Heart of Re-Verse E-Book

Kati Yli-Pirilä

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 107

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

What would you do, if one morning you would wake up in a world where your freezer, coffee maker, or the very house you live in would turn against you and try to consume you? There would be no safe place to hide, nowhere to run from hideous creatures spawning from behind every corner.

Leseprobe

Heart of Re-Verse

Chapter 1.Chapter 2.Chapter 3.Chapter 4.Chapter 5.Chapter 6.Chapter 7.Copyright

Chapter 1.

When I tell people that I’m homeless I usually gain pitying stares and worrying questions about my general well-being. When I tell them I’m homeless by choice they usually question my sanity. I don’t do that often. Reveal my chosen form of living, that is. I learned early on to hide the signs. I bought a few sets of good quality clothes and I take them to different cleaners for washing. The whole town is my wardrobe. I shower every day. At the gym in the morning, and swimming hall in the evening. I don’t cook by a fire, won’t do to have your clothes smelling of smoke. I eat at restaurants. Mostly fast food. Quickly in, quickly out. I don’t have a regular job, that’s one advantage. I won the lottery. Lion’s share of the jackpot I invested to different shares and stocks and I get monthly profit. Nothing grand, but enough to keep up my mobile lifestyle. Every once and a while I splurge and go to see a movie. Carefully chosen, run duration no longer than an hour and twenty minutes. Since this all began, the longest continuous stretch I have spent indoors was three hours and twelve minutes long. Got stuck in an elevator at a shopping mall. Luckily it was a scenic elevator. Luckily there was a crew working on constructing a second same type of elevator nearby. I don’t know what would have become of me if I had been forced to spend any second longer trapped inside that glass coffin.

I know what you’re thinking. No. I’m not claustrophobic. I have no phobias whatsoever. It’s not chemicals or mold either. I’m not a basket case. That I know for a fact, a close friend of mine works at an institute as a researcher. He once needed a volunteer for his studies. Kept prodding and probing my head for a month, then in a no-nonsense manner dropped me off from his study for being too level-headed.

This all started probably the day I was born. It’s hard to tell the exact moment since the earliest clear and intact memories I have from the age of four. Sitting in a car with my mom in front of our garage, waiting for dad. He’d returned to the house to retrieve some blankets and pillows. Mom was checking the weather forecast from her mobile phone.

“We probably have to sleep in the car…” She muttered, then reached in to glove compartment. A bag full of earplugs and a thick woolen band to cover my eyes were there, as well as small filters she would slip into my nose if the situation escalated during the night.

“What’s taking him so long?” Mom wondered, staring at the front door of the house. Since nothing interesting was happening I turned my attention to a picture book on my lap. To this day I can’t remember what book it was, but I remember descending darkness I could see from the corner of my eyes. Eventually, dad returned with pillows and blankets, admonishing mom for forgetting to switch off the coffeemaker. Numerous nights like that followed in a row until I was old enough to leave the house on my own for overnight camping at a nearby park. I still remember that first night, I couldn’t have been older than fifteen. Dad handed me my backpack. Mom kept wringing her hands together, worry evident on her face. Back then I could still live in a house during daylight hours like everybody else. Nights were the time for my mandatory exile. At age of sixteen, I was already a hardened veteran, I knew all the safe spots to sleep and which of the drunken regulars were good company, which were to be avoided at any cost. To this day I still don’t know how my parents managed to avoid getting on to collision course with the police and social services, seeing as I haven’t spent a single full night indoors since my birth. On my eighteenth birthday, it became clear to us all that my time with my parents had come to an end. Don’t get me wrong. I’d still see them regularly, as long as it happened outdoors. We’d meet wherever I happened to camp out, or they’d buy me dinner from one of the finer restaurants. They helped me financially to the best of their abilities; since formal training and full-time employment were impossible for me to achieve. Since then I have studied on my own and with help of several good friends. I have completed basic education and taken courses and deeper studies in several different fields. I freelance to several magazines here and there, small stories about firemen rescuing kittens and how the local school’s annual bake sale was once again a booming success. It’s not a grand life, but it’s a nice life. Only made possible with the support of my parents and friends. And lady luck when she let her fingers slide over that particular lotto ticket I bought to celebrate the sale of my first report to our local newspaper ten years back. To say that I am an unemployed drifter is a bit exaggerated. I do odd jobs here and there, just to keep myself occupied and on the map. My ultimate goal has always been to stay outdoors, but I’m no hermit or hobo.

So, here I was again, rake in my hands and a whole slew of gardening tools hanging from my belt. It was a nice and warm autumn morning. My current employer was sitting on the front porch of her tiny house, grooming her cat which was oddly enough named Snowball. Black as deepest night, eyes flashing yellow even in the bright summer sun. Abby once explained that her nephew’s son liked a cartoon that had a cat called Snowball in it and had wanted to name his nana's cat the same. Seeing how Abby adored the boy, she really had no say in the matter.

