Glow of the Neon

Just something I came up with as I was taking a pee.

I opened my eyes and yelled into the darkness of my bedroom, frantically scrambling myself into a sitting position. That nightmare had felt very, very real. It was as if I could still feel a coldness in my chest, a coldness that I logically realized could only have come from the window I’d left open. The feeling was so surreal that even now the world around me didn't quite feel familiar; instead, it felt foreign, as though I wasn’t home at all. That feeling would begin to haunt me: the feeling that this place, though it must’ve been the same, no longer felt familiar to me.

I took a few seconds to calm my frantic breathing. Complete and utter blackness still surrounded me, but after a moment, I no longer felt as fearful and panicked as I had before. In fact, I quickly began to register a burning throb in my crotch. I hadn’t gone to the toilet before going to sleep.

Feeling cold, I drew up from the bed and began to tiptoe my way towards the bathroom. I accidentally hit a pair of earphones on my worktable as I groggily passed them by, leaving them hanging at the verge of falling off and crashing to the floor. I knew they'd drop soon, but I simply had to go to the toilet.

A few seconds later I was at the door to my bathroom, dizzily trying to get a hold of the handle. The blackness was still complete, all around me: I didn't think it was necessary to turn on the lights. That would waste energy and precious time.

I opened the door and walked past the washing machine into the narrow, tight toilet room. I sat down and began to conduct the necessary business.

Suddenly I heard a sudden clang from my bedroom, followed by another, sharper noise, like metal dragging against wood. The ear buds, I thought. I finished up my business and stood up, walking out into the small, narrow corridor that separated the bedroom room from the bathroom. I couldn't see anything, but I had a rough idea of where the door was. I instinctively walked over to it.

Something wasn't right.

Even surrounded by that permeating darkness, I saw that the door to my bedroom stood closed. The handle glowed with a faint, ethereal light. I stood very still, the hairs at the back of my neck standing up as I listened intently for a sound, any sound. I did not have the courage to look around, so I held my gaze strictly at the handle.

And slowly, as if to embrace it, I reached out to bend it down.

The door opened without the smallest creak, falling inwards into the crushing blackness of my bedroom and vanishing from my view. An eerie silence surrounded me. I stepped in. Nothing had happened. It was the nightmare, wasn't it? The nightmare must be messing up my memories. I had shut the door, but forgot about it later. It had just been my imagination.

But try as I might, I could not rid myself of that very same feeling creeping up on me, that base instinct which I’d felt before, sitting half-awake on my bed.

The feeling that I wasn’t home.

I reached my hand to where I knew I’d find the light switch, right next to the door and above the worktable, but my fumbling hand met only a patch of cold cement. And then, I felt something different entirely.

I felt the loose, jagged edges of cut electric wires, I felt the smooth plastic edges of the switch against my fingers. The switch was gone.

Absolute and sudden panic penetrated my consciousness. I kneeled down on the floor and began a blind search for the ear buds, but they were nowhere to be found. Panting, I leaned against my worktable to regain balance, but just then I felt a creeping chill coming from deeper within my room. And this time, I knew it wasn’t from my window.

My breath ragged and frosty, I backed out of the room, almost tripping on my own two feet as I retreated away from that horrific, freezing darkness. I remembered now. I remembered why I’d woken up. My frantic hands fumbled against the walls in search of a light switch, or a lamp, anything to let me see. Anything to grab, anything to defend myself. But the further away I managed to retreat from my room, the further out the freezing coldness seemed to pursue me, and slowly a deep, guttural howl �" like a piercing gale �" rose out of the black nothingness that engulfed my room.

The wind should’ve picked up, I knew it should’ve turned into a whirling tempest to match that terrifying noise, but instead the air felt still, stale, thick �" dead. The freezing chill penetrated into the living room, probing the area, and suddenly I saw that same faint, ethereal light reflecting off of the bedroom door. I tried to scream, but no sound came out of my mouth.

I had had enough. I turned and ran, towards the kitchen, towards the only light switch I knew the location of. Suddenly I heard swift, heavy clanking behind me, something heavy and dark picking up speed to catch me, bone-chilling wind running before it. Just then I felt like weeping and falling down in desperation, just giving up; but then, surprisingly, my hands clasped around something smooth and plastic.

The kitchen suddenly became very cold. The clanking turned faster, louder, and out of the corner of my eye I saw an eerie neon glow rushing towards me from the darkness. I screamed in terror, pushing the switch with all my might.

