creepypastaChrissy

This is a “creepypasta”

In other words this is a horror story.

 

Lets call this story:

The Harpist

A few years ago I was at a time in my life when i was really motivated to get out there and meet women. I had been single a long time. I was practicing the skills, getting out there more then ever before. Getting back into the swing of things. One thing i was doing was improving my music.

I heard about this interesting music event from a friend of a friend. My mom attends lots of spiritual and new agey events and meets a lot of interesting people. This man David, also my dads name, he had created this great sounding improve event. I had met him and played music with him before at his place. Now i was on my way to this event.

Instantly I was happy, there were more then a few cute girls here. Lots of interesting people, creative types. Energetic. Motivated. Open minded. I was intimidated because i struggled to meet people. to really connect, partially with women.

I saw this one girl who stood out too me. She noticed me too. Something about her eyes, i could tell we were both in a similar place in life some how, both looking to meet someone, both felt we had been waiting too long. I was getting more perceptive. I wasn’t going to overlook any more opportunities like i had in the past. It was the way she looked directly into my eyes multiple times over the evening. the old me wound’s notice stuff like this…. because i just made the assumption it wasn’t even there as i went through life… but i could see it now... the reasons behind her smallest actions… that was the most likely explication. My friend had pointed out that girls were checking me out a few months ago one day… somehow i used to think girls didn’t do that… i just figured… they had better things to do somehow.. i was so fucking traumatized lol. and i was starting to come out of it… all that self doubt.. and see a reality that was so totally different then want i thought reality was… all this time… the thing i thought was ‘reality’…. that was the trauma.

There was a whole new reality out there… and I couldn’t understand it through words and blueprints and equations… i had to experience it… that was the only way. Back then this felt like the end… every realization felt like the final and most important realization… but really.. this was just the very beginning.

I made eye contact with the girl a few times and a felt her notice me, even though there wasn’t time to talk during the event. she had long brown hair… pretty. could be a solid match. who knows really.

The event took place at this big christian college a few states away from my home town. And there were different music improve groups in different classrooms. It was kind of like being in school except everything was a fun music jam session. I played the piano.

I am separated from the girl, but keeping my mind open I don’t get attached, if another girl comes along I won’t get stuck on the first one.

And that’s when I notice this other girl I had not seen her before in the original gathering in the main hall. This girl has long crimson hair. Reddish brown. This very pretty, princess like girl. A real life princess. Even prettier then the first girl. It was like I had forgotten what pretty was until I saw her. Her face is so defined, easy to remember and identify with, so angelic. She has kind of a slightly.. introverted look, maybe just introspective. For a while she almost reminds me of my old slightly autistic roommate from college, nerdy, but a really fun guy. A good friend. Maybe this makes me feel connected to her. Like I get something about her ‘inner workings’, who she is on the inside, just by this feeling I get from her, her posture and expressions.

She has a -slightly- withdrawn look, but is very pretty, and looks very motivated, like there is a big vision going on in her mind. I just sense it somehow. and then she pulls out the instruments. Over then next few days i see her playing many different instruments. She is talented, and really not shy at all, her way of playing is very passionate, almost aggressive, it make me fucking excited. At first i thought her main instrument was this unusual foreign stringed instrument she was playing. But then she shows up with this massive black beautiful harp. She is very good on the harp. She is carrying the massive glorious harp  around with her. She almost tips over as she is carrying it up the stairs. it is bigger then her. I offer to help, I am shy, that alone is big for me. She insists everything is OK. She doesn’t need help. There is something epic about her. The way she carries around that giant harp, not afraid to draw attention to herself. the way i thought she was a bit introspective, but has this very outgoing side to her that just pops out. it is great.

I start talking to her after the class ends, and it is insane, she is just talking to me, it is flowing non stop. no boundaries. no walls. no playing hard to get. i try not to get too excited. but it’s almost annoying, how great it is.. this is how it is supposed to be. between men and women. It makes me wonder.. why has it taken all this time for a girl like this to just have a regular conversation with me? This is the way life should be.

We’ve been talking a long time, and we realize we don’t even know each others names.

“Should we introduce ourselves?” She says.

“I’m Chrissy.” She says… she looks down and smiles, there is something bashful about her, i see the red in her cheeks. I’ve never seen a girl up close looking like that because of me. She is so pretty, this princess of a girl… she doesn’t have to be shy around me… but I like it… maybe I should be someone who makes even a girl like this feel a bit shy now and then. This is how people should react, it is ok to be nervous. Everyone always pretending to be so cool and put together. She is so earnest. It’s funny that her name is Chrissy, like Christine… like Christ. I wonder if the name Chrissy comes from Jesus Christ. Because she acts like a saint sometimes. It seems funny… the idea of finding a way to name a girl after Jesus… I can see parents of medieval times being like “hey… we are good Christians wanting to name our good christian daughter … what should be call her? Jesusseica? No. Why don’t we call her something like Christa… how about… Chrissy.” It’s funny also because she really could Jesus. I’ve met female Jesus. and i like it. I like the name. I like her i mean.

There is something so nice and motivated and helpful about her that it’s -almost- annoying, almost. Her personalty is flawless. Not annoying at all. Yet I say that I feel annoyed because I feel like she might notice that I’m not as ‘good’ as she is. I mean, how can I compete with that. This is what i am thinking at lunch. She takes me to the cafeteria, and it is all going so well, she is so helpful showing me around, almost too much of a ‘saint’ well this is a Cristian school, it’s hard to imagine myself being as friendly and helpful as her, but it’s nice all the same. The way she has me this cute guy to talk to, but she is purposefully engaging every other person at the table and showing genuine interest in their passions. She could just keep talking to me. But she makes sure everyone feels included. not just her girlfriends. she talks to every teen and adult and older person alike at the table, she wants to know about what makes all of them passionate in regards to music. she is genuine.

I had this great vibe with her that I felt. And something about her inspired me to rise up, to be an even better person, to say more kind things to others, to be more of a listener. she was so crazy good at it… but I wondered a bit if perhaps she was trying a bit too hard, to do the right thing, sometimes, to be a saint, to be a hero, like Jesus or something.

We continued talking for a while, we walked back down to the music hall which was empty now. Eventually we had to part ways, she wanted to take a shower break before the next events. She wrote down her phone number and her email on one of my business cards. I don’t have a business really, but i make cards because it just makes this part easier somehow. It makes me feel proud. I was so proud of it all I had to walk into the bathroom to just dance it out. dance out the good energy. it was mind-blowing. that girl was a fucking princess.

The next day was full of eventfulness, I didn’t get to talk to her much. I didn’t end up in any of the groups with her even. that’s ok, it went so well the first day.. i was starting to worry nothing could really top the way that day whet. this other very pretty dark haired girl stared talking to me… it was so strange, it felt like all the pretty girls in my life were missing, and now here i was having a problem of ‘too many’. it was hard… but i had to cut it off… I couldn’t give her too much mention because i didn’t want to send the wrong signal to Chrissy, that i was interested in all the girls and her specifically.

So much was great about this event… there was this other semi-cute shot blonde girl who was here with a boyfriend.. I made eye contact with her a bunch of times, just me learning to be more social. I didn’t want people here to see me as the ‘isolater’ any more. This girl was friendly to me too, invited me to join her group at lunch, in a friendly way. I knew it would be good to spread out and not fixate on Chrissy… cauz she was hella easy to fixate on. I was meeting people all over. They seemed excited by me. It was like just stepping into this different environment was a chance to start over. So much of social success is about ‘perception’. At school everyone had an image of me. I had learned to blend in… not attract too much attention.

When i was a kid i almost died of Lyme’s Disease… it made me kind of physically stiff and easily tired. Because of that they had put me in special education classes at school…. I wasn’t really even slow… I just got nervous and tense around people. I hated what i did to my social image. Hot girls literally thought i was retarded… like on of the special kids… it was hella embarrassing and unnecessary. Now there was none of that here. People as me as ordinary… even extraordinary. Which i was. Here… everything started over… I could have girls like Chrissy. It was unfamiliar to me… but all of it was about social conditioning… social image… now that i wasn’t ‘chillin with the retarded kids’… people saw that i was cool. I didn’t even have to try. It also made me more confident… to stand out.

I only saw Chrissy again to give her a quick hug good bye. We said we’d stay in touch. She said she loved NY and would like to come visit, she liked to hang in the city. i told her that would be great. I don’t really remember the exact words, but it sounded promising, very promising.

I was kind of in a love daze the next few days after returning home, my family thought i had lost my mind, they didn’t know what happened. “how can you be in love with someone you just met”
“I don’t know I just feel it” I said. to me, this was a fucking miracle.
I waited about a week, then I wrote Chrissy a casual email. “if you’d like to hang out in the city some time, let me know.” i wrote a few sentences, i don’t really remember

I didn’t hear back from her for a few weeks. I was a bit worried. because the vibe had been so amazing, i would just have pounced on it had it been me on the other end of that email, but maybe she is preoccupied somehow with life? I sent another message “Everything ok?” something a long the lines of that.

She wrote back to me the next day!

but when I saw the message, she sounded angry. “Why do you expect me to hang out with you so soon!? I am very busy. I have many concerts to attend. my month is filled with performances.” she sounded very frustrated and it was hard to find anything in the message that made me even think I should continue to try and speak to her.. or be her friend even at all. I hadn’t meant to imply any ‘expectations’. but the dating world was tricky. often a man had to ‘try’ to sound ‘confident’ and that could come off as ‘pushy’, but if you weren’t ‘confident’ you could just as easily be a ‘push over’, it felt hard to win, you fail either way for different reasons. it was frustrating… instead of sad… i actually felt a bit angry… she had done a 180 on me. if i knew she was going to do that… i could have talked to that first girl, or the dark hared one, gotten their number…… but the truth was…. i spoke to her… because i liked her more. so well. I liked this girl a lot. Maybe it made me sound a little ‘over eager’. but i had really calculated the waiting time to give her space. I hadn’t been pushy. Why had she reacted like that. I really knew so little. After all that great vibage, this was so anticlimactic. (a future me could have continued the interaction beyond this point…. but back then i just didn’t know that was still possible. I figured she just hated me now. Maybe she just felt guilty about not having more free time lol… it’s all disgustingly Ironic… maybe she felt guilty about not having more time… and me… who has such a hard time with women… just assumes… yes yet another woman who is not interested… i just started every interaction with the assumption that women didn’t feel strong desires about men, or at least about me.)

I just kind of gave up on her after that.

Three years later i went back to the same music event… a lot had changed in my life. I was not expecting to see Crissy there still… but there she was!… as youthful and lively as ever… like no time had passed.

“Zack!! It’s good to see you.” She said looking into my eyes warmly.
“You remember who i am?” I said, not totally expecting that she would.
“Yeah, I do.” She smiled. She looks enthusiastic… but part of me wondered that this was just general friendliness. I want to believe I made a specific impression on her and that is why she is excited… but the flip side to her being so unconditionally compassionate.. is that it is hard to tell if she is excited about you specifically.. or if she just treats everyone like that. This isn’t even the first time I’ve pursued this type of girl.

A few hours later I am on the upper floor of the school building and i noticed a poster on the wall beam between the two bathrooms… to my mild surprise i realized it was actually a freekin news article about Chrissy… It had a big picture of her with a bunch of African kids.. it looked like she was helping impoverished and or staving children in Africa… saving the world… it seemed like something she would do. She’s like frigging famous here. I was proud for her.. and a little intimidated yet again, to say the least.

Back then I had become increasingly intense about ‘Buddhism’ and ‘meditation’ I was furious about not having a GF and spent more and more time doing hard core work outs, martial arts, I even had a dating coach, I was always learning and improving, but it wasn’t always fun. I noticed some progress. but i don’t think people around me always even realized how driven I was. it felt like it was killing me… but I couldn’t stop. at one point i did a 5 hour mediation.

You won’t believe me… but I increased it to 10 hours, i did that more then once. soon meditation was all I did. I did all kinds of intense things… to become better.. stronger.. more ‘enlightened’ did it work? We will find out.

When I went to this music event… now it was little more then an ‘indulgence’ to me, but upon arrival… i began to remember the old me… before all the discipline and hard core workouts… the endless striving to be better. I noticed I was having chest pain, like my heart was burning… it didn’t feel natural. yet I was way more social then i had been three years ago… but it was like my body kept telling me i was pushing too hard.. that i should stop trying to be an extrovert all the time if I’m really more of a solo guy. but i didn’t even remember how to stop. i couldn’t let go of the ‘new me’ even when my body told me something was getting bad. like being on the cusp of collapse. it felt like i couldn’t win either way. keep pushing myself into oblivion…. or go back to being a reclusive loner.

