What You Are In The Dark - I.. See... You....

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'There it is again!' Sebastian screamed in his head.

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The unnerving sounds were coming from above him. The repetition in the otherwise silent log cabin was getting to him. He squirmed beneath the covers.

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'I think... it's right above me.' His panic was growing as the darkness of the room swallowed him whole. This might as well be a cave.

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'I think something is upstairs. I came here to get away from the horrors of life to escape my past, the mistakes I've made. What Hell hound has found me? What demon threatens to steal my soul?!'

" I said I was sorry!" The screaming in his head manifested into a vocal volcano erupting at the entity above him.

Silence.

Sebastian exhaled the breath he had been holding for the last ten minutes.

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'Crap, I'm done.' He grabbed the top of the blankets covering all but the real estate north of his nose and made a hundred plans to throw off the sheets and run for the light switch, but the fear kept in cemented in the make believe safety of his flannel cocoon.

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'Is it getting louder? Does that mean it's getting bigger or closer?'

'Is it coming through the ceiling? Is it coming for me? It's coming for me. It's coming for me. Oh my God. I'm so sorry.' His whimpers brought tears to his cheeks.

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He screamed a wailing cry in his head. 'What was that?' A familiar blue light flickered from the chair beside the bed light a lighthouse on a foggy night. 'My phone.'

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'It's getting faster!' He threw back the covers and boosted his tired torso toward the chair a few feet away, hisbfeet tangled in the sheets. Sebastian found the source of the light.

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His hands landed on his phone and the the cold steel of a German luger, both laying atop a duffel bag full of 250,000 fillers soaked in red droplets of blood.

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He flew back under the covers both hands loaded.

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"Who are you?!!" The only answer to his cries was the same coded message from above.

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He brought up the dim light of the cell phone and checked the signal. 'Dammit, no service. Of course, I'm in the middle of no where; where no one would find me....'

"Except for this bloody monster!"

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' Is that a code? Think boy scout. Did I learn that one?'

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Faster even.

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'Only thirteen percent left.' The thoughts were beginning to jumble in his mind. He found the flashlight button in his setting menu and flicked it on blinding himself. He adjusted to the bright light and peeked out of the covers armed with the photonic beams. He scanned the ceiling like a search light looking for prison escapees.

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His eyes still burned, but he tried squinting to see if there was any visible threat from above. He saw nothing except rafters and floating spots.

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'Where are you? WHAT are you?'

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"Just kill me!" The whimpers became sobbs.

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BLAM BLAM. BLAM BLAM BLAM. He shot wildly into the air. Dust and wood chips flew everywhere, some landing on his hands and and in his nose and eyes. The dust mixed with the snot and the tears causing him to sneeze and rub his eyes vigorously. Small abrasions formed on his eye lids.

He laughed hysterically through the tears. "I got you! I got you, you mothe-"

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It was even faster now. He flicked on the phone again. A beep signaled that he had under ten percent left. He was sobbing with no signal, staring at the screen of his phone. He watched the percent slowly dissipate.

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He steeled himself and dried his eyes. He looked into the camera and pressed the record button.

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"There it is again," he said into the camera that was looked up his nose and at down slanted eyes. "I don't know what it is, but it's coming for me and I don't have much time. I did it, and at first, I didn't care that I did it."

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He shivered, looking up in horror. He looked back down to the camera, you could see his mouth now as he relaxed his hands in defeat. "She just got in the way. I didn't mean to shoot her, but all she had to do was give me my cut! Why did she have t-"

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"Dammit. Why'd she have to try to take the bag from me?" He cried uncontrollably." Through his tears he looked up and swore he saw something going off the ceiling.

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'It's coming!'

"I can see its... it's eyes!" They're coming for me!" BLAM. He threw one more bullet to the rafters. Dust surrounded him in the frame of the camera. He lowered his eyes.

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BEEP. BEEP.

"I'm sorry lover... I'm sorry."

The camera pans slowly to the ceiling as the phone is released from Sebastian's grip and lands on his torso. Glistening movements can be just made out above in the adjusting light.

BLAM.

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From the ceiling above the dying body of the young thief, four pairs of eyes, eight legs and two fangs delicately remade it's web across the bullet holes newly formed in the wood. 'These will make great traps,' the spider thought.

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'Stupid boy.'

<♤>

The greatest monster we have ever known is not one of the creatures prowling in the dark. It's not the monster snarling in the haunted woods. It's not even the ghost from our past... it is the demons inside ourselves. The guilt that wills us awake and drives us mad. Our own mind that will not let go of our own souls until....

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S. E. E.

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