A blinding flash of light exploded above me even as something heavy crashed into me. Like a lump of ice, it pulled me to the ground. I thrashed, kicking with my feet, hearing a strange hiss above me, and suddenly, through the tiny slits of my eyes, I was granted a glimpse of the thing on top of me.

And there was nothing there.

Author's Note

All feedback appreciated!

Reviews

[Kyle Wynn]

I'm a little late to the party but I enjoyed the eeriness to it. As someone who sometimes does forget small details like whether or not I closed the door I thought it added a bit of horror to something as simple as that, and I applaud you in doing so!

[Mikael Malmberg]

Hey there Kyle! Thank you for the review. May I ask you how you found this? I've been very inactive over here for the last few years, so I wasn't expecting many reviews. That being said, thanks again. I'll look into reviewing what you've put up too. If this short story sparked something in you, I of course recommend you to check out my other stories as well.

[Kyle Wynn]

I'm not to sure how I found this exactly, I was on the site for I hours going from page to page reading different works in an attempt not to go insand from being on duty:p And I will gladly read your other stories!

[Coyote Poetry]

I enjoyed this tale. Filled with mystery and confusion. I liked the flow of thoughts making the make character learn fear and than escaped. A nice ending to the excellent tale.
Coyote

[Ethale Captor]

An excellent write.

[RachelReaper]

scary? Not to me, but it is very interesting. Your writing style seems very professional.

[Mikael Malmberg]

Bugger. Thanks for your compliment, and for scariness, could you give me any sort of advice on these aspects?

[RachelReaper]

well, in my opinion the best way to scare someone is to seriously creep. them. out. See, we're writers so we don't have the aid of dramatic music, or jumping out from behind a corner like the scary movies do, so my advice would be for the scarier effect is to write the most out-there awful, horrible, tragic things you can think of for scary, or something that is just seriously creepy. However, my genre isn't horror so maybe you could ask other horror writers for their opinion. That's just what I thought I personally would be scared of.

[Marie]

Your style is good but not scary. Scary is brief. I'm impressed that you made no mistakes--at least none that I could see. CreativeStroke mentioned the use of ynnecessary commas and semi-colons, but I am addicted to them myself.
Your final sentence needs explanation. Why should this man feel pleasure if the monster eats someone else.
All i all this ins an escellent story told in a professional way.

[C.C. Marx]

Well I guess inspiration truly can come from anywhere lol I like this story its different and interesting nice jon

[C.C. Marx]

*job

[Mikael Malmberg]

Sorry for not responding to this earlier, Marx!

Inspiration comes from all things yeah, especially when you're really tired. When you're tired your brains go hyper speed :P

[C.C. Marx]

Geez I don't even remember reviewing this!! Someone is slacking off but my pleasure anyways.....sleep deprivation is usually my leading cause of inspiration

[CreativeStroke]

I definitely think you have quite a creative story here. You have some grammatical errors throughout (unnecessary semi-colons and commas. Other areas where you needed commas.) , but nothing some proofreading can't easily fix!
You write very well for your age (in my opinion) and your descriptions are very vivid. Everything was easy for me to picture and I was genuinely drawn into your story. I think you have a good thing going here and after you make the few, simple corrections, you'll have quite a gem. Well done my friend.

[Mikael Malmberg]

I think that the grammatical errors derive from my young age and my limited experience in writing. Truth is, I don't know everything these is to know about the english language: I'm a finn, and as we all know quite well, finnish children are not known to be excellent in english. I'm an exception, maybe, but commas and placement of semi-colons is still somewhat of a problem to me.

Another thing about semi-colons: what would you say about the usage of semicolons at the beginning of "Moby Dick"?

I am genuinely happy for your compliments. It is my job, as a writer, to entertain the reader and draw him in the story I have created. I did a proof-read just now, actually, and fixed(and changed) some things here and there. I think that the main problem is, though, that I don't still know what exactly to change and what to leave as it is in order to reach sweet grammatical goodness.

Again, thank you. And a second thank you should you decide to answer.

[CreativeStroke]

I agree, the English language is definitely hard to speak, let alone write and I applaud your writing as it is. I think you write very well for your age and am inspired by the passion you put behind your work.

[Mikael Malmberg]

That's great.

I've been under the effect of a writer's block, but such things will pass over soon. In the meantime, if you have the time/interest, I have other projects that I am currently working on such as "The Orphanage", a horror short book I'm writing.

As I said, check it out if you're into that kind of stuff - if not, it's all fine.

[CreativeStroke]

Sure I can check that out for you. It usually isn't my style of reading, but I can certainly give you my opinion. Just send me read requests of what you would like reviewed.