Matchstick Man
Adjuster: AGENT STAT
Ref#: 987RTI
SSL#: 8O7YT3
Type: FIRST-HAND JOURNAL ENTRY
Location: BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
Designation: Level 3
Action: TRACK AND INVESTIGATE
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For months I’ve lain awake at night listening to a faint raspy scratching seeping out from the walls around me. The sound, though subtle, invaded my inner monologue to the point of obsession. Not an instance went by where its incessant nagging didn’t steal my train of thought. At night, its interruptive nature brought with it cold sweats of panic which cycled to powerless boiling frustration. I only write this now on recommendation from my psychiatrist, who herself seems resigned at the ineffectiveness of her coping methods and prescriptions. Though I’m afraid penning these events is bringing little comfort.
At first, the bizarre sound was a mere inconvenience, barely problematic enough to warrant any thought at all. Yet its punctual persistence sowed a toxic seed of curiosity which my anal-retentive personality fostered into something unmanageable. Attempts at pinpointing its origins had been fruitless. No contractor was able to diagnose a mechanical cause, no exterminator could find evidence of a pest, and even I myself was not able to work out its origin.
That’s to say, this was not due to a lack of effort. After the first few nights of interrupted slumber, I began standing motionless at the foot of my bed, head cocked upward, listening. Just as clockwork, every midnight the sound started above me as a light scraping. I’d lean left and right, tracking it like a sonar for hours. Its tiny shimmer ran down the drywall, the chalky texture bringing constant shivers to my spine. As the night grew old, it’d trickle downward behind the southern wall, modulating in timbre until reaching the floor and vanishing under my feet. Permitting only an hour or so of noiseless slumber.
While it’s debatable if what I heard is real or the manifestation of an ungodly hour’s spell on a divergent mind. It was, nonetheless, a plague upon my health. I was unable to focus during work, fatigue slipped through in all my responsibilities, and even friends and family made passing comments regarding my sunken eyes and staggered demeanor. The noises effects on my body were almost supernatural, its degradative influence occurring immediately, leaving me less of a man every subsequent morning. I’ve lost weight through no action of my own, my brush began pulling startling amounts of shedding hair, and a plethora of new aches and pains bedeviled me and baffled my doctors. I tried to tell myself it’s stress, that it will pass, yet every time I glanced in the mirror, the emaciated paling face which stared back was unrecognizable.
The last four nights were the worst I’ve ever experienced.
On the fourth night, due to the fear of what will become if this galling torture didn’t subside, overcome with a sleepless delirium of panic and aggravation, I began punching holes in the wall and ripping floorboards up, all so I can pear into the cavities in search of the source of this elusive sound. As with all other efforts, the destruction was in vain, and in the morning my actions left me feeling foolish. Unfortunately, the caged sensation was unassailable. I could not afford a stay at a hotel; I could not afford to even fix the damage I’ve done to my home. My upbringing has associated asking for help with weakness and shame, so I was unable to muster the self-fortitude needed to plead my family’s assistance. I remained trapped in a personal hell.
Three nights ago, I had a brief taste of reprieve, the sound did not besiege me, yet puzzlingly around the time the sound materializes into existent, the temperature of my bedroom fell to an intolerable chill. I opened a window in hopes of warming myself, but the sweltering summer heat would not enter the room. Instead, it was held back, as if ongoingly devoured by the unearthly cold. No number of blankets and comforters were able to shield me from the frigid air, penetrating through the layers like needles and cutting deep into my bones. I laid there, wide awake, shivering uncontrollably, praying for the torment to end. It was long into the arduous night when I found myself thinking a single involuntary and unspeakable thought; “I’d take the scratching over this”. And with that willfulness, the heat returned to my skin.
Two nights ago, the sound returned, although now it was no longer behind wood or plaster, instead it resonated from inside the room. Its new proximity was paralyzing, the thought of it escaping the confines of my walls, sentiently moving about my domicile was enough to cripple me underneath my covers. I once again laid there, blankets pulled up to my nose, eyes wide open, muscles tense and uncooperative, intently honing onto it. At first, the gruff scraping surrounded me, buzzing around like a fly, seemingly echoing from thin air. My eyes darted around, wildly scanning for a source, but the sound was otherworldly, ethereal in its construct.
The inexplicable new nature of the noise made me nauseous. Absent of thought my muscles momentarily regained enough function to instinctually spring my body upright allowing me to heave chunks onto the floor instead of my bed. The sound, as if content with itself, zipped away, floating into the storage space adjacent my bed underneath the gambrel roof. I leered feverishly at the dense darkness, stomach still churning as I strained to gather my thoughts. It was then the nightmare became reality as two beady red eyes manifested from the crawlspace. I opened my mouth to yell but no sound escaped. I tried to run but my muscles once again refused to spring into action. My heart violently raced as I was forced to gawk and grow accustomed to the eldritch spectacle.