All this uneasiness inside me… We were getting towards the end of the event and i still hadn’t spoken to Chrissy… like I was almost avoiding her… i didn’t feel that hopeful around… she was a good hearted girl… she was just ‘nice’ to everyone. That’s all that was left of something that almost became much more… just her being ‘nice’ to me out of the charity of her heart. I didn’t want it. I saw her… radiant, out going. as successful as ever. I felt over the years my creative ambitions had diminished somewhat. but i could tell she was still on fire… busting out the strange instruments… stroking cords, plucking the strings with gentile emotion… to the fullest of her hearts passion. racing over to different people in different corners of the room just to say something compassionate and wise she noticed about them. she was heroic. just as much so as ever. I was loosing faith in the world.. in-spite of how determined i had become recently. I stared talking to some other people in a group near by her.. it was kind of like i was ‘warming’ up. I had been talking to a lot of people this time…. much more talkative then I had been last time… yet still i felt afraid to talk to her. Like i was waiting for something in my heart to tell me it was ok…. then finally it hit me… the moment was never going to come… i had to make a choice to talk to her… I had been avoiding the choice…. the uncertainty in my heart… i couldn’t shake it… I didn’t understand it. But i had to try anyway… I was running out of time.

i finally made an effort to talk to Chrissy again.. I wanted her to see the new me… how much more ‘natural’ I was now. not the forced confidence of the Zack she met 3 years ago… or the lonely quiet Zack I was even before that. I was so much more alive now…. I understood the strangeness of it all… the insecurities and traumas that are secretly driving the world, the trauma society misidentifies as ‘signs of successes’… this relentless compulsion to do things, produce things, fix things… and the secrete anxiety that is driving it all. i saw it everywhere, .. the anxiety that drove people… at started as energy even before it was turned into words… the verbal level… and I knew how to not get sucked it to it… how to not get convinced the anxiety mode of living was what i ‘should’ be doing.

 

I had come so far and learned things i never even imagined were possible about the world, about the true driving forces of people and society, the hidden traumas ….yet some kind of confusion still clouded me… emotionally. Like i was struggling to ‘feel’ it… like some mysterious force was draining my energy, my emotions… There was some kind of paradox a the heart of it all I still had been unable to see beyond… I could feel it was clouding my ability to be truly close to people… to -feel- the emotions… and the emotions were so important. that ‘magnetic’ vibe with people… that is what she had, what she had always been a master of.

The thing is… I had become such a ‘devout Buddhist’ that i fully question my desire to talk to her at all. it was all just ‘desire’. it wasn’t part of my practice. it wasn’t there to lead me to awakening. awakening was being in a life of service, of discipline and focus and letting go of everything impure. I had spent the last 2 years seeking to be without desire. yet something told me …. something in me wondered … that I was still making the same mistake. Avoiding what I really wanted and needed. I felt in my heart. that I was still meant to speak to Chrissy. That I needed to do this for myself.

I listened to my emotion… the part of me that ‘wanted’ to talk to her. not the part of me that knew what was ‘right’ the right action for someone truly devoted to spiritual to take. instead i just listened to that feeling, that wanted to talk to the sexy babe in the room.

And when i went up to her… full of that feeling. She was like “hey!” i felt like the emotion in her heart… it called out to me. it was nice. i felt her girlyness… her youthful exuberance in a way i had not felt before. the old me had always been so focused on the words… there were still levels of interaction i had not yet felt before.

I remarked how i had seen that poster of her on the wall, “you’re out there, doing great things. your serious.” i laugh. I could have chosen to be intimidated by it, instead i find a way to say it is cool, in a way that is lighthearted, playful.

She sighed. “yeah… trying to be a hero all the time… that’s me… kind of i went in too far in it all… you get lost in it.. the dark place. you try to do the right thing all the time.. yet you get kind of ‘sucked’ up in it in a strange way.”

Somehow I knew exactly what she was talking about. i felt like life had changed us in strangely similar ways in the last few years.

There was this other girl there she had been talking to.. all this girl could seem to respond with to anything anyone said was “that’s cool.” her eyes were kind of glazed over and her voice would trail off a little… like she wasn’t truly following anything anyone was saying, even though she was trying to… she heard the words… but not the feelings and the subtext behind theme… It reminded me of the way i could be sometimes years ago. I on the other hand… was really on a role for some reason.. I kept cracking jokes, but also just feeling confident and connecting, i wasn’t ‘over talking’ either… I was listening a lot to other people, but also making insights now and then that really felt valuable.

I realized that if “that’s cool” girl is cool enough to talk to Chrissy. then i am for sure. i didn’t have to be intimidated. i had changed so much in the last year or two alone. it was like i could see the details on peoples faces, their insecurities, and the reasons why those insecurities were there, things i had never seen before… once i came to see my own trauma, it just vanished, and now i could see trauma everywhere, effecting everyone… the insecurity, the insignificance complex, that prevented the flow of energy, of life force. i was connected to the life force, and i was earning it the way ‘forced confidence’ Zack was, with great jokes, and constant interesting dialogue, i was just calm and happy, and she felt it. I told her about my meditations, and how you could actually go ‘too far’ into spiritually. she agreed. i told her how i was being “in the now, like Eckhart Tolle” but i had gone too far with it some how.. like there was a missing piece Eckhart had never taped into to,… Eckhart is in the moment, but he isn’t funny, he isn’t the life if the party, he is just ‘present’ ‘spiritual’ ‘glow’ ‘genuine’ but their is something people like Dave Chapel have, that is acutely a higher quality that even Eckhart doesn’t have. You might call this the Eckhart / Chapel Paradox, as enlarged as Eckhart was, he wasn’t the life of the party like Chapel. As enlightened as i became, putting in the hours, i found myself actually becoming less like what i wanted to be. She mentioned she had red Eckhart. Enthusiastically she invited me to one of her concerts. Great.

It was funny to think that you could be enlightened… like Eckart… yet still not be as funny… or as cool. as Dave Chapel. it was a hilarious comparison. yet it was true. It seem to get to the heart of something that i had been confronting a long time now. I start to wonder of there is something ‘artificial’ about my efforts to strive towards higher conciseness.. enlightenment… it’s funny… I lived a purer and truer more devoted life then i ever had before these last 2 years… and socially, I’m better then ever before… yet there is this physical tension inside me… like my feelings… some part of me isn’t truly ‘in it.’ I am more social and present then i have ever been… like Ekhart… i am fully present in every moment.. to an insane degree. yet in some regards.. there is this haunting contradiction to it all…. it feels like i am actually getting further away from that which matters most. The simple indulgences of life.. the things i ‘desire’ i have removed them completely… it felt like it might be liberating at first… but maybe it was just a ‘trend’ something new that felt interesting at first… yet somehow it felt wrong as well… when I let go of and removed all my desires… instead of finding the love… being drawn up in to a higher divine contention…. there is just nothing… absolutely nothing there.

 

I leave the school. The event is over for this year. I take one last look back at the building. Suddenly I feel a sharp pain directly in my heart. it feels like organ failure. It is intense. Then is passes.

“Are you feeling Enlightened yet!!” It’s that same voice from the room, it’s hissing in my mind! Like it is taunting me. It is little more then a creepy wispier. It felt like someone else was there… other then me… yet I  start to wonder if I actually heard it.

All those years I spent trying to become ‘Enlightened’ when all I really wanted was for Chrissy to just hang out with me for once. or another girl like her. Why is this happening. This is so dark. I never imagined I would be having chest pains. The doctors never found anything wrong. It was scary. to reflect back on the years i devoted to this ‘enlightenment’, this vision of ‘personal transformation’, it felt like i had ruined my body some how… i had pushed to far… and it all stared… because of stuff like this.. girls… who wouldn’t fucking call back. I used to be a normal person… I used to be a good person. Now I am a monster… pretending to be the normal fun guy I used to be, the person i was supposed to be. But inside i feel it…. I’ve felt it for some time now…. something is truly wrong with this world. And whatever voice was speaking to me… the wrongness of the world goes beyond it.

I drove home, feeling good about the talk with Chrissy… that was way better then I was expecting… i could really rekindle things with her… maybe … but i was having chest pain now… it was getting bad and I didn’t know what to do… it had been going on for a few months now… i had thought coming here would remind me of who i used to be before i became so ‘intense’ about Buddhism… back when i did art and music and other hobbies… but there was still much confusion. i couldn’t stay connected to the energy, and feel safe to go back into my ‘desires’ the thing that had lead me into the cave. i saw the desires as bad somehow.

The pain was scary. the concert was a few hours away. i felt afraid to drive there.

I started having dreams about this letter i had written that i had left in one of the rooms of the school Chrissy went too. it was some kind of message i had intended to send to her.

Another year goes by. My pain had been getting really bad. It was heart to even think about talking to a girl like Chrissy in this stated of crippling physical pain… But i had seen some improvements in the last month. I had slowed my life way down since the chest pain started… i was all about ‘nature’ and ‘peace’ and ‘loving others’ and ‘self love’ now. The music event at the Catholic school was starting again soon, coincidentally now that my health was returning a bit. i decide to go to the music event.

I looked around… this time Chrissy is not there.

At the center of the school, it looked like a church or a cathedral, there was this statue of a female saint, that said “we value those with bleeding hearts” it was kind of creepy. “to devotion to living selfless lives” it says after that. it reminds me of both Chrissy and i, always striving to be better, … in some ways to the determent of our own well being… the bleeding heart. here it is promoted… like it is the highest quality to strive for. It is stuff like this that is the reason people like her and i push too far and wind up in the dark. It was ironic that the plaque on the statue used the words ‘bleeding heart’ to describe the type of mentality i used to have… and now after years of that mentality,.. that way of life… i was literally having cardiac pain.
I’m wondering around the halls… feeling a strange vague kind of sadness…it’s hard to feel anything sometimes… life is just so… mundane. hauntingly so. Some people talk about ghosts spirits and aliens, I’ve always been a person of science,… I’ve never had anything even remotely supernatural happen to me.

I wonder down this corridor on the far west side of the Catholic school.. it reminds me of the place from my dream. in real life i would stay at a hotel near by. but in the dream, i attended the event and stayed in one of the rooms at the school, near a room that was Chrissie’s. That made sense that i would dream about being ‘closer’ to her. In the dream.. I had been writing her this letter. Like something fancy and romantic from colonial times. But in the dream i left in the room and forgot to take the letter with me….

As I walked down the hall I noticed a long line of dorm rooms. Everyone was gone for the summer, the school was only being used for the music event now. Just a hall of empty rooms. I decided it would be cool if I could try to find the room from my dream. For fun i pushed on one of the door handles to a room in the middle of the hall. it opened, to my surprise. inside was a neatly made bed with an envelope on it.

In a daze of confusion… i picked up the envelope. it had a red seal, like in the dream. i opened it. i really don’t give a shit about what i do these days. it was all to surreal anyway.

I opened the letter. it was a letter form me to Chrissy. the letter contained plans for our wedding. I was so confused… And then it got stranger… it felt like the way my heart was beating changed then… like for a few seconds i felt… younger… like i had become a different person… like a more energetic happier version of myself. it was scary. yet it felt right.

Suddenly the door closed and something grabbed me from behind. all i saw out of the corner of my eyes was this blackness. like a shadow, but i really couldn’t see it.

This crescendo of whispers seemed to fill my head.

“Are you feeling Enlightened yet!!” I thought i heard a voice say.

I could swear I heard that among the hissing voices… Maybe i was imagining this… or dreaming it… i wasn’t quite sure.

Suddenly all of it was gone. The letter was gone too.

So I leave the room and go back to the event…. thinking i had imagined it all. everything is normal. i see some of my old friends from the previous years. the event is for all ages. Lynn and David.. people I’ve met before. Eccentric adults, talented musicians, dancers, people who travel the world, hippies, concert performers, new agy spiritual people, playing a variety of unusual instruments in combined jam sessions. I play the piano, remembering the way Chrissy made me feel. this sense of purpose. remembering the way she played. but also playing for myself this time. I’m more relaxed then i was the last time i was here… the conflict in me has healed a little. but Chrissy is not here this time to see it.

I star talking to this younger girl.. she is about 18… a bit young .. I am around 25 at this time. The nice thing about Chrissy is she was coincidentally the same age as me. I’m talking to this younger blond girl, she is pretty. not crazy pretty. We have a long conversion as we walk from one room to the next across the school.. some rooms aren’t connected and you have to walk out doors to get to them, to other building in the school… It’s nice, being in a school like this… meeting people. I can tell this girl… thinks she’s too good for me… It’s like she was friendly… but ultimately not that interested in the conversion. It is annoying. For me, I can never get enough when i finally find someone who seems of compatible age and personality… Even if she is a bit young… the just seems to happen too often… you FINALLY find someone who really feels compatible… and they are just so standoffish… like they have something more important they need to be doing. But like ‘what’? is that. Hurrying their way to the grave? A life of ‘business’. People don’t just stop to talk and enjoy life (well not enough of them). I used to be so bright and optimistic… i can begun to see society as a disease… I used to think the problem was in me… but now i saw it… insecurity … everywhere.. people thought they were living lives of ‘productivity’ but it was just a clever mask for something else… insecurity… a drive to fill something never full. we are all empty shells… like mass produced coca-calla cans… we kept producing and producing… yet something was empty on the inside. I parted ways with the girl. I wouldn’t make her ‘suffer’ my existence any more. There might still be other girls here.

The day continued to roll by. I didn’t want to be a brooding fool, meaning I didn’t want to sound too attached to it, but i decided to ask Lynn if she has seen Chrissy recently…

“Oh… hun. … I’m sorry… She’s gone.” Lynn looks at the ground.

“Gone?” I say in shock.

Lynn goes on to explain the terrible car accident that killed Chrissy. Something truly random, sudden, and mundane.

…..The day just roles on and on. There is a weight in my chest. the food has no taste. nothing matters anymore. i thought i was doing all this for myself, but maybe i was doing it for her after all…. it’s all for her, it’s always about her in the end. i was just kidding myself… thinking i had let go. that i could ‘let go’ of everything. you never fucking let go of love. it hold on and it hold on and it holds on.

I walk back to that room. in a rage. hoping maybe that dark spirit will appear again. so i can give him a piece of my mind. i want a confrontation. some strange curiosity draws me back to the hall, the dorm rooms, the open door.

I find the door again. 106.

I enter.

There’s no envelope this time. was the whole thing part of the dream? did i confuse the dream with reality. but it’s strange the door was open…

Stay in the room for a while… just hanging out… like i will learn something if i stay here…. like God will fucking intervene and bring Chrissy back,.. even if she was alive… she was never mine. There are so many layers of irony to this.

The room just reminded me of her somehow. Once she had been a school girl here… staying in rooms like this… and after graduation she had returned here every year for the summer music event for all ages.

I write some notes on my phone the way I often do. Just notice about the day, things on my mind, kind of like journaling but kind of not. i browse the internet on my phone. i log on to Facebook. It takes a while to find Chrissy’s account… I’m not even friends with her. But i find it… some of her pictures are publicly visible. I click on her profile picture, a few different pictures come up. I just gaze at one of the pictures for a while. It seems to feel nice. Lots of friends have commented there condolences… “You were a light to us all.” “We will never forget your shinning spirit and the way you brought out the best in people.” She really is gone. I’ve read enough.

Finally after an entire hour just sitting there on that bed in the dorm room I leave.

Closing the door behind me, I headed down the hall. … I’m almost all the way down the hall when I here music playing behind me … harp music. It reminds me of her. I head back the way i came. It sounds like it is coming from a room around the area i just was.. I stop … the music seems to be coming directly from room 106. I enter the room. Maybe someone really had been staying here. Maybe there is a harpist here… maybe I will meet a new Chrissy. In my mind i am picturing Chrissy with a different hair color. A new Chrissy. Maybe this is my destined moment. I can tell her about how i once knew a harp player a bit like her. I’m getting a head of myself. I’m not sure how a few about the idea of a new Chrissy. I didn’t know Chrissy that long… but she made an impression to say the least. The idea of a new Chrissy just feels sad. This place, this school, will always remind me of her.

When I get inside… the room is empty.

The music has stopped. now I feel I bit of fear.

I turn to leave. But I hear a rustling behind me.

I look again. I jump in shock.

A giant black figure is there!! Like a big shadow… a blotch of deep darkness right up against the wall.

……I am too scared to get what it is at first….. I find myself looking away. Then I make myself look back.

The figure… It is a girl, and a giant black harp. The same harp Chrissy used…. … ….but the girl is like a corpse… and yet… she is moving… I feel chills running through me. It is all very vivid. She has long flowing hair… The girl… it is Chrissy.. disfigured from her car accident…

Like a dead body… deathly pale in some areas… but majority of her is charcoal black… like it had been rotting for months into deep blackness…..

This thing that looks like Chrissy, it grins at me. “It’s good to see you Zack.”

Her voice is delicate, gentle, sweet, like the vibrant kind real life angel Chrissy is. Only it comes from the mouth of a blackened corpse. It’s creepy.. I find myself wondering .. it is like her body is dead.. yet somewhere inside her some of her organs might still be alive, the gentleness of her voice, the light in her eyes… In stark contrast to the deadness of her exterior. I’m trying to imagine the kind of pain she might be in.

Her limbs are broken in places hanging off in strange directions. Severed yet still partially attached. This is true for one of her arms and one of her legs. Her mid section also looks a bit mangled.

“You too!” I say.

I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of anything. I’ve been waiting for this.
I know this life never made any fucking sense. I’ve been waiting all these long years for something exciting to finally happen. The thing most people don’t know about me… is that I’m not actually afraid of anything. nothing that can happen can be worse then what has already happened in my life. nothing can be worse then feeling true love, and having that love be taken for no reason.

Then the freaky goolish Chrissy just vanishes. It is sudden and abrupt. The way she and the harp just disappeared. It’s like she knew I wasn’t afraid.

“Are you ready to give me your phone number again!” I say holding out my cell phone and turning on the screen, smiling sardonically. I used to be a very normal person, intensely so, but over the years… rejection after rejection… I kind of lost my mind. I’m not afraid of the dead… I’m not afraid of anything.

“Was that all you wanted. To scare me!” I shout “Are you sad it didn’t work! I love you Chrissy! I love you!! I don’t know why i didn’t work. i guess you pretty girls always have something more important to do! Like getting hit by cars!! I hope it was all worth it!! I hope you loved every god damn moment of your beautiful fucking life.”

Suddenly something grabs me from behind. This crescendo of hissing whispers fills my head. like the first time i entered the room. i jump, a bit startled, maybe i was talking so much because i really was afraid. or maybe i just had a lot to say. this thing behind me… it feels scary. even more then Chrissie’s talking corpse playing the harp.

“Why are you so persistent” the voice says, it booms in my head. This ‘thing’ is behind me… i feel it,, i don’t see it… it’s like a shadow.. yet it’s voice is in my head… it won’t stop echoing… it keeps filling my head with reverberating echos.

Stop!!! i scream at it. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of anything. I’m just pissed. “if you have something to say to me… say it! speak the fuck up! I can’t hear what you are saying.”

then the whispering just stops.

“I thought so.” I say. “so you had nothing to say after all.”

I look around the room. no one is here. nothing.

“Maybe you can show me that letter again.” “that was kind of nice.” “lets do something positive for a change.”

“Zack are you ok?”

It’s Lynn from the music event.

“I heard you talking.”

“Oh yeah… sorry i was.. on the phone.” I say.

“Oh… ok.” She says. She seems to accept this excuse… not needing to know the details.

Lynn walks me back to the event.

Now back at the event I’m watching others preform… I have lots of time to just think and sit with my thoughts. Man… That was creepy… I’m still in a kind of shock. I think back to that room… I remember every detail of it all. The exact words that ‘thing’ that appeared to be ‘Chrissy’ had used and the exact way her voice sounded. Chrissy….. “It’s good to see you Zack.” She, the corpse girl, had said. It’s similar to what she said in real life the last time I saw her one year ago. but not exactly the same. it had been a little more gentle… almost intimate. almost. which seems to imply this is was real Chrissy who had spoken. that this was a new moment in time, a genuine interaction, and not just an echo, not one of my own memories just running on repeat, like something from a dream.

Later that night i am leaving the Catholic school, looking back at it’s big looming presence. The tall stone pillars and pointed tops and arches of the roof. The building looks cold and powerful. The air is cold. i feel empty. i felt it… like that room had some kind of answer for me. that was so strange. Chrissie’s corpse. i want to see her again. even if she is a talking corpse. maybe it made me excited.

i felt it, confusion in my life, like whatever i tried, it wasn’t right. .. like something had been draining my energy.. I had been talking to my friend about it she said “maybe you have an energy demon”

I start walking back home, then i turn to take one last look at the school. I look for the window to that room 106… just blackness inside all the windows. it is hard to tell which is which. i start counting windows from right to left… i count six widows down… i am sure… it is that one.. i look into the window. nothing unusual there.

I’m not really sure what I’m doing with my life right now.. there is truly nothing urgent i need to be doing right now.. So I keep standing there… looking into that window. “I want to see you. I want to see you again.” I say into the cold, my voice evaporates into smoke. it is so cold… and so dark… it’s just me facing off against this big creepy stone building. What am i even doing… I turn around. I’m going to leave now. walk away from this. but then … i just take one last look at he window.

And in the window … I see her shadow. It’s her. A dark shape … pitch blackness in the shape of Chrissy, a blackness even darker darker then that of the rest of the room. she is standing right there now facing directly at me. I can’t see it’s eyes. But in my heart. I feel like it is staring right at me. My heart is racing… ‘you… I want you.’ i think.  Then I turn away. This isn’t right. Or is it? Then i look back again. The shadow is gone.

 

I was driving back home now.

Something about my life has never made sense.

It is 9pm at night. the event is three days long and it ends in the night… I also arrive at the event on friend night… leave Sunday night… it means i have to do two 3 hour drives during the late hours after the sun sets. a lot of it is long almost empty high way through farm land / country. I am speeding down the dark road.. trying to get it over with… I’m driving 67 slightly over the limit. Suddenly i see a dark shape on the side of the road. It looks like corpse Chrissy playing the big black harp. I drive right by her and for a moment i look directly into her eyes… all i see is death… and maybe sadness. did i just imagine there was sadness there too?

I pull over to the side of the road. I’m going back. I have to see her again. I walk back 100 feet to the spot where I saw her… there in the grass.. there is actually a road here and a sign. It leads to a church. I walk inside… it is like a big auditorium. it is empty.. the light out.. no one is here. I just stand there… the Universe has never sent me ‘signs’ and i don’t expect it to suddenly start doing so now. Some people see ‘signs’ everywhere… but me… it’s never happened. it all just feels like chaos. there is no meaning to it but the meaning i gave it… and lately it’s been hard to keep given… hard to care. But it’s strange none the less… I saw her ghost… and now I’m here inside this church that is open for some reason.

I am looking at this statue of Jesus on the cross. that’s us.. bearing our crosses in life… always striving for more… to make the sacrifice… then killed off… by the very fools who failed to see our value right from the beginning. it’s a profound symbol… I’m not a christian… but something about it always spoke to me. i like that Jesus is a real person… I a way… that’s how i felt about Chrissy…. i never felt like God was watching over me… life was so lonely and empty and cold… but when i met people like Chrissy.. and Chrissy itself… it felt like i was with god… no like she WAS God… God incarnate… something divine on Earth… she was real… that was something i could believe in.

I decided to walk down the hall… closer to the statue.. I am standing in front of it. I am really losing my mind. Hoping that if i just keep standing here…. something important will happen. Maybe GOD will intervene. lol. No he has never shown up before… i don’t expect him to start caring now. Then i look to my lift and notice there is a big grand piano there. IT reminds me of Chrissy… her passionate playing.. and of myself. Piano is my primary instrument. I’ve composed several songs. mostly free-styling.

I’m looking at the piano…. when suddenly a powerful and profound emotion is shooting though me… flowing like a river… of deep rainbow emotion… lifting me higher and higher. Suddenly the church is full of people…. light is streaming in through the windows. and Chrissy is sitting there at the piano. She is beaming at me.

She is diddling around on the piano. “Come on! You said you would play with me!” She says… inviting me to sit next to her. She is playing this song… and some how i know it too… I play it with her.

“Oh by the way! I was meaning to tell you…. I finally finished reading your book!” She said. “Trauma of Nations.” She says.

I’ve never written a book by that title. But somehow it’s like I remember writing it. I nod. “That’s great!” I say. It’s like i just stepped into a movie… and i know all the lines. but i still remember the reality i came from.. and it is scary.

“I like the way you describe people…. it’s so detailed…. oddly specific. It was kind of shocking actually… I agree with it…. I’ve always felt it was true… but i liked the way you put it into words… i couldn’t seem to describe it somehow the way you did.”

“Thank you…” I said.

“I feel like… lots of people out there are suffering… that’s why i play.. because it lifts people out of the pain… it makes people happy… and it makes me happy… but when I’m with you… i feel like something even more is possible… i feel like… we could really bring about a change in the world…”

“I feel the same way.” I smile at her and stroke her long auburn / crimson hair.

“I’ve always sensed it… this burning purpose in you… you were so driven… and it inspired me to be my best self as well. I think it motivated me to finish this book. but that’s just the beginning.”

“I know what you mean.” She smiles. “I want to talk more about the book later. there is so much going on right now. The book… it reminded me of something… a lot of things… it gave me this crazy idea! I know where we should go next!” She says… it sounds like she is talking about traveling the world or something.

Then the whole scene disappears… I am looking now at dead Chrissy, the blackened corpse…. playing the piano still.

“You think you are entitled to a life with me!” She shrikes. her voice this creepy hissing… otherworldly sound. her eyes are black.

“I never!!” “I never made any assumptions about anything!”

“All of that….. that’s just the insecurity talking!” That isn’t you. “It’s all outlined in that goddamn book i never wrote! it isn’t real! it is insecurity.”

“Your insecurity” she grins… her body is dead, blackened in some areas… rotten… yet ghostly pale in others…., and yet her eyes are full of life now. “your inferiority.” (as in inferiority complex) “You never had the courage to continue to approach me. you gave up too soon!” “you didn’t have the guts.” She grins.

This is going to sound fucked … but I like girls who are really pale… she still has a lot of her feminine beatify… the perfect symmetry of her face.. despite the severed appendages and a few rotten areas… she does still look hot.. that’s the truth.

“You’re absolutely right!” I smile. “but i could say the same about you! you waited for the perfect man. you went for the smooth talkers.. the really really excessively confident outgoing men. you never imagined that a shy guy like me… someone who didn’t ‘always’ know what to say could love you far more then they ever could. you only valued appearance… the guys who were better at ‘showing’ off. You never saw past it… to something deeper.. You never even gave me a chance. You thought you were too cool… so cool… but guys like that… who always know what to say.. they don’t have what it takes in the long run… they burn out on drugs.. lost in the glory days now behind them… they don’t have real ambition… the ambition to change this rotting world!!! You are shallow! You missed the truth of it all… right from the very beginning. You failed!!!!!” I laugh manically.

Chrissy’s dead body listens to all of it… trying to find an argument… yet finding none.

