Short Stories and Ideas

The Man

This one is very loosely based on one of my 100 word stories, Figure. This is dedicated to titantpk. This is quite different from the 100 word story, and the general idea of it is actually quite different, but I figured it's similar enough since the themes themselves aren't really that different.

At night, a man would sometimes visit me. Actually, I didn't really know whether my visitor was a man. I just figured he was. He must be, since Mum had always said that the men are dangerous. That if I went about on my own a man would come and grab me off the street.

"Never take sweets from a strange man", she'd said and "don't let a man pick you up from school, even if he says he's our friend" and "don't run away too far; a man will come and steal you away".

It was always a man.

So, my nightly visitor must be a man.

There he is again. In the doorway. He looks a bit like mist. I can't really tell what's his head and what's the shadow. His head looks almost too large for his body; it bobbles around like one of those dolls but he doesn't look like a doll because his shoulders are too wide. They can't fit through the doorframe but they look like the can but also can't. He's really tall and bulky, much more so than my father. My father is snoring away on the other side of the house. I can hear him every night.

And then the man lifts his arm. His big, bulky arm. He lifts it next to his big, bulky head that sits on his big, bulky shoulders. It's still dark outside. I don't know what time it is. The man's hand lifts higher. I think there is something in his hand; a pickaxe, maybe. I remember liking those in the game I'd played with my cousin the other day.

I'm scared.

The man looks like he's swaying, but maybe he's not. Left, to right, to left, to right. I look at him, him at me, I at him, him at me. And we look into each other's eyes, and his are dark like his face. I don't see them but I do see them. I'm sure mine look very round. My breath is halting in my lungs. They're burning.

My eyes are burning.

I haven't blinked in a while. Maybe, if I continue looking at him, he won't move. But he is moving, and I'm looking at him, but he's also not moving. I don't know. I shut my eyes. Maybe, if I do, he'll go away like the monsters with the long tentacles at the edge of my bedframe do. There's a whoosh of air. The man's closer now. I think I can hear his breath. But maybe I can't. My father is snoring away on the other side of the house, maybe it's him. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe it's Mum, who breathes really loud when she sleeps. Maybe. Maybe.

The man is close. I think I can see his teeth. They're long and pointy and blunt and look like shadows. The man looks like shadows. Like shadows in shadows. Little swirls of even-darker in the inky-black of the hallway. But the hallway is not inky-black. It must be a full moon tonight, because the man's figure is clearer and darker and lighter.

I look at him, him at me, I at him, him at me.

I don't look away. If I do, I will see the monsters with the tentacles at the foot of my bed or the man with the really bulbous head in the right corner of my room or the ghosts on the walls or the spiders in my bedsheets.

I'm scared.

I breathe and the world blurs and I think I'm crying but quiet, quiet otherwise you'll wake up Mum and father. And I've lost because I closed my eyes but I'm scared and the world is getting darker but I don't want to sleep because what if the man comes close and what if the man kills me he has a weapon maybe he won't kill me but will kill Mum instead, father is snoring away on the other side of the house and he won't hear because he never does–

And the world is dark again.

I wake up at half-past six to Mum's voice. I'm tired. I want to sleep. The man didn't kill anyone today.

When I try to talk about the man to Mum, Mum tells me I should stop lying. But my father scares me like the man because he shouts, so I don't go to him. So Mum then says, "there are no men, darling. You must have been having a nightmare."

But he wasn't a nightmare. I'd have one before I wake up and saw the man. The monsters with the tentacles approach me after the nightmare, not the man. The man comes after I can breathe again and he comes to kill me with his big, bulky pickaxe. Or maybe beat me with his big, bulky fists. Or maybe choke me to death with his big, bulky palms.

I'm scared.

The man comes back the next night.

Thank you for reading! The style of this is quite different to my usual style (as rambly as that one is, it's not quite like this, I'd hope). I deliberately wrote it like this because it is in the perspective of a child, and I'm sure you know how children tell stories. 

This is also slightly different to the original story I'd written, because my plan for that one would have been to have the figure be a hallucination due to PTSD, or resembling such, but this is closer to hallucinations as a result of sleep paralysis. The man, in this case, was one of the most common forms of hallucinations I'd had as a child after having a night terror, as well as all the others that I briefly mentioned (sorry for info dumping). Hence why the childish tone, because I'd find it difficult to actually put a different style onto thoughts I'd had as a child.

Anyway, thank you for reading!