I hope it's okay that I'm posting here. I'm just really freaked out and not sure if I'm doing the right thing anymore.
Please tell me I'm not crazy.
I've been with my boyfriend Carter for seven years. We met in the hospital ward where they put all the suicidal kids. The instant I looked into his eyes, I knew. We were the only ones who'd actually tried it. Later I found out it was the exact same way. Leaves from a hemlock plant, taken from a garden. He was clinically dead for ten minutes before they got him breathing again. I was gone for two.
Carter and I became best friends right away. It helped that neither of us had any other friends. He could always make me laugh, no matter what, and we'd stay up all night just talking. After the two of us got out, we helped each other stay out. And then we started dating, and the rest was history. I know people always say this, but our relationship was perfect.
Up until a few weeks ago.
Last month, Carter inherited an old Victorian-style house from a distant relative. It was a little weird, with drafty windows and creaky floorboards, but we didn't have to pay rent. Carter and I moved into the house right away. Upstairs, there's a large bedroom that shares a bathroom with a smaller bedroom, which I've been using as an art studio. Downstairs there's a kitchen, a dining room, a hall closet, and a living room. In the backyard is a dead garden filled with shriveled roses. A tall iron fence with a gate encloses the entire property.
Sorry if I'm going into too much detail about the house. I just think it's important to understand that there's nowhere else Carter could have gone.
It started the second night after we moved in. I woke up at 3am and Carter wasn't in bed. Understandably, I was freaked out because (a) it was the middle of the night, and (b) I'd been having a nightmare where black mold was growing out of Carter's mouth and forming the shape of a person. When I finally calmed down, I thought I saw his shadow out in the hallway. He didn't answer when I called his name. I climbed out of bed to look for him, but the hallway was empty. The shadow was still there, though, so I guess it was a trick of the light.
I woke up the next morning to find Carter in bed like nothing happened. He was surprised when I asked him where he'd gone. He said he never even left the bedroom. He said I probably had one of those dreams where you wake up and think you're awake, but really you're still inside the dream. It was the same way he used to describe the way life felt to him when we were in the hospital. I tried to show him the shadow, too, but it was gone.
We spent the rest of the day cleaning up some black mold that was growing under the staircase.
The third night, I woke up at 3am and Carter had disappeared again. This time I searched the entire house, calling out his name. Neither of us has been suicidal in years, but sometimes I'm still scared I'll come home to find his limp body. This time, I didn't find anything other than an incomplete painting in my art studio. It was the bottom half of a male face, the lips curved upward in a smile. I guess Carter had started a self-portrait after I went to sleep. But even though his keys and cell phone were in the house, I couldn't find him anywhere.
Carter was in bed again the next morning, and the self-portrait had disappeared. None of my canvases or paints had even been touched. At this point I was convinced he was right and I was having realistic nightmares. We spent the rest of the weekend unpacking and fixing a leaky faucet in the bathroom. The water that had been dripping out was really dirty, almost black. There was a patch of faded wallpaper in the bedroom that was peeling, too, but we didn't have time to get to it.
Eventually, I stopped worrying when I kept waking up at 3am every night. I'd just lie there, staring at the black mold spreading on the ceiling or the shadow standing in the hallway, until I fell asleep again. And when I woke up, Carter would be next to me and there would be no more mold or shadow. The wallpaper in the bedroom still kept peeling inch by inch, though. Sometimes it looked like there was black mold growing beneath it, but when I lifted a corner I wouldn't be able to find anything. Other times it seemed to bulge and ripple outward, almost as if there was something moving under it.
Carter didn't listen when I tried to talk to him about the weird things I kept seeing. He said I should start going to Dr. Sanders again. Before we moved into the house, my boyfriend would have stayed up all night just to make sure I was okay. But these past few weeks he's been slipping away from me, not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally.
Two nights ago, I finally learned why.
For the first time since we moved, I couldn't fall asleep. I just lay there on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling, until the clock reached 2:30am. That was when Carter suddenly climbed out of bed. I started to call out his name, but something felt off, you know? So I got up and tiptoed after him. But when I stepped into the hallway, Carter was just gone. I searched the house again, even went into the garden, where the shriveled roses had all turned black. But the iron gate was locked from the inside and no one was around.
In the art studio, though, the self-portrait had reappeared. It was now complete. I could see Carter's face, but his eyes had been scratched out.
