Rainfall

A Chapter by tastypasta

A girl stumbles upon a sketch that ruins her life.

Please, I need someone to help me… Don’t stop reading. All you need to do is read my story.

It all started about a week ago (it’s a miracle I’ve even made it this far). I was walking home from therapy, the usual feeling of being empty after spilling my guts hanging over me. I didn’t look left or right, just forward, set on getting home to lie in my bed and drift off to some other place as soon as possible. I could feel little drops of water landing on my skin and I decided to look up. Just as I threw my head back the rain started pouring on my face, looking up at the dull sky. Damn, I better hurry.

I started sprinting with my arm in front of my face, but it was really unnecessary, my make up was probably ruined from all the crying before anyway. As I made my way over the dotted asphalt I almost stepped on some sort of flyer, and hesitated, not really knowing why. It was soaked and the image was blurred and sort of melted together, the graphite starting to fade.

Graphite. It had taken a moment for my mind to process, but this wasn’t some flyer. It was a sketch. As I looked closer, a feeling of unease welled over me. It looked like the one who drew it had been in a hurry, the pencil strokes were hard and hastily drawn. There were three images drawn, the first being a dark, skinny silhouette. Something wasn’t quite right about it, the arms were too long for the rest of the body and the drawing looked like… A stick figure with curves. Next to it were a drawing of a face, it looked like. It wasn’t a human face, but a distorted one without any particular outlining. It was mostly just shadows, the eyes being dark crosses carelessly drawn on. Still, it almost had an expression of being happy in a twisted way. Like it was laughing at you, even though it didn’t really have a mouth. The third drawing were the previous two combined, and the outcome was unsettling. It looked like some creature straight out of one of my nightmares.

I had been standing there for a moment, letting the rain pour over me without taking much notice, when I suddenly pulled out of the trance I had fallen into, looking at that creepy sketch. I swallowed and continued my running, a little faster this time. The feeling of being empty had quickly turned into dread, and it wouldn’t leave. It stayed in the back of my mind all the way home and persisted as I entered my house.

I muttered a hello to my parents who were sitting at the diner table, before taking the wonderful initiative to go to bed at 3 pm. Mostly because I wanted to escape my depressing thoughts, but also because I couldn’t stop thinking about that… sketch. Going to sleep was probably the only way I could forget about it. That was what I thought.

I slept for a long while, exhausted from the events of the day. Or, half day, I guess. As usual I dreamt about completely illogical things that really made no sense, but made sense in the state of being in a deep sleep. And usually I forget about them as soon as I wake up. Except for when something distinct in my dreams is reason that I wake up, which it was.

I was walking through my kitchen doing god knows what, and the entire floor was covered in cats looking up at me with piercing, yellow eyes, judging me… I hated cats. I had to be careful not to step on them or something bad was going to happen.

I accidentally stepped on a tail and expecting a fierce yelp but instead the clear sound of a bell filled the room, slowly fading. I gasped and my eyes darted to the kitchen window. Behind the fogged glass was a face, not really fitting in with the scene. It was like a cartoon-character photoshopped into a real life image. A drawing. But the harsh lines around it’s face were moving like smoke and it’s dark cross eyes were buzzing. They were staring right at me.

I opened my eyes and tried to launch myself up into a sitting-position, but my body felt heavy and I was paralysed with fear. The image was burned into my mind.

I was breathing fast and my body was trembling, sweat dripping down my temples.

Great way to start of the day, with a sodding panic attack…

But then I realised it was the middle of the night, my room was pitch-black. I slowly turned my to face the alarm-clock.

3:02 pm.