The Observer

A resident begins to have second thoughts after he believes his house is being robbed.

The sound of a loud bang wakes me up. I look at my alarm clock on the bedside table, 1:23 AM. A quick jolt toward my closet, and I’m ready for anything. I rummage through some old shoes and a couple of picture frames. There we are, a Louisville Slugger baseball bat. You would think a wise bachelor living in the dangerous side of town would have a firearm or something. Well, I’m not exactly a wise bachelor.
I walk out into my hallway, clutching the bat, ready to swing. The hardwood floors don’t exactly compliment my stealth ability. A photograph of my late father mocks me from the dark abyss. The same photograph that always gives me a stern look every time I’m on my way to a party, or to binge on some cookie dough ice cream.
I need to stay focused. Someone was in my apartment, and their intentions may be more sinister than expected. There was only one other room between my bedroom and the kitchen, a possible entry point for the intruder. The door was still closed. I opened it slightly, taking extra care not to make any noise.
Once the door was about halfway open, it began to creak slightly. My eyes and reflexes were ready for any movement in the darkness. Still and quiet, except for the curtains which seemed to be moving with the breeze. I began to feel against the wall for the light switch, it seemed like it was farther to the right than usual.
The light switch was already in the on position. I began to flicker it up and down, no luck. The window had to be open and the power seemed to be out. Either a coincidence that my power seemed to fail while someone was breaking in, or that someone turned the power out himself/herself. The second scenario seemed a hell of a lot more likely.
Why would an intruder feel the need to eliminate the power? Wait, why am I even asking that question. This must be more serious than I originally anticipated. I closed the door, and began to walk back to my bedroom. I must have some sort of portable light, either my cell phone or my key-chain light. Where was my cellphone again? S**t, I left it in the glove compartment. My keys? Where were my keys? My jeans I wore last night, back pocket. I pulled the light off the key-chain, since keys jingling wouldn’t exactly be a smart approach.
This all had to be some kind of nightmare. A break in, and all I have on me is a baseball bat, a crappy key-chain light, and my rabbit slippers. I looked back at the clock, it was still 1:23 AM. I walked back out into the hallway, this time I had some light.
Wait, did I leave the door to the second room open? Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure I did. I shined my light inside the room, examining anything that might be out of place. The window was closed and the curtains were still. I moved further into the room. The light fixture. What was wrong with it? I couldn’t exactly figure out why it didn’t look normal to me. I’ve came into this room hundreds of time, never paying to much attention to the light fixture, but for some reason it looked strange.
A distant shatter. Glass. From the kitchen. I immediately turned around. An inched back out into the hallway, holding the key-chain light in my mouth while I held my weapon with both hands. The closer I got to the kitchen the slower I walked. This is it, right here. Whoever is in here is in the kitchen. I turned the corner at the end of the hallway, which leads right into the dining area, merely feet away from the kitchen.
From the dining area, I could only see my refrigerator and oven. I kept moving in closer and closer, as more of the kitchen came into view. There was my microwave, with it’s small but legible digital clock. It was still 4:56 AM. I kept moving into the kitchen, awaiting any sort of muffled noises.
A rush of pain came from my foot. I looked down and noticed a pile of broken glass. A single shard was able to penetrate through my slippers, and cut me right on the ball of my foot. How could I have been so stupid? I should have been watching my footing. I bit down slightly harder as I removed the shard from my foot, a little bit of blood but nothing to worry about.
Upon stepping over the pile of glass, I reached the end of my kitchen. The only space left was a small living room and the front door. No perpetrator in sight. While lowering the baseball bat, I put the key-chain light in my pocket. I walked over to my sofa, laid down, and tried to rationalize what may or may not being happening. While rubbing my forehead, I attempted to piece together some kind of scenario that would justify no one actually being in here with me.
The loud bang was part of a picture-less nightmare, that didn’t actually happen. I turned toward the pile of glass on the floor in the kitchen. Maybe I left a glass bowl too close to the edge, and it fell over. I pulled myself up, looking at my feet. I’m losing my f*****g mind. There’s no other possible explanation. While getting up to my feet, I glanced over at the front door. Locked. My eyes wandered around the room for a bit, and then halted at one of my larger pictures on the wall.
It was a poster of Bob Marley, unrelated. The reason why my eyes focused on this picture, was because I could see the reflection of the microwave clock on the glass. According to the reflection, the time was 12:27 AM. Holding my key-chain light,  I walked back over to the kitchen, and looked at the microwave clock again. 4:56 AM. Something wasn’t right at all.

The glass. I knelt down beside the glass, and began to inspect certain shards of it, trying to figure out where they could have originated. The chandelier. It was in the dining area. How the hell did it get all the way to the kitchen? I looked at the clock again. Still 4:56 AM.
Hold on, how are my clocks working if the power is out? I froze in place, and began to think a little bit harder about the whole night. The curtains were moving the first time I checked the room, but the second time I checked the window was closed. I was certain I closed the door too, and when I returned it was open. My head began to spin, as my thoughts started to get clearer and clearer. The second room doesn’t even have a light fixture.
I began to walk backwards, leaning against my refrigerator. It was buzzing, meaning it was on. I reached toward the light switch, turning it in the on position. Voila, the lights came on. Why did I think the power was out? Why are my thoughts so scattered? Am I really going crazy?
A crunching noise. I looked toward the pile of glass. A black liquid began to spread throughout the pile. Trickling down to the tile floor, a stark contrast in color. Then, a pattern began to manifest itself within the black liquid already spreading across the floor. It was a foot. Another one, parallel. They began to repeat. Footsteps. The sound of the splats made me feel like I was truly losing my mind in that kitchen. The footsteps stopped directly in front of me, as I stood there. Absolutely petrified and motionless, looking at the tracks that seemed to have magically appeared in front of me.
Then, I looked straight ahead. There was a presence. Something was right in front of me. I had no idea what. My breathing began to slow. I feel like I’m about to faint. I wanted to reach my hand out, but something deep inside was telling me not to. My baseball bat was still in my right hand.
With a quick motion, I swung the baseball bat in front of me as hard as I possible could. I felt like I hit something solid, as the baseball bat itself cracked a little. Droplets of black liquid sticking onto the wooden exterior. A sound that barely resembled a pig squealing resonated in my ear drums. I looked back toward the floor for an indication of where this creature was now standing. I pinpointed the location and swung again. The baseball bat cracked a little bit more, with some more liquid latching onto the bat. Another squeal.
It appears the creature was attempting to get away, as inky footsteps began to make way toward the living room. Heading toward my glass coffee table. The invisible creature clumsily fell onto the table, as particles of glass seemed to fly everywhere. More black blood began to seep onto the carpet, as various pieces of glass rapidly moved everywhere.
I ran toward the scene and savagely began to swing my bat downwards against the area I expected the creature to be in. With each hit, more and more black liquid began to land on various parts of furniture, and even on me. The squealing only grew harsher and louder as I kept putting every ounce of strength I could into my swings. I couldn’t help but exclaim my confusion.
“WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU?!
My arms started to hurt. The squealing began to slow down. I dropped the baseball bat at my side, and fell to my knees. My eyes focusing on a visceral scene of broken glass and an inexplicable amount of this….blood everywhere.
The creature then slowly began to appear in front of me. Dark, oily skin with long, slim appendages. Humanoid, but definitely not human. The head was an odd shape, an off white egg-shape. The same thing I thought to be a light fixture in the second room. A single eye opened, quite large and a deep red, focusing on me. My confusion only worsened, but I was much more calm knowing this creature was no longer a threat.
“What…..are you?”
We only came here to observe. Why did that thought just come to me? It was like I- We are a peaceful race of creatures. We intended no harm. Now we understand you are a hostile species. Holy s**t, was this thing in my head?
“Get out of my head!”
The thoughts kept on flowing to my head uncontrollably. Perhaps we were wrong to have assumed you would be welcoming. Your act of violence has been received as a declaration of war. The thoughts stopped and the creature’s eye deadened.
I ran toward the front door, pushing it open and collapsing onto the sidewalk. I began to vomit out of anxiety. There was too much floating around in my mind. A declaration of war? What could it possibly mean by that?
Screams began to echo throughout the neighborhood. I looked up and noticed various beams of bright light shooting down from the heavens. People were being pulled out of windows, through roofs, off the streets, everywhere. Cars were levitating, the street lights were flickering. A deep, mechanical noise absolutely punctured my eardrums, causing them to start bleeding.
A beam of light surrounded me. The prior events that seemed like a drug-induced nightmare started to pierce my sense of realism. The scattered pieces of a truly fucked up puzzle began to put themselves together. This was an invasion.