As hysteria subsided, and rational thought regained control, fear-soaked curiosity gave me the courage to stand. Its trailing gaze seemingly benign, it stayed in place yet followed you like a painting with linear perspective. Getting too close caused the eyes to pale and become translucent, even disappearing altogether. Despite being motionless, its mere presence provoked a feeling of overwhelming dread. I did not dare turn my back on it. All I could do is stand, locked in a bastardized staring contest, until it vanished in the early morning, much like the sound would.
This leads us to yesterday. During the day I found it impossible to collect my thoughts, they’d be predisposed with musings of my inevitable fate. Musings whose weight was amplified by my balding head, bloodshot eyes, and loosening teeth. I was dying, this thing was draining me, and reveling in it. I tried to formulate a game plan, any sort of retaliation or solution, but as with any other thought my focus would divert and flutter off, and the hours poured away until I found myself back in my bedroom. Fed up being helpless, I tried a different approach before tucking in. Not only did I collect all the lamps in my house, plugging them in, clearly illuminating every corner of the room and crawlspace, but also equipped myself with the largest kitchen knife in my possession, slipping it between my mattress and bedframe, the hilt protruding just next to my resting right hand.
Sure enough, come midnight preternatural darkness began to form at the very end of the under-roof. It began as a single pinpoint, slowly corrupting the light surrounding it, propagating throughout the air. At first, my mind rejected the strange phenomenon, skepticism explaining it away as a spot in vision, but as it mushroomed out and fell to the ground like heavy fog, there was no denying its tangibility. Oddly, the darkness seemed to be brought from beyond our plane, its qualities not following the rules of our world. Just like the cold air from the night before, it seemed to consume the light around it.
Then between blinks, those beady red eyes popped into existence. Initially, a familiar fear washed over me. Though this time the feeling quickly turned to blind rage. It boiled from within, turning flight into fight for the first time in months.
“What the hell do you want from me?!” I yelled through my teeth from sheer frustration.
Then it pulled itself into view from the dark recesses of my crawlspace. Its arms and body charred black and rawboned like a burnt matchstick. Its meaty head sat disproportionately on its fragile thinly frame, bobbing playfully from side to side. It dragged itself forward, grinning a menacing smile that appeared as if painted onto its pasty ceramic white face by an unsteady hand. The hotheaded rage left me as quickly as it bubbled to the surface. Despite instincts now screaming to flee, my muscles spasmed and seized, fear shackling me to the bed.
It crawled forward, falling from the platform unto the floor. The thud sounded limp and wet, permeating from its body smoke-like darkness upon impact. The gloom puffed out like spores and blacked out all it touched, erasing it from reality, replacing it with a thick void. It lifted its head with a hiss that caused the lights to shatter and began slowly inching forward. Its red eyes glowing against the floor, bobbing with each clawing grip, staring into it I felt sanity fleeting.
For a moment the creature eluded view under the footboard of my bed before hoisting its slimy body over it. The thing positioned itself over me, each of its thinning appendages stretched out around me like an arachnid. I prayed for it to not touch me as I stared into its gleaming red eyes. If it would just do its ungodly business and pass over me, leaving inexplicably as the sound did, I think I could survive the ordeal. Though if this abomination touched me, the shock of the unexplainable becoming a solid reality would surely drive my mind insane.
Suddenly, locked in direct eye contact, our faces inches from one another, it unhinged its mouth and began to draw the air around me with a deep unsettling gasp. Each of its demonistic inhales blurred my vision and painfully collapsed my lungs as if a vacuum pulled my breath away. In these moments, nightmarish visions of horrific abominations and atrocious landscapes befell me. No words could describe what I was forced to view, as the threads it was sewn from were not of mortal understanding. Each gulp of air it took extended these sights, permanently searing itself onto my psyche. I was certain I was about to die.
From the bottom of my being I mustered unthinkable courage, the strength granted allowed the creature's spells to break momentarily. It was then, that in one swift motion, I drove the blade into its jaw, cutting into its head and piercing through the top of its skull. For good measure I began to twist the handle, gouging a hole in its leathery flesh. This caused abomination began to screech a sound similar to the scratching but far greater in intensity. Through its gaping maw viscous ire glopped outward, pouring onto my face. The sticky liquid pried itself through my lips, wiggling its way between my teeth and down my gullet. I tried to yell, but opening my mouth caused the creature to expel more of the goo, engulfing my head, suffocating me until I slipped into unconsciousness.
I awoke on a hospital bed surrounded by the caring faces of loved ones. The commotion caused a nearby neighbor to phone the police, and they had found me having a seizure on the floor of my bedroom. It was lucky they had reached me when they did, as during the episode I bit my tongue and was moments away from choking on the blood. The doctors ran a plethora of tests revealing swelling of the brain associated with Anti-NMDAR Encephalitis. A disease where antibodies disrupt normal brain signaling, the cause of which is scientifically unknown. I’ve been put on various medications and assured not only a full recovery is expected within the year, but the visions and sounds which plagued me are a thing of the past.
While the news flooded me with unimaginable relief, I sit and write this from my hospital bed, praying the scratching behind these fluorescent lights above my head is just a coincidence.
Please God let it be a coincidence.