“Brunch is almost ready. Eggs, bacon, and rhubarb pie with cinnamon coffee. How do you want your eggs, Alexander?” Abby asked. She always asked.

“As long as it’s on a clean plate, I have no other preferences,” I answered like I always do. I kept waiting for a witty retort, Abby always had one in waiting, but not this time. She kept combing Snowball until the poor cat had only two options left, to flee or become bald at all too early age. It sauntered a bit reluctantly down the steps and disappeared under the porch. For the longest while, Abby sat on the wicker chair in silence, fiddling with the brush she had used on the cat, then cleared her throat.

“How’s ‘about you come into my kitchen to eat, Alex?” It was a question but spoken more like a command. Not once during these five years when I had tended Abby’s garden, had she asked me indoors. Abby Howart was one of the few who was privy to my unique situation. I checked my watch and set the alarm.

“As long as we keep it short. I had to go shopping before I came to you. I got an hour left,” I promised and put down the tools before I followed Abby.

True to her word Abby had the table set for two. Eggs, bacon, muffins, and gigantic rhubarb pie. The scent of Abby’s cinnamon coffee permeated the air in the minuscule but cozy kitchen. We sat, and Abby kept serving me extra helpings of everything until I was completely stuffed. We ate in silence. Not before we both sat sipping the coffee she spoke.

“I was wondering… You have always been an outdoorsman, haven’t you, Alex?” She asked carefully. I nodded. The scent of cinnamon was slowly thickening. It was to be expected. As was the small scraping sound I could hear coming from inside the walls surrounding us.

“Have you ever found somebody like you? …Sensitive, like you?” Abby asked. I shrugged my shoulders.

“I don’t talk about this with anybody. Not after I found out how easily you get labeled as a nutjob.” The scent of cinnamon was rising, but now I could smell the rot in the air as well. Slow decay. Scratching and scraping in the walls intensified.

“Have you ever studied your condition?” Abby asked.

“My parents tried. I don’t even remember how many doctors I saw before I turned ten. There’s really no physical or psychological reason, at least not one that could be detected or treated. It just is. Speaking of which… I need to go…” The alarm on my wristwatch went off. I had five minutes left. Noise coming from the walls, floors, and ceiling was deafening. The scent of cinnamon was buried under a thick and sticky cloud of rot and decay. Abby’s little home which every Hobbit would have envied was slowly gaining a new color and form, doorways and windows melting and bending, ceiling caving in, and walls blistering and boiling. Heavy red tint was flowing over my eyes. You’d think that once you’d gaze upon the deepest pits of Hell for your whole life, nothing would faze you. This surreal shift in scenery got me every time. Abby knew and understood, as did all my closest friends, so she thought nothing of my hasty retreat. She followed me to the garden where I sat breathing in the crisp autumn air.

“Could you come back tomorrow?” She asked. I tried to remember if I had something else scheduled already but came up with nothing.

“Okay…”

“Make sure you have enough time. I’m making pot roast!” She shouted after me when I practically fled from her garden to the crowded street. Her tiny house was looming behind her fragile form like an ancient beast, ready to devour her alive.

Rest of the day I spent wandering around. I wasn’t really doing anything, just winding slowly down from my latest brush with the Underworld. For Hell it had to be, those rotten and obscene scenes I got glimpses of if I spent too long of my time in closed spaces. There were no demons to speak of nor Devil. Just ordinary houses and household appliances deforming into strange shapes and materials, usually organic in origin, in an eternal state of decay. I have no way of knowing whether this transformation was a fact or fiction after all. It was real enough for my mind and body to react. I could smell, see and hear everything in sickening clarity. Curiously enough nobody else seemed to realize what was happening. I have seen whole families get eaten by a booth at McDonald's. I have seen a woman eating a cup full of squirming worms. I have seen a TV-set turning into a glowing eye in the darkened corner of my room all the while the doorway was growing teeth behind my back. At that time, I managed only narrowly escape through the second-floor window before hands growing from the wall pulled me into their cold embrace. Broke my ankle when I fell. As soon as my leg was contained in a sturdy cast I walked to a goldsmith and bought a wristwatch with an alarm as an option in it. As far as I know, no families have been reported missing. Nobody has complained about having to eat mealworms instead of cup-o-noodles. There was no giant teeth or retriever-sized eyeball in my house when I later dared to investigate. But it’s all real to me when it’s happening. As a child, growing up in the care of parents who encouraged me and tried their best to keep me safe and sane, all those strange occurrences were a constant norm to me. