You must take me at my word, for I know but a mere word is not substantially trustworthy enough to warrant your trust, but it is all I have. No pictures do I have on my person nor do I have any other unfortunate souls to attest to what I’m about to tell you. I fear after one has read these words, they will deem me insane- a kook that belongs in an asylum. But write them I will, for I know with all confidence that what I have seen is not the specter of a madmen’s deluded mind.

It happened the first of this year which the lord seed to make also the time of my graduation. I had gone to the most honorable school available to one as lowly as myself- a glorious place called Czeslaw’s School of Noble Students. It was a wonderous place, filled to the utmost brim with books of knowledge, competent teachers and fine students. But there was a fault I had with that place, one gleaming fault protruding from this structure of magnificence- Jeromy Bertrand.

Bertrand, though excellent in his studies and a remarkable student, was corrupted by the darkness of arrogance and deceit. His tongue lashed out like a serpent whenever his status as the ‘most gifted student at Czeslaw’s’ was questioned. It spilled lies like an overflowing basin if his score on an assignment was not to his liking, and where pray-tell does one wonder where this little devil’s finger of guilt pointed to? Me.

Yes it was I that endured the burden of obtaining the role of the little devil’s roommate, so much of his deceit painted me as the culprit of his mis-failings. His tales paint the picture of me as a stuttering idiot whose only goal in life was to pester and annoy him- this couldn’t be any farther from the truth! True God has given me the task to bare the troubles of my stutter, but to imply such vile acts of pure mal-intent is simply slander. Sufficient to say the higher-ups at Czeslaw’s took his word as gospel, and my reputation was not one to grovel at.

So it is with these acts that, late after the sun had disappeared and the moon had taken its rightful place in the heavens, I heard Bertrand knock on my chamber door and did not answer it. You see, though roommates, I did not have the displeasure of sleeping in the same room as the little devil and instead we had two small yet separate bedrooms that were separated by the main room- a place where our comings and goings took place the most in.

As he knocked I flung the head-rest over my ears to muffle the racket. But when the commotion did not cease to stop, I yelled profusely at the door for him to go back to his bed-chamber- but he did not stop. Enraged I clambered to my feet and retrieved my bedside candle that I had so accustomed to keep beside me. Lighting the wick with a match I approached the door, yelling some ungodlike things in my anger as I did so. I reached for the handle- the racket stopped.

This took me for surprise as I was caught off guard by the sudden stopping, now the room hung low with the sense of silence. Bertrand, you devil! I cry in anger. Must you make my life more miserable than you’ve already have willed it to be? With that I opened the door to face my roommate...

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My heart sank, for as I opened the door Bertrand’s face was not to greet me but darkness there and nothing more. As my heart sank my brain went into full effect, whispering horrid ideas to my soul that caused me great distress. I realized with all the shock and horror of a man whose just been sentenced to hang that the little devil Bertrand was gone for the season and that I was alone.

With the speed of God, I shut the door, I dare say I nearly broke it with the force I delivered. But now I had the most grievous of dilemmas, by shutting whatever was beyond the door out I had made myself captured in this room with no escape. I was grasped with fear and my soul sang out for help, but none would come to my aid.

With the eyes of a gambler who had lost the final hand I yelled at whom or whatever the thing beyond the door to leave posthaste, for do they not have more important things to do? But the silence was no more for the door began to rattle and creak as the pounding began again, but this time slower as if to taunt me.

Each knock sent ripples down my back like cold air in the winter, but I held my breathe and prayed to the lord for the sound to stop. But it kept going, the noise was driving me to madness! Fear washing aside me like sand on a beach I gripped my candle firmly and swung open the door!

This my dearest reader is where my memories begin to fade, the fog of that night still lingers on my brain and soul, but I will try with all my human might to tell you what happened.

Blood, that’s what I remember, blood was everywhere. The tapestries had turned red as mud and the floor shared its experience. The air was thick with the smell of death that I’ve only then but read of and I gasped for air underneath the stench. But that is not what caused me fear, no. There was a specter among the red, a pale face specter that none may look upon but I.

His face was the image of fear for his eyes were like trumpets announcing the arrival of death- for around his neck there was a noose. Blood trickled down from where the rope met his neck- this was a rope so tight that it bleed him like a pig! But this wasn’t the only horror that that night wished to show me, for in the specter’s hand he held a candle- a candle made of flesh and blood. The wax was not but wax but melting flesh that fell to the floor like a falling star and mixed with the sea of blood below.

Horror is the only thing I felt as my gaze fell upon mine own hand- to the candle I held in its grip. Realization fell upon my soul and tears of fear began to erupt from my poor eyes like Pompei.

I pleaded to god to end this nightmare, to end it now and to take me somewhere far from this forsaken place- and mercy was granted. I opened my crying eyes to find the room back to it’s original and proper state. But still the specter of silence haunted me as I grappled with what I had just seen. For but a split second I thought my mind had fooled me, that it was tricked- but my mind was changed as quickly as wind.

For as I stood upon my feet once again my hand began to ache of pain, I looked to my hand once more to see that in my anguish I had neglected my candle. Now wax and fallen to my skin burning it, no, melting a small bit of my flesh. No, it was not a thing of my mind… it was reality.