“And yes!” I grin maliciously. “We should have been together. You would have been better. ….. better off … with me!” I know she dated other people… girls like that always have an army of men blowing up their phones… she probably dated some confident asshole every single year since she was 14… i dated no one… i pursued many girls… and never had a GF…  She probably dated someone… someone without the ambition i had. “You dated shallow men. as all the pretty girls do. I could match you ambition!” I grinned “i could lift you higher! We could do it for each other.” I say, the honesty makes my anger sound a little softer, a little more gentle. “I felt it. You and I, we were supposed to be together!!”

“You can’t be with me.” Zombie Chrissy hisses menacingly, her words have cold finality. “You don’t even know yourself. You don’t even love yourself. You hate yourself!” she shrieks!!

She is creepy. but not as creepy.. not as horrific as the truth i feel inside myself… the truth I have always felt. that I am utterly alone… it feels almost as though i am living inside the wrong timeline or something like that. Like an alternate reality that was never even supposed to happen.

“No… girl.. It is you who does not understand.” I grin. “You had so many important things to do… you never saw what was right in front of you. the truth.” “I never hated myself… The one i hate… it has always been you!!!” I shout.

She vanishes. then i feel it again…. this current of emotion running though my chest…. lifting me higher… why now? this is so strange. it was like when i said that to her…. it released something deep from within myself… it felt good… the hatred.

Chrissy beams it me. Young radiant and alive… pretty and gentile. She gets up off the piano. “I’ll see you soon!” Light pours in from the window around us. I hear voices of other in the room.

Somehow I gather that we are at a wedding. We are still in the same building… but it is day time and it is full of people now.

Chrissy looks back at me, whirling around energetically… her dress flutters and spins showing more of her legs. “Just seven days left! In seven days this will be us.. getting married!” she beams.

I smile at her… “I can’t wait…. to jump your bones after the ceremony.” I grin.

For a moment Chrissy pretends to be put off… she pouts playfully… then she has this deep bushy grin. “not if I don’t jump them first!!” she pauses and grins harder, “I’m going to hold you down and make you take it!”

“I would have it no other way.” I say… more gently and intimately then she was expecting… we had been joking around… but she felt the change in emotion coming from me… the love… it took her a back… but in a good way.

Someone else at the wedding… a man in his fifties… overhears us talking he looks at us and beams… Chrissy blushes… then runs off.

“It’s all good!” the man laughs.. “you guys look like a happy couple. it just sounded like you guys were … having a good time. I’m not judging… seriously … you’re young! Enjoy your lives!”

“Thank you!” I say. There is so much good in my life… I’m not even sure what i want to do next… maybe i will compose a new song. I am starting to forget… forget the other reality ever even exited…. …. this is the reality that was supposed to be… this feels right.

Then the whole scene just vanishes.

Zombie Chrissy appears again at the piano. I am standing. She is sitting.

“I was imperfect.. but you could have seen through that. you could have loved me anyway.” I tell her.

“There is no destiny. We aren’t meant to be together. It’s all chaos and death.” the Goolish Chrissy howls at me. I guess dying has changed her perspective on it all somewhat. “You’re a looser. The only thing you want… is to live in a fantasy.”

Did she see it too? I wonder. Was she there in those visions with me… that better place where we were together… is this is still the same Chrissy…something tells me that despite appearances… this is the very same girl. She really was there. I won’t assume she wasn’t. I won’t assume it was all just a fantasy or a dream… not yet. Was she there with me… and did it scare her to see that other reality… did it make her wonder… that maybe she made the wrong choice. She must have seen it… that would explain why she is saying this.

“Any fantasy is better then this crap we call life…” I grin. “And the fantasy… This constant obsession I have with women, girls like you. This obsession… to make the world better then it is and to believe it can be. It actually makes me feel more alive then I ever was before! back when i followed the rules. When I kept my head down and let the insults get to me.”

She laughs and sways back a bit in her seat. She didn’t know I had so much to say, maybe she is actually a little impressed. “You were always too afraid…” She fires back. “Afraid to take what you really wanted.”

“Do you see it now… now that your dead.” I retort. “You’re saying this… because you know you fucked up. You can see that I loved you more, and you’re regretting that you never left room in your busy schedule to take the good things in life for your self! You deserved that life! But you didn’t even give yourself permission to just take it!”

She looks away… then she turns back and snarls viciously, a force, a wind comes from her, it almost knocks me over. Almost. .. Her teeth turn into fangs. Her eyes flash black.

It doesn’t even matter… her spunkiness … it just makes her more attractive to me.

“I’m not afraid…” I say. “And that means… I’m not afraid to say truth. The true depth of how pathetic I really am.. The truth is… even after you devoted your life to ignoring my advances.. after all that time… even in this very moment… I still love you. I just keep loving you and loving you and loving you!” That is who i am. I realize i am crying now. “You’re the one who is afraid. you are the one who keeps running away from me!”

I step forward towards dead reanimated Chrissy and take her hand. I pull her up to her feet. Surprisingly…. she doesn’t resist. She flies right into my arms… still dead and black and creepy as ever… but the creepiness just excites me somehow. she might as well have been dead from the beginning.. because she barely gave me the time of day. (to quote my grandma I think lol). it’s funny after she died our relationship has become more honest then it ever was when she was living!!

I am kissing her and holding her close… it actually feels good. i see love in her eyes. Then she explodes into thousands of cockroaches. she is dead after-all.

Suddenly i feel it again.. I am being lifted up into this other reality once again. This time i am in a different place… I am outside at a different wedding… It doesn’t take me long to realize… this time… I am at my own wedding.

I am standing across from Chrissy. My heart stops. Don’t make me feel this. Anything but this. Somehow….. this is worse.. Nothing will ever compare.. to this feeling.

We are saying our vows. I have this great feeling.. only this time there is also dread … because i know this is going to fade away again… this reality won’t last… it’s just like a glimpse into something… and i have no idea why this is happening still. I’m sure i never will. come to think of it… nothing about my life has ever made sense… about this reality. My best friend jack is standing behind me.. my best man. other familiar faces are in the crowd… and unfamiliar faces. I go into kiss her. It is hard to feel this profoundly alive… now knowing it will soon disappear. who knows… maybe not.

The scene vanish again. I am alone in the dark empty church. Zombie Chrissy is gone too now.

A few moments pass. Suddenly the entire church is full of this loud hissing noise… it is like the noises from before… only now it is overwhelming.. it is everywhere… it feels like the walls of the church are moving… i see little bugs everywhere… i now notice. they look like little spiders.

“I am the illness.” The voice booms. “I have always been with you… since you were five.”

when I was five I almost died of Lyme disease. Is the disease itself speaking to me now? What does that have anything to do with what is happening now…

“you are always so…… persistent!” There is this echoing… vibrating hissing creepiness to the voice. like time is moving in two different directions… like feedback… like a loop.

“you were supposed to die…” it says. i make out these words among the whisperers.

