his attempted escape. Unaffected by the speed of the Honda Accord beneath it.

He turned forwards. The metal shelter raced down the neighborhood's lifeless and lightless winding streets, the starless sky above him. He continued to accelerate, caring not about crashing or hitting something, barely able to see through a half-scraped front windshield. He could feel it behind him, watching. The man imagined the glass shattering like ice beneath the creature's arm. He pictured the tight feeling enclosing his esophagus as a hand, not a manifestation of fear. The man turned the corner, another pair of high beams illuminating the ice on his windshield, blinding him with ugly dark spots in his view. Something hard scratched against the side of his car, and he swerved in the other direction. An unseen horn blared at him.

He kept going, following his well-practiced and memorized morning route. He careened around tight bends and weaved past silent cars; he was almost certain he would hit something, but no obstacle came. As he was slowly becoming confident that he could make it to some well-lit and populated area, beginning to reassure himself that he could survive his situation, the ugly dark streak across his vision began fading. It happened soon enough to let him register his fate as it approached. A sharp turn on the edge of the hilltop. He rapidly tried to spin his wheel, trying desperately to save himself, as the Honda loudly burst through the thin wood barrier and began tumbling down the heavily forested hillside towards the highway below. Behind him, the creature laughed, gracefully leaping from the doomed vessel with the practice of something going through its own morning routine.

If he couldn't see his surroundings, he was safe. He squeezed his eyes shut as he impacted against the first tree.

The predator descended the mulch-covered slope at a steady pace, reaching the resting place of the wreckage on its own time. The damaged and partially obscured windows did not allow it to see its prize immediately, but as it circled the mangled mass, it laid eyes on the day's chosen breakfast. It pulled the corpse free with a practiced hand, dragging it onto the frozen grass and dead foliage. It dug into its feast with inhuman savagery and allowed warm blood to trickle down onto the frosted blades, melting and dyeing them. It wouldn't have long to finish eating before the neighborhood awoke, but it tried to savor the best part of its morning.

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