text: 19 th May Wednesday ‘ He’s right here' Gathering everyone, I pushed everyone to the back exit. Suddenly I felt my knees weaken and almost give up on my posture: he’s near. There was no time to explain, I felt the goosebumps take over me as if to warn he is near-by. We needed to run. Since it was only me that had the unique ability to see him, the only hope they have is me. mustering up all my courage I turn to my friends. ‘I made up my mind’ I say. ‘What are you talking about El?, we will die here’ she says. ‘We won’t’. I say. ‘Get out of here and don’t wait, run fast as you can’ I knew that he could smell us. Especially me. I can feel him just as much as he feels me. That’s why he’s here for me, I’m the only one that can get rid of him. So he is afraid of me as much as I am of him. I watch my friends break the back door and run out, Stacy turned around, with tears in her eyes shows a hesitation to leave me, but I nod reassuringly. ‘ I know what to do’ 15 th May Friday I hurried to the bus and sat near my spot. Everyone seems to want this seat and I’m not going to this up without a fight. ‘How are you so selfish, you never give this seat up, ever’ Stacy stands in front of me looking at me as if I owe her an explanation. ‘I’m not. I’m just very fast’ I say. She rolls her eyes at me and sits on the opposite seat. Honestly, the view is amazing, but it all goes downhill when the bus comes to an abrupt stop and everyone hurls to the window seats to see what happened. ‘Oh my god’ was the first thing that I said. Suddenly I disliked the view very much. Stacy pushed me aside with a force to see what I saw. Immediately her reaction scared the rest of the students for she banged on the glass and screamed ‘what is that?’ Beside the panicking I was trying to get Stacy away from the glass and make her sit still. My efforts proved to be purposeless as she weighed more than I actually thought she would. ‘Everybody just calm down, it’s just a dead deer’ the bus driver said to us in a very chilled voice. He even smiled at me. and that was disturbing. ‘Just calm down? That is a very dead deer with it’s eyes and one leg missing’ Stacy butts in. ‘it’s intentional’ The driver narrowed his eyes at Stacy giving her an expression as if he doesn’t like to get told off by a random teenager. ‘we’re off, we don’t have all day’ 16 th May Saturday Something felt extremely off. I’ve had rocky days the past few months, but now it just seems to have heightened. I keep thinking about how Stacy’s eyes widened when she said, ‘this is intentional’. We live in a small-town Amarillo, Texas. Nothing bad ever happens because that’s merely impossible because everyone knows each other here. If someone messes up, it’s for life. ‘It could have been a hunting session gone wrong’ Joshua said when I called him on the phone yesterday evening. ‘I don’t know how I manage to miss the best of the scenes’ ‘It wasn’t one of the best scenes’ I said blankly and kept the phone. I felt uneasy. I knew it wasn’t because of what saw. It was because I knew Stacy was right and I was wrong to let it slip away. What did the driver even do? Did he call the police? Seemed like he just wanted nothing to do with it. 17 th May Sunday Today, we met at Katherine’s, the most underrated coffee shop in town. It’s a win-win because we also get amazing coffee for a pretty great deal. ‘That was a conspiracy’ Stacy almost spits her drink on my notes. ‘If I wanted you to spill your coffee everywhere I wouldn’t have invited you all for this’ I say ‘Can we just forget this?’ Joshua shakes his head as if to say I’ve gone mad. ‘there are no tribes trying to kill all animal life so they can worship Satan’ ‘It sounds funny when you say it like that’ I say sarcastically. My eyes trail off away from them, and something made me stare out from the coffee shop and observe how calm outside was. Even though this town is cramped up with less space for the shops, everything is very classy. ‘You should have seen the test result I got’ Joshua shows off the paper ‘C- with no whatsoever planning’ Stacy stands up and gives him a slow clap, a sign of how little she cares. I pull her down immediately and tell them to shut their mouths. Stacy begins to protest but I look at her and says ‘look at that man’ ‘What man?’ ‘He is breaking that door!’ ‘What are you talking about?’ Joshua raises his voice. ‘Can you not shout?’ I hiss back at him and points at the man again. He was abnormally thing. The kind of thin where you would expect someone to get blown off by wind. He carried a long wire-like rod, except there were uneven spikes jutting out of the rod. The rod was almost as tall as him, but his stick figure made it difficult not to cringe. ‘what is that?’ I whisper. ‘What is what?’ Stacy grabs me by my shoulders and tries to get me up from the place we are crouching. ‘people are looking at us El!, stop this nonsense’ ‘I am not joking’ I shout unintentionally, and everyone stops what they are doing and looks at us. Joshua and Stacy backs off as if I’ve slurred at them. ‘what is wrong with you?’ He asks. I decided to slow the facts down. ‘There was a man, he broke into that shop and he went inside, except he broke and entered, he didn’t look...’ I couldn’t find the right word to describe what I witnessed. ‘Look what?’ Stacy looks at me. ‘...Human’ Both of them look at me for a second with utter complexity. I felt relieved for a moment, but they started laughing, making me feel like I was a psychopath. ‘Goodness, that was a good one El’ Joshua pats my shoulder really hard, that It made me almost fall backwards. We all collectively get up and what annoys me is that they were still mocking me. ‘why couldn’t they see it?’ I think. ‘Am I really going bullocks?’ ‘You got us though’ Stacy says with a relief but that reaches my limit. ‘let me show you’ I say ‘follow me’ ‘I’m not sure if that’s a good idea’ Joshua blocks me. ‘If you think I’m crazy, there is nothing to worry there is it? ‘Fine’ they say. We carefully cross the road and I could feel the adrenaline pumping though my veins. I don’t know what I expect to find. The shop owners’ body? Brutally murdered? Why else would someone carry around that sort of a rod? ‘Are you sure about this?’ Stacy asks, I mean, we’ve never been to this shop before! What does it even sell? Antiques?’ ‘Are you crazy, who buys antiques anymore?’ Joshua lashes out. ‘Can you two stop bickering? A man could be murdered inside, and you care about what this shop sells?’ Stacy opens her mouth to protest but we were already at the shop. As I suspected, the door was unlocked. I look angrily at both of my friends and give them an ‘I-told-you-so look’. Now they genuinely began to panic. ‘We should call someone, Elijah’ Before we could consider her option a man with a familiar smile opened the shop door for us. “hi, good day to you, can I help you?’ The man was quite chubby for his age, and it was as if he was being forced to smile. His clothes stuck to his body, making him seem larger than he already is. Why is he smiling like that? I ask myself with doubts that seemed to get more unsolvable by the second. While I was busy drifting off, Joshua pushed me aside and extended his hand’ ‘we were just passing by and realized we’ve never been here, so decided to take a look’ Smart. ‘come in, come in, you can call me Miller. We don’t get much visitors given that no one likes antiques these days much’ he says without an expression. I swear, am I the only one receiving negative vibes here? Despite all the seriousness we surrounded ourselves at the moment, Stacy mimics to Joshua, “antiques, I told you” Joshua in return shrugs her off. ‘Are you the only owner?’ I ask straightaway. ‘Yes’ he answers me, but his focus was somewhere else. The door. The door lock should be broken if I’m correct. I pretend to be very interested in the rusted lamp section and walk towards the door. Instead of checking the lamps, I direct myself near the door, to trace any sign of forced entry. Bingo. The lock is down, it’s clear that it was broken with a force. Clearing my throat, I say ‘Oh look the door is broken’ and looks at Joshua and Stacy. I raise an eyebrow to tell them to play along. Thankfully, Stacy gets it. ‘Oh, Mr. Miller you should probably get a new lock’ she says. For a second he seemed lost. It was as if, his body was here, but his expression seemed to be puddle of worry. He was dazed. His reply got me by surprise. “I broke it” he paused. We wait in silence for him to further explain, but he doesn’t. I know for a fact that the person I saw was the exact opposite of Mr. miller. He is more human-like, but the person I saw outside was more obnoxious. ‘Great’ Joshua breaks the silence. ‘we have to go, don’t we?’ ‘Yeah, I have...classes’ Stacy says, clearly a lie. Dragging me along with them, we get out of there with absolutely nothing but proving that I might indeed be trailing off from the very reality we are living in right now. 18 th May Tuesday Several days pass and I chose not to think about the events that almost made be doubt my sanity. I discarded it as a minor hiccup in my daily chaos. Until my phone rang. ‘Hey it’s Stacy’ ‘I know’ I reply. ‘what do you want’ ‘I know this is going to sound crazy’ she stops for dramatic effect. ‘but Millers is dead’ I have never sat up this straight with so much energy. I knew it. He didn’t break his door. It felt so good knowing that I might be able to explain what happened to millers. But this is a long shot, for I was the only one that saw this man with the metal rod. ‘lets go to see the body’ I say and end the call to dress up as soon as I could. I cycled down to the crime scene and it was great to see Joshua and Stacy already there. ‘This is insane, we just saw the man perfectly alright’ Joshua says. ‘I don’t know, he looked pretty uncomfortable to me’ I think out loud. After waiting a few moments near the same shop, the crowds began to swarm the whole