“…on three separate occasions….” i make out more words… among the hissing… i keep expecting it to stop…. but it doesn’t… the entire wall… every wall and the ceiling is covered in spiders. I’ve really provoked the demons now.

“but you just keep on living… why won’t you just die!!” then abruptly all the noise and activity stops. i am alone in the empty church.

I think I’ve had enough for the day. nothing left to ponder here. I go to the gas station and buy a red bull. i think i will reward myself. that part where i kissed zombie Chrissy… that was pretty epic… i think about that.

I drive home. i am a bit freaked though… I’m trying to stay confident about it… but this feeling tells me i am about to die.

 

There is a big river down the hill a few hundred feet away from my house. i walk to the park near the river. then i start walking into the river. I notice a sign that says “no swimming”. how timid i am … i almost give up my plan to go in just because of the sign. maybe i am looking for some kind of baptism. the water calls to me. maybe i just want to drown. but that would be too painful. i just want to get wet. get dirty. i want to feel the water on my skin. feel something. other then emptiness and hatred. So i walk out… into the water… I’m not really sure why I am doing this… I know life is so mundane… i know nothing interesting will happen… nothing interesting ever happens. Not to me. Not in this town.. This productive lonely insecure little village.

I am standing there in the lake, and i feel it again… something behind me. a voice in my head.

“you are so persistent.” this voice echoes in my head. i can’t tell if it said anything, if there were words… or just echos and hissing sounds that resembled words.
“who are you!” I say.

There is a pause..
“I wanted you to suffer.. as I suffered.” the voice says.

the voice… it is the same from before… the voice.. it is my voice, I now realize. but it is not me who is speaking.
“you and Chrissy were supposed to be together.” the voice says now… more clearly. “Seven days from now…. was actually the day of your marriage. I was jealous… of how happy you two always were. i wanted you to know what is like. Four years ago.. the two of you began dating.. you both met in New York city… and were swept up in a rush of passion… shared passion for music… and something more… you dated for 4 years… then planed your wedding.”
“Who are you?” I say again.
“I am you.” he says.
“there is more then one reality” he says.
“I was supposed to be with Chrissy….. NOT YOU” the voice says… it feels like i am being drawn into the spirit world for a moment as the voice explains this entire story “…..Back then… all those long years ago Chrissy and I were starting a relationship… however I made a small mistake…. a mistake that cost me everything… …… Now centuries later…. a strange coincidence… a new timeline was born… unusually similar to the one I came from… I had long since died, I wandered the spirit world.. Timelines diverge… but now and then they re-converge… but only us… the dead can see them. Watching over it all… full of regret. Unable to take our own dreams… we instead deny the dreams of the living as our revenge. Events diverge.. but lead back to the same ending… this new timeline… it was like my old one… only new… younger. This timeline… it created the chance for Chrissy and I to be reunited they way we were always meant to be. …however… the Chrissy and i in this new timeline… they were different… the same people in just about every way.. yet not the same souls. I would be cursed to forever watch over this other very similar timeline where all my dreams came true…. I died a long time ago. Cursed to wander this purgatory between worlds. To watch over you. You who was destined to become the me I should have been. I had nothing to give you… and every reason to want to hate! So i altered your timeline… right from the beginning… so Chrissy would reject you. I made her life more busy… and I altered her memories of love for you… she would see you as just another stranger and forget the moment of connection you shared. And slowly over the years… I infested your energy body… i drained you of life… it was so subtle you would never notice it… but over the years you felt it.. the pain … in your heart. It was never natural! Fool! You always blamed yourself! You never suspected! It was ME from the start. I have been killing you all this time! Slowly! Painfully. Ever so gently. Because I hate you!!! And I hate myself!!!!!” The spirit has a lot to say… but it is all shouted into me rapidly by his many hissing voices.. i hear it all.. but it is like a download a whirlwind of information, it’s like his memories are downloaded into me. Now I am back on my feet. Waiding in the river near my house.

I knew it never made sense!!… I knew it!! something never made sense… right from the beginning…. things had been so good between her and I.
The envelope and letter I read… it was like an ember of the time line that was supposed to take place. the sprites aren’t supposed to intervene… yet if their hate is strong enough… driven by love… they can alter the paths of the living. all along…. this dead thing … that is in a way ‘me’ has been taking my destiny from me… the density i always felt was mine to take.

“Early on … my original plan had been to posses you… to take over your body so though you i could be with Chrissy. However… i realized that I was unable to. Spirits can only influence this reality in very small ways. So i chaned my plan. i would take what mattered most. when you were a child… i influenced the tick to find you and give you Lyme’s Disease.. this event changed the course of our life. it effected your stamina. I also influenced your parents so they won’t notice it for an entire three months so that it could be more fully effective.” the voice explains.

I was angry… that any version of myself… in any time line… could turn out to be so petty! So pathetic!!!

“I had nothing to give you…. and every reason to want to take!!… because love is such a fragile thing.. all it took was a few small interventions, here and there… and your entire destiny was broken. You and Chrissy were destined to be married, and with the smallest change in your path… you lived your entire lives as strangers!! How pathetic it all truly is!”

“The more I watched you suffer… the more my spirit drifted away from the other side and closer to the world of the living… the great irony… Because we were already essentially the same person… Like a glitch in time, we became increasingly connected. My dead soul became bound to yours!! Now i am unable to pass fully into the afterlife until you have died as well! We are both stuck here togather!! Originally i just wanted to take what you had. but this … this is ‘s why I’ve been trying to kill you all this time!! So I can finally be at peace!!” He says.

“I’m not afraid of you.” I grin. “I’ve been waiting for this… All my life. A reckoning… with you the one who keeps getting in my way… the one who keeps fucking everything up!!” I shout.

“Oh?” The voice says. He is behind me… like a shadow … I still can’t see him.

“There is nothing you can do to me. That has not already been done. Nothing that can happen can be worse then that which has already come to pass.” I smile confidently.

“How arrogant… I can’t wait… to show you how wrong you are!!” The voice hisses… it is like many voices hissing through my mind.

“You and Chrissy went down opposite paths. You could blame me…. but all i did was give her a little push in the wrong direction.” The voice says.

“I don’t care!” I say back to the spirit. “No one loves you!” I grin sadistically. I’m trying to provoke it. You think your the only one who suffers. You think you are scary because you are dead. I am just as dead as you are! Even more so!

“Her path lead to death…” The voice hisses. “And so will yours!!!”

The spirit takes hold of me… many dark shadowy arms grab me by the head and hold me under the water. it drowns me… and i die. (but not before returning here to write this story.)

 

— Credits Roll —

Written by Zack Zwiebel

directed by Zwackery Zweevel

co directed by M Night Shamalan

*Call Me Maybe by Carly Rey plays* during credits