Dreams In Darkness

I'm so fucking sick of this. I'm sick of people dying. I'm sick of madness. I'm sick of all this stupid, insane shit. Fuck this. Fuck it. Fuck him. This ends. I don't care if I have to club him to death with that dumbass horse bone or whatever the hell it is. I can't take it anymore. Next time he shows up, I'm just... going to do something. I don't know what yet, but something...

I woke up today to my telephone ringing off the hook. The staff at the mental institution where my mother has been held for the past decade or so were trying to get in touch because my mother died this morning. From a heart attack that they believe was caused by the stress of her mental condition growing worse.

She'd spent the previous day screaming constantly about being menaced by a man in black with no face. Pretty fucking clear where he's been now.

I'm honestly not entirely sure how I feel about mother dying. Despite all she did, she was still mom. She still loved me. She still raised me and took care of me. And yet, I hate her. I hate what her and my father did. I hate what they brought into my life. I don't want to be so brash as to say it's a good thing she's dead, but I haven't cried a tear.

I ended up driving out to the institution to take care of things: fill out paperwork, see the body, collect her belongings. That's when I noticed something they hadn't. There were burn marks on random possessions. A book, Milton's Paradise Lost, had an entire corner burnt away. A quarter of the book, just gone in an impossibly controlled manner. The bottom of a pillowcase was... singed, I guess. No real signs of burning, just turned brown.

What disturbed me the most was what fell out when I picked it up. Apparently, my mother still had an old family photo. I almost instantly recognized it from what was left of it. I remember seeing a copy when I searched my personal belongings weeks ago. The original was of a small family get together: myself, my parents, my grandparents, and Uncle Eddie. My mother's copy, safely tucked in her nearly untouched pillow, had been all but reduced to ash. All that was left, was a small piece. It contained only myself, five years old, smiling. Blissfully unaware of what I'd be going through fourteen years later...

I really hope he shows up tonight. I really fucking do.