That was when I heard footsteps behind me. When I turned around, a figure made of a black substance was standing there. It said "you aren't wanted here" and stuck its hand into my chest
and then I woke up in bed still screaming.
I tore the entire house apart that day, but I couldn't find the painting. In the bedroom, I thought I could see something moving under the faded wallpaper. I grabbed the edge and yanked the rest away. There was something on the wall. It was a reflection of the entire bedroom, like I was looking into a mirror, but everything was covered in black mold. The walls, the ceiling, the bed, the nightstand. Even the two figures lying in bed. The smaller one sat up and looked directly at me.
I screamed and then they were gone.
That afternoon, I bought a security camera and hid it in the hallway outside the bedroom. By then I knew I wasn't dreaming at night. Something was happening to Carter and me, and I had to prove it to my boyfriend before anything got worse. When I checked the footage the next day, this is what I saw.
At 2:30am, Carter leaves the bedroom. He walks slowly to a door at the end of the hallway and passes through it. At 2:45am, a blurry figure made of a black substance comes out and enters the art studio. At 4:30am, the blurry figure goes back through the door, and then Carter emerges and returns to the bedroom. At 5am, you can see a glitch on the recording where it looks like the entire hallway is covered in black mold. At 8am, Carter leaves for work.
I searched for a door at the end of the hallway, but my fingers could only find cracked plaster and empty nail holes. There were strange shadows all over the wall, though, formed out of nothing. Later that night, I showed Carter the footage from the security camera. He frowned and said it didn't look like anything to him. He said everything was fine and not to worry.
But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Last night, I drank an entire pot of coffee after dinner. Carter was staring at the TV and didn't even notice. At 2:30am, when he got out of bed again, I followed him right away. The door at the end of the hallway had reappeared. This time, before it could close behind him, I grabbed the knob and followed Carter through to the other side
and stepped into a world filled with black mold. It was the same one I'd seen through the bedroom wall. It looked like a reflection of my own world, but I knew I was somewhere very different. Carter wasn't anywhere in sight. When I walked down the hallway and into the art studio, though, another figure made of a black substance was in there.
It was me.
As I stared at the figure, I could see that the black substance was actually dirt. Growing out of it were little hemlock leaves, filled with enough poison to kill me a thousand times. Before I could scream, she was on me in a flash, her grimy fingers closing around my throat.
But the weird thing is, she couldn't hurt me. She didn't even feel like anything. Seven years ago, I would have wanted this so badly. I would have been disappointed I wasn't dying. I would have plucked one of those hemlock leaves growing from her neck and swallowed it eagerly.
But instead I stepped back and she fell away from me, flinching in pain. The hemlock leaves on her hand were shriveling.
"Where's Carter?" I asked her.
"You were only here for two minutes, but your boyfriend was here for ten." The figure's voice was raspy. "He has access to more of my world. And my Carter has access to more of yours. Sometimes my Carter cohabits your boyfriend's body for days at a time and you don't even notice. He hides it well, your Carter."
I wanted to look for my boyfriend right away. But that would have meant fighting off the darkest version of myself and then going into the rest of the house covered in black mold. And what would the world outside be like? Would there even be one? And if there was, would it be covered in black mold as well?
How many people growing hemlock leaves, or wearing belts like necklaces, or studded with pills would there be?
I hate what I did next. I turned and fled through the door, retreating to my own world without looking back. And then I sat in bed shaking for the rest of the night.
But Carter never returned.
I don't know what to do anymore. I've been desperately searching the house and the entire area, looking for any sign of Carter, but I can't find him. I should probably go to the police, but deep down I know exactly where my boyfriend is. He never came back from the world covered in black mold.
I think I have to go back in and find Carter. I've gathered a flashlight, a first aid kit, an oxygen tank and mask, and a boombox with our favorite music. Should I take anything else? I can't let him get trapped in that world. I can't let him get taken over by hemlock leaves and dirt. I'm not mad that he lied to me, you know? I'm mad at myself for believing him when he said I was seeing things. When I knew something was wrong but neither of us wanted to acknowledge it. I should have done something before now.
I don't know what I'll see when I go back tonight. I don't know if I'll be able to find Carter on the other side. But if I don't return, please just promise me this one thing.
Don't come looking for me.
Submitted October 27, 2018 at 12:11AM by ChlorineGirl https://ift.tt/2Ppht6R
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