Entry 24: A Face In The Macabre: Part 1.

It was a quarter til three.  The darkness of the unknown had engulfed my slumber time nest.  I couldn't see anything neither here nor there, but as my head rested gently on my fool proof pillow, the shadows on the wall  danced.  I dare not mutter a word and interrupt their cadaverous ballet.  I dare not stare and vindicate their somber profession.  The only light and colors I see are the flashing brilliance of the phosphenes within my own eyelids.  The room, so silent that the only sound I can hear is the benign breathing of my own lungs, inhaling and exhaling to no particular rhythm.  No apparent smell, nor extraordinary feeling nor taste.  Just the gentle nodding off of a man with his meandering thoughts, sound of mind, preparing for another evening of a gentle sleep, caressed by the sound of nothingness.  At least, that'd be the usual repertoire of my evening in bed.  Tonight, however, the apparent gentle atmosphere of my personal propinquity has been amiss on this gentle July evening.  For a vagrant presence has made itself known within the sanctity of my room.  As I lie motionless, my peace of mind has been contravened.  Despite the fact that my basic senses, all functioning as well as can be expected, aren't detecting any sort of intrusion, my intuition and would be "sixth sense" sounds off a blaring internal signal, forbidding me from truly nodding off into the good night.  I feel as if I'm being watched as I lay, and I dare not move, nor dare I make a peep less I run the risk of being ambushed by the arcane assailant.  I dare not open my eyes, less I make a rendezvous with destiny.  A most inopportune rendezvous.  So I lie, and I listen, and I wait.  But I find myself focused on my impending doom, my unquestioned peril, and my catastrophic calamity, for in my wildest thoughts I somehow reason with myself, that for if I let my thoughts stray, I will experience an unrelenting onslaught of hellish fury unprecedented and unparalleled.  This is the second straight night of my firm conviction, and the previous evening was no different.  I lied in still silence until dawn until the feeling subsided, and I was able to look into my dimly lit room to acknowledge how safe it actually was.  However, the jeopardy that my life was in, and the anxiety that my state of mind was experiencing wouldn't allow me to fall to sleep that quickly, and I had school to attend soon, certainly I hadn't done anything to warrant this influx of psychological unrest.  Truly there was no question of my impending doom.  But as I lie here, as I had the night before, the gentle chill of what is otherwise unknown races up my spine as fast as the beads of sweat roll down my temples.  I've never experienced such exhaust in my life time. Hours have gone by since my bed sheets had first been clenched by my nerve wrecked grasp.  And finally, an overwhelming feeling of relief fills the room as birds begin to sing outside.  I hear my mother on the main floor of my humble abode preparing for the day.  I realize that the evening from hell was over, and I had survived another night.  My hands relax, and my heart impedes.  I sit up slowly to look around my room, to acknowledge my safe whereabouts noticing not a thing different.  But as I lie back down, a chill arouses the hair on my arms once more.  I stare upon my plain ceiling to notice something I hadn't before.  The smallest, most insignificant writing had appeared on my inner chamber's ceiling.  The writing was small, and would otherwise be unnoticeable, but the message itself was haunting, and validated my grievous of fears.  It affirmed that things do go boom in the night, and that my morose suspicions were not only fact, but life threatening as well.  As I felt my heart accelerate once more, and perspiration dampen my forehead, I can only lie and wonder, "Am I still alone?"