Gabriel was outside my window, which was still closed, but mostly because I was stunned I had a mixture of emotions that I had never felt before ¿A sense of comradeship perhaps? All I needed was someone to talk to or to be more precise to hear the voice of someone I trust and hopefully forget about this shitty experience I’ve been going through, I didn’t asked him to come, shit I haven’t said anything over the phone, but he somehow knew I needed a friend and walked here in the middle of the night after a single call ¿who does that? Gabriel does I guess, it felt nice to know I can rely on him, and just like that my frustration and my sense of helplessness vanished and a soothing feeling arrived, my tears stopped while I realized this and I opened the window.

Gabriel came into my room, closed the window, sat on my bed and didn’t say anything. I think he was waiting for me to talk first, and I tried, but wasn’t sure how to begin yet, so I just said the first thing that came to my mind and asked him about his brother.

Adrian: How’s Thomas doing?

Gabriel: He’s fine, he's probably still sleeping.

Not sure why I asked him about his brother in this circumstance, it feels awkward anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.

Adrian: sorry for calling you at this hour I just didn’t know who else to call

Gabriel: Don’t worry man.

Adrian: The other day I had what my mother called an “episode”, but it wasn’t a disease nor anything like that, I felt something invisible enter my body, like electricity but more liquid, can’t really explain it in words, but it hurt so bad, I fainted a few times and wished to not wake up anymore as a token of mercy for myself and earlier tonight I felt the same energy tingling in my body so I panicked.

Gabriel didn’t talk, just listened. I'm not sure if he believed me but if he didn’t, he still listened.

Gabriel: My mom said you went to the doctor today ¿What did he say?

How did she know? Did my mother tell her? Why and when?

Adrian: He did a few tests, asked me a bunch of questions and said to go back if anything happened, but I’m not sure if I want to go back.

Gabriel: m… ¿what were you doing before you felt it?

Adrian: The first time I don’t remember, actually I don’t remember much of that day, but the second I had a good day, went to sleep and suddenly felt it from the lower of my back.

Gabriel: Mind if I take a look? I’ve heard electricity leaves scars, maybe this thing left a mark too

Adrian: I think the doc would have told me, but sure I don’t mind.

Gabriel stood up and came closer to me so I lifted my shirt and he took a look at my back. He was just staring so I asked “¿do I have something on my back?” He said “nothing” and then he put his hand on my lower back and it hurt a little.

Gabriel: I felt something there. Did you feel anything?

Adrian: Just some pain, but it’s bearable.

Gabriel was looking at his hand with a weird look on his face, he is probably trying to make a guess of what it was, but I don’t think that’s going to work.

Adrian: Do you believe me?

Gabriel: I have no reason to not believe you

Adrian: It's just that the doc gave my mom the number of a psychiatrist.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Gabriel: don’t worry if they send you to the madhouse we’ll be roomies, cuz that felt real, still does, my hand is trembling a little but it doesn’t hurt.

We talked some more, he told me about Jack again, but this time he said he met him while leaving from an interview that his mother got him in a shop of an old friend of hers and I fell asleep at some point, when I woke up he wasn’t around. The weird thing is I knew he wasn’t around before I opened my eyes.

I feel a lot better now. I should probably thank Gabriel when I get the chance, maybe buy him a snack or play with Thomas, yeah let’s do both. I was getting out of my room when I heard my mother from her room asking if Gabriel was having breakfast with us, guess she heard us talking last night, my answer was that it was good to know my room isn’t a private place before I get myself a girlfriend, she just laughed, it’s been a few days since I heard that contagious laugh, didn’t know i needed that, maybe I should stay at home today and see if i can hear more of that, we could order some food and watch a movie, but first, breakfast while watching the news, my mom handed me some toast with scrambled eggs while I sat on the couch and on the news the anchor was talking about a fire on the west side of the city, that a perimeter around the building had already been put in place and that people should avoid the place so firemen can do their jobs and there were several ambulances outside waiting, the building that caught fire is a butcher shop, that been in business for 15 years, the firemen think that a refrigerator short-circuited making the initial fire. We finished breakfast and my mom said she has to go back to work from today, she works at a nursing home that’s like 30 minutes by bus from our house, before she left she asked me many times if I was going to be okay and made me swear that I would call her if anything happens, she also said she was going to call every two hours and would come right away if I didn’t answer the phone, looks like we won't be ordering food.