place, the police secured the place and began to cuss at those who tired to intervene. We looked at each other and realized that explaining ourselves would be a bit difficult than we thought. ‘Excuse me officer’ I say after my patience was no longer coping up. ‘we’d like to talk to you about Mr. Millers death’ ‘Unless you killed him or know who killed him, don’t bother’ he said without even looking at me. Rude. ‘We might be able to tell you who killed him, I saw someone breaking his door’ The policeman looked at me with doubt. ‘okay, let’s hear it’ ‘The three of us’ I point to my friends ‘we were in that coffee shop’ and I point to Katherine’s. I saw a man, really thin as paper breaking this very door with a metal rod, in broad day light. I don’t know how none of the people saw this happening.’ ‘Right...’ the officer didn’t exactly show positive remarks about my story. ‘come into the shop, look at his body’ I definitely didn’t want to go in. I didn’t know what was waiting for me inside, if a dead deer could spook me out I don’t know what a dead man’s body is capable of doing to me. restless nights are already anticipated. The three of us carefully step inside and walk with utmost caution. The place stinks really bad. We pass the antique lamps and the cupboards. When the officer removed the white sheet off to reveal the body underneath, it was beyond horrifying. A cold crept up my spine like a wet spider crawling vigorously to get out of my skin. Stacy immediately turned back and covered her face. I wouldn’t blame her. Millers body was almost as if it wasn’t there. His hand was cut in half and his toes were missing. What disgusted me was that I remembered the dear. Just like that, his body was missing the organs, including the eyes. ‘he did it’ I say without having the energy to breathe. Joshua turns and wipes the sweat off his forehead and says ‘we need a sketch artist’ ‘What I’m worried about is, I only saw him from his back. ‘Describe what you saw kid’ the sergeant says and orders someone to draw what I described. I told them every single thing I saw. But at the end, the drawing looks as if I was describing something less of a human. The two police officers looked at me as if to tell me to be more accurate rather than describing something from a horror movie. ‘I’m telling the truth’ I say desperately. ‘Sure, kid’ the sergeant says and looks at the other officer while they both collectively discard the drawing and shove it in one of the boxes. 19 th May Wednesday I skipped school. I knew I should presumably tell my parents about this, but I knew they will think I’m insane even when my friends think so. I attend the first period to make it seem like it’s normal and got out out during the first interval. ‘Where are you going El?’ Joshua asks me. I jump at the sight of him and laughs it off. ‘I’m going to find out what happened’ ‘how exactly?’ ‘I’m going to wait at Katherines’ for a few hours on the lookout’ ‘guess you’ll need some back up’ Joshua gives me a reassuring handshake and I take it. ‘Stacy and I will meet you there, go ahead’ Without wasting a minute, I turn back around to grab my cycle and paddle off, but Joshua says ‘don’t do anything I wouldn’t do Elijah’ I smile and cycle as fast as I can. When I get there it was 10.00 am on the dot. I order my usual caffeine dose and began to wait. Few moments later Joshua and Stacy sit down in a hurry next to me and unload a camera on to the table. ‘let’s record’ she says. I look at her with a glimpse of hope and it felt great to have someone on your side. Few hours later - 12.30 pm Even though we had nothing to do but wait, this was getting out of hand. the streets were empty and there was no movement whatsoever. Joshua stands behind the camera and nods every few minutes to let us know it detects nothing. The frustration grew inside me like a seed and my hopelessness watered it every second. ‘Why is nothing happening’ I bury my face in my hands. I felt that day never existed. Maybe I was hallucinating. Even though I laughed at Stacy for overreacting, it’s me who couldn’t stand seeing that dead deer. ‘This is puzzling and stupid. You two shouldn’t miss school because of me’ It was not a moment afterwards when I decided to raise my head and look out the window. The frightful image appeared right outside the window; except I couldn’t react to what I saw. Seeing his face for the first time, I clearly noticed how his eyes were dead. The iris took the whole space in the eyes and they were hollow. The nose was almost non-existing and damp. One thing was for sure, Joshua and Stacy seemed to be going on with whatever they are doing. They didn’t see him. His non-human eyes pierced through my skull making me get up and scream at Joshua to tell me what he can see through the camera. He replied calmly, ‘nothing yet’. At that split second the window broke with a loud crash, shattering glass everywhere. Both Joshua and Stacy look at me and I nod; ‘ he’s right here’