Encounter

My head's finally clear enough to write and post this. God knows what happened.

So Lucian kept his word and met me Thursday night, he was waiting at a park bench. Something was different about him, though. I couldn't place my finger on it. When he spoke I realized that his words weren’t running together, and he wasn’t mumbling to himself about god knows what. There were two words that broke the silence.

“I’m sorry,” he had said. I just raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

“What for?”

“You know. Everything.” A solemn look spread across his face and he looked at me in the eye for the first time. I realized his body language was different. He wasn’t bent over protectively, his eyes weren’t darting around every second in what I would assume be fear. He was actually concentrating on something. When he didn’t continue, I just prodded him again.

“So you’re saying all this is your fault? Do you know that in the week you were hiding from the world, two more kids disappeared?”

Horror crept back into his eyes. “W…what?” was all he mustered, his head bowing down in defeat.

“Yeah, they were taken during a hike. The two lovebirds decided that they needed to ‘relieve some tension’, and bam. Gone.” I tried to play it off as casually as I could, looking for any signs that Lucian had any idea of what I was talking about. He didn’t, and he was just shaking his head.

“This is my fault…” he groaned, and slumped back into the bench.

“Okay, you keep saying that. What is your fault? What is your connection to everything that’s going on?” I was starting to get frustrated. “And why, all of the sudden are you able to talk regularly? What the fuck happened this past week? People just don’t change that fast!” I had to control my voice so no one else would hear. He then said something softly. “What?” I asked.

“The ringing stopped.” He said again, acting like this “ringing” was just something that was a normal part of life.

“Okay. Whatever that means, whoop-de-doo, good for you. You’re still avoiding my questions.” I was clawing at my jeans, waiting for any information. “You don’t really want to take the blame for all of this, do you? Everything that’s happened this past month, it’s ‘your’ fault? Come on man, I need answers.” I was beginning to plead with him, hoping he’d say something that will help. He just shook his head

“I can’t tell you. No one else can get involved. He’ll come aft-“ I cut him off.

“Him? Someone is after you! Who is he? What does he look like?” I rattled off questions.

“Ray. Stop. Please don’t ask. You don’t want to know.” He looked me in the eye again, and it was as if all the pain he’s been going through suddenly flowed into me. I gasped sharply, but I tried to not let him see it.

“You are not making this easy. We found a body. The police aren’t telling us anything. Can you stop this?” Lucian shook his head again, looked up, and gasped. It was then I noticed the mist had begun to start again. “What the fuck,” was all I managed to say before he shot up.

“RUN!” he shouted, and bolted, and I took off after him. We had been going for about ten minutes before Lucian finally stopped. The mist was still surrounding everything, and it seemed like it was getting thicker and thicker. It was then when I saw something or someone move. I tried to get Lucian’s attention.

“Dude, I don’t want to sound like a cliché horror story, but we’re not alone.” I whispered, and he just curled his hands into fists.

“This is why I didn’t want anyone to know. This is why I was alone. This is why….this is why…” he started rambling to himself, and started scratching his face.

“What? You’re overreacting. I’m sure someone else decided to randomly run off as well. No big deal.” I shrugged again, and waited for a reaction.

“Ray. Please. Get out of here” he faintly whispered, and started looking around. “You don’t want to be around when it…he shows up.” I cocked an eyebrow.

“You need sleep, and by the bags under your eyes I would assume you’ve been going without it for the past couple of days.”

“Try weeks. Now go.” He firmly stated, and I shook my head.

“You know what? No. You told me to come here. You’re the one rambling about how it’s your fault. You’re the one this is all connected to. Dude. Tell me what the fuck is going on here. No one can help you until you can.”

“God dammit. No one can help me. Not you. Not the police. Not anyone. You’ll just get yourself killed. Please, Ray. I’m begging you. Go.” He pleaded, and I was taken aback by the tone in his voice.

“Lucian…” I said before he started backing away, his eyes growing in terror.

“No. No. No. Please wait. Not now. Stop. Stop stop stop.” He started rambling, which sort of weirded me out.

Turning around to look at whatever Lucian had been taken aback by, I was greeted with a horror. No, that's an understatement. I have no words to describe this thing. It was…human...but it wasn’t. It had the shape to look like one, but people don’t bend like that. It’s not natural. He was unnaturally tall, I’d have to guess he was nine or ten feet tall. I went to look at him in the face…except there was none. And I don’t mean he didn’t have eyes or anything, it was just blank. No indention for where his eyes should be, no nothing. It was actually painful to look at, since my head kept on looking for something to identify it with. There was nothing. It couldn’t register anything. The real kicker, though? This thing was wearing a business suit. Black vest, white shirt, black pants, black tie. The whole shtick. Whatever this was, it was basically shouting “I should not exist.”

I'm downplaying it. I wasn't nearly as calm then as I am now. I was fucking horrified. I had yelled loud enough to hear my voice echo as I backed away. I looked for a stick, anything, anything to fend off this thing.

“It’s…too late. Too late. Too late. Why. Why. Why?” Lucian looked at me. “Run, Ray. Run as fast as you can. You can still have a chance…maybe. He might feel gracious” he mumbled right before he just passed out. Straight onto the floor. No warning, nothing.

“Who the fuck are you?” I just asked the newcomer. No response. All I got was something that creeped me out even more. Tentacles. Loooong tentacles. Temporarily backing away again, I reached into my pocket, flipped open my pocketknife, and charged. This thing needed to be killed. Here and now. I went to thrust my knife into this thing, when all of the sudden I went flying back, my face being smashed into the ground.

The creep didn’t even move. How the hell did I get flung back like that? I wiped the blood dripping from my lip and nose away, I saw that the mist started to get extremely thick, and this thing was getting closer. I went to pick Lucian up off the ground, and I took off. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw someone watching us. I couldn’t tell who, though. The mist made it just barely visible enough to catch an outline. Whatever, I was already taking care of one person; I couldn’t help this guy too.

The whole encounter feels surreal. The only thing that’s reminding me of it actually happening is an unconscious Lucian on the couch in my room. My parents don’t know anything about this yet, but when/if they find out Lucian’s in my room I don’t know what to tell them.

I need answers. Right now I just have more questions. What the fuck was that thing? How is Lucian connected to this? Did I really see someone else? Did I just imagine that?

I’m expecting to finally get answers once my ole’ pal wakes up.