It’s been a few days since I went out and now that I think about I haven’t talk with Luca nor Milly these days, well it’s been pretty hectic anyway and I’ve been hanging out with my mom while she was absent from work, we have a chat for the three so I grabbed my phone and texted them, “Hey, I’m free today and need some kind of distraction anyone want to go out?” I grabbed my byke and got out, rode for a few blocks when I heard a beeping kind of sound from my phone, so I stopped and checked, it was Milly she texted back saying she was going with her parents to check some universities today, but that she would be free at night and maybe we could all hang out at her place, with everything that’s happened I kind of forgot we just graduated last month, so I sent a thumb up emoji in our chat and then texted my mom saying I was ok, so she didn’t need to call me, then i grabbed my bike and kept riding, some more time passed and I noticed I was pretty far from my house and I wasn’t even tired, usually whenever I ride for more than a hour I take a little break to catch my breath and check my phone, but today I felt like I could go hours without stopping, then my phone made the beeping sound so I stopped and checked, this time it was Luca saying he was free, but if we were going to Milly’s later then he rather we met there, then he asked me privately if I was ok saying we could meet if I needed, but I was pretty happy now so I texted it was ok and not to worry, I was now pretty close to that fire on the news so I turned around and started to ride back home, but then something made me change my minds, an invisible force pushed towards the fire and my body corresponded and started to go faster, I must be out of my damn mind it’s like it’s calling me and I’m the fool who’s actually going.

When I arrived there was a perimeter but it didn’t seem to be anyone around, the ambulances were there like the anchor from the news said, but they were empty so I got past them and now I was standing right in front of a portable fence with a “no trespassing sign” and past those I could see the butcher shop, but there wasn’t any smoke around and the shop wasn’t on fire either. Why would they set a perimeter and evacuate the area? if this was some kind of fire drill it wouldn’t have appeared on the news, now I was in front of the shop I grabbed the handle of the door and as soon as I grabbed it, the invisible force pushed me, but this time it managed to throw me really hard and while I was been thrown I heard screams, when I hit the ground I clearly heard someone yelling. A kid got in! someone grab him and get him out of there! It’s too late, they saw him! Then I heard gunshots and finally saw who yelled, he was in a military uniform and was running towards me when a green creature jumped out of nowhere and stabbed him in the neck then the creature got shot on the head, but it wasn’t just one there were tens of them and the creatures were in between the military men and me, so I run crouching a little with my hands on top of my head while gunshot went around, while running I felt something hitting on my back, but it didn’t stop me from running so I kept at it until I hid on the back of the building inside a big dumpster, I checked my back and I wasn’t bleeding nor did it hurt, I grabbed my phone and used the light to see around, there was some decomposed meat in bags, glasses and below them there was an old rusty knife which I hurriedly grabbed and kept close to my chest, while breathing rapidly. I spent some time in the dumpster until the gunshot ceased, finally they must have killed those things.

I slowly opened the lid and looked around I was alone, I got out of the dumpster and walked toward the front of the building slowly, when I was close to the corner one of those things appeared and run in my direction, this one was unarmed, it jumped on top of me and threw me to the floor, it hands had long nails like little claws, they hurt, it tried to pierce my head, but I used my left arm to block and it got stuck, then i used all my strength to strike him with the knife on my right hand, the rusty knife pierced it’s skin easily, it’s skin was soft and there wasn’t much muscle behind it, but it had bones, i hit his ribs, it tried to back away, but his claw was still on my left arm, so I pushed my arm and managed to get on top of him and pressed the knife even more, it was about to scream when something inside of him crushed and it stopped moving, I kept stabbing while blood splashed on me, I was covered in blood and some had even entered my mouth but I was unaware of this yet, then from the corpse some of the same type of energy that’s been haunting me flew to my body and I runned back to the dumpster in fear of getting unconscious out there with those green things going around.