Author's Note

How'd I do with the whole telepathy aspect? Was it too confusing?

Reviews

[Poopewpachoo]

Wow. This one was so much better than the other story I read. This one had me at the edge of my seat the entire time.

The telepathy part was a bit confusing simply because you didn't differentiate at all between their speech and his inner monologue. I understand that it's taking over his thoughts, but maybe you could put them in their own paragraphs so that we know it's not the narrator's own thoughts? Just an idea. You don't have to change the font or anything, just maybe separate a bit better?

Jumping around from thing to thing didn't work for me with your other story, but it worked perfectly for this one. I felt like I was actually searching the house with him. The flow just seemed to be so much better.

By the way, I think my favorite part about this story was the fact that every time he glanced at the clock and read the time, it never seemed to click in his mind that it was wrong. It made me nervous because I kept thinking, "Am I reading this right or is the character just not noticing? What's happening?!" It's been a while since I've felt anxious while reading a short story.

This was definitely worth reading and I'm glad I did. Wonderful job.

[J. Justice Mendez]

Thank you, I appreciate that. I really wanted to put the reader in the shoes of the protagonist, and even though I felt it was maybe a little too wordy, I'm glad it pleased someone.
Not to sound pretentious, but I think the clock thing was absolutely genius. I was thinking of possible ways to f**k with the reader as I was writing, and that idea came to mind. I was thinking about making the telepathic communication a little bit more clearer, but the thing is, the alien was actually in the protagonist's head the entire time. I thought that if I made it clearer that the thoughts were different, the reader would catch on too quickly and it would ruin the suspense of the whole story.
Again, thank you. I plan on writing a couple of more Sci-Fi/Horror stories like this to add to the collection of "Unreal Encounters."

[Poopewpachoo]

Well, then you did just that, so nice job.

Oh, it's alright to brag about it. I was honestly surprised at the ingenuity of that detail. It was such a small detail, too, but it made a huge impression on me.
But omg... how did I not notice that? Never mind, don't space out the telepathy parts. It completely went over my head that the creature was pretty much in his head the whole time. It explains why everything he saw contradicted with the facts. I mean, I noticed that while I was reading the kitchen scene, but it didn't click until now.
Oh, and by the way, I forgot to say that I got goosebumps at the part where he sees the glass of the chandelier in the kitchen and he says, "The chandelier. It was in the dining area. How the hell did it get all the way to the kitchen?"
That honestly creeped me out a little bit.

I love horror stories, so if you ever write any more, just send me a read request or a message and I'll check it out.

[J. Justice Mendez]

You got it. It usually takes me a good amount of time to get the motivation to write a new story. But when I do, I'll keep you in mind. And don't worry about it, you don't write too much.

[Jarod]

That was absolutely okay. An interesting idea, the execution was good and the tension was there. I wasn't confused at all by the telepathy although I didn't really like it all that much. The whole 'it was aliens' aspect I disliked, but only because I don't like aliens as a genre. The only reason I rejected it was because it exceeded 1000 words, otherwise I would have kept it in. 7/10

[J. Justice Mendez]

Ha. I actually wanted to submit "The Other One," but it only allowed me to submit the whole book for some reason. But don't even worry about it, I just counted the words on that one and it exceeded as well. Thanks for the review anyway.

[Jarod]

It's all right! Did you actually count the words individually? I just copy/pasted it onto a google docs file and used word count. (don't worry, I deleted the file, I'm no plagiarist).

[J. Justice Mendez]

Nice! Thanks for deleting it afterwards, I appreciate someone with principles.
I did the same thing, I just copy/pasted and then put it in a drive document.