HFMTOH - Aronaga

On the first night, when I saw her in the corner, I shrugged it off as a figment of my imagination. Something my eyes created from the darkness in the room much like a young child’s would, creating horrific but harmless things from shadows.

She barely stood out from the rest of the darkness so I attempted to go back to sleep, rolling over to face the wall and curling up in my duvet, telling myself it was all in my head despite the chill I had going down my spine.

Ever since I first spotted her just standing there motionlessly near the light switch, she continued to appear. As if me looking at her gave her some kind of mistaken invitation in which I had informally allowed her to continue coming into my domain.

I don’t think I was surprised that every other night she seemed to gradually move closer to my bed, maybe she had been moving a single foot a night and it had only become noticeable every two feet she shifted across the small space.

Gradually she became more distinguishable despite there being no light to actually shine on her haunting figure, there was some strange essence about her that made her more visible the closer she came instead of looking like a large mass of darkness amongst the rest.

Once I’d noticed her moving it became increasingly harder to ignore her and push away the unsettling feeling in my stomach, the comfort I once held that having my duvet pulled up to my head and using it as some kind of visual shield was slowly fading.

Every night my confidence faded and fear slowly overtook me, the nights dragged as I tried all kinds of mantras to lull myself to sleep but nothing worked, I was too scared. You know it’s bad when counting sheep doesn’t work.

It had only just reached over a week before she was stood by my bed, standing there motionlessly, just staring down at my still form that was buried beneath my cover.

She’ll just stand there, as silent as Death and she’ll just stare, never blinking, just staring. The only sound of breathing I caught was my own which came out in almost shaky gasps as my blood ran cold.

Every night followed the same routine.

Then one night it all took an unexpected turn, I don’t even know why I did it and I regret ever straying from the norm to this day.

It wasn’t like what I did was really threatening to her at all, I don’t even know what I was aiming to do besides get a better look at her. Possibly to reassure myself that I was just being stupid and the minute I turned my phone on all would be sorted.

My tired mind was in control and it urged me on like a little cheerleader.

The night started the same as ever, I was curled up in the security of my duvet whilst she looked down at me, part of her dark hair falling past the shoulders of her white dress.

She was silent, I could only hear my breathing.

I’m not sure how long we stayed like this but it felt like hours.

I barely noticed my hand slowly sliding out from beneath the covers and moving towards the side of my pillow, where I kept my phone every night. As my fingers touched the cool plastic of the device I wrapped my digits around it and threw the cover away from me, bolting into an upright position whilst flicking the tiny switch on the side to illuminate the screen.

Nothing happened.

She didn’t disappear like normal figments created by darkness, she didn’t flinch when the light hit her, actually there was no movement for a good few seconds.

We both stared at each other for a good minute, I could finally take in what she looked like and let my mind process what was haunting me.

Her skin was as pale as that of a china doll and looked just as fragile, seeming like a tiny little tap against her porcelain nose would make a little tinking sound.

Her face was covered with one of those pure white masks with wide eyes that were pure black in colour and pursed red lips that sat underneath a thin nose.

Her dress was a white gown that dropped to the floor, completely covering her feet with sleeves hung over her hands. She was like a little child playing dress up and then having a fun game of ‘lets scare the crap out of people’.

She was like something from a horror film.

I was trying to decide what to do next when her hand slowly moved up and began to reach out for me, my eyes widened and I think I let out a little squeak of shock.

Her cold fingers pressed against the skin of my cheek and slowly began to move down towards my jaw line, my breath hitched in my chest as the light from the phone dimmed before plunging us into total darkness again.

I saw her dark outline slowly lean closer to my face but still felt no breath upon my face.

The silence was soon broken by the sound of cracking, a noise that hadn’t come from me and a broken bone. I found myself fumbling with my phone again to switch the light back on and flinched back as the light illuminated her face which was so close to mine that our noses almost touched.

I bit my bottom lip tightly to refrain from any sudden outbursts and slowly found my eyes shifting to her right cheek, from the bottom eyelid of the mask down to the centre of the cheek there was a long crack. As if a child had just dropped its favourite toy and picked it up to find it damaged.

There seemed to be a sort of sad aura around her that made me feel like I should help if there was anyway I could, despite the fact that she’d been terrifying me every night for the past week.

With my free hand I slowly raised it and went to run a finger lightly down the crack but before I could make contact with her china skin two more cracks appeared that ran horizontally from the corner of the black eye and the centre of the cheek.

With a gasp I snapped my hand back and watched as the smooth skin slowly began to shift and fall away from the rest of the connecting tissue, the pale slab slowly fell off and dropped to the floor, making a small thudding noise as it hit the side beam of my bed before connecting with the carpet.

My eyes were fixed to the spot where the china skin had been and a new wave of fear and nausea washed over me.

Underneath that perfect spot of skin lay a second layer that was thick and pulsating, a dark red and purple with what looked like strange black veins protruding out and it instantly reminded me of burnt meat.

The light on the phone faded again and I instantly led back down and curled up in my duvet and tried to understand what I had just seen.

Had my light created some kind of reaction with the skin?

I never got my answer, I’ve researched for hours since and never found a single thing about a creature with her description.
So night by night I lie there, listening to the sound of her skin cracking and falling off bit by tiny bit.

I wonder what’s going to happen once she’d shed all her skin.