The sickness that now rages within me is getting
worse. I normally got a warning around ten in the morning but recently I have
woken up and it’s already there. Nothing stops it and as the day goes on it
tries to control me, making my body shake uncontrollably. I’ve not been to work
in three months. I can’t. It won’t let me. At first I fought against it but
eventually I became too weak to resist. I wake up screaming some mornings but I
can’t hear the scream. It’s as though someone is clutching the inside of my
throat…..but there….. I’m getting ahead of myself. For you to understand what
has become of me and to warn others, I must explain what happened on the day I
first caught this awful illness.
On that day that I first observed it clinging to a
branch up in the tree, I wanted to escape from it. Terrified and inexplicably drawn
to the absurd vision, I could not take my eyes from it. It changed shape in
front of me but what I later saw filled me with such dread that when it finally
disappeared I sat on the bench wondering if I were dreaming the whole thing.
Before my eyes it had slowly changed and grown into a larger cylinder, and then
it formed another shape, or rather a blurry vision within it. I couldn’t make it
out at first. Then as it gradually cleared I recoiled in horror. I found myself
looking up into my own distorted face.
For the rest of the day I could think of nothing
else but as the afternoon wore on I began convincing myself that some form of
mild illness, perhaps an allergy, had somehow affected my mental state. On the
way home I reasoned that I imagined the whole thing. I spent the evening
listening to light opera and went to bed quite early, hoping to sleep well and
wake fully refreshed.
Just past one a.m. I awoke feeling thirsty and
walked into the kitchen. Without turning on the light, I opened the refrigerator
and reached for the carton of milk. As I turned away, the light from the refrigerator
shone across the room. Shock and sheer terror momentarily froze me to the spot.
I screamed. I recoiled in uncontrollable panic, spilling the milk. Tears flowed
and my body shook. As I lay on the floor I looked up into my own grotesque
face, floating just below the ceiling above the kitchen sink. My mind went numb
as this apparition floated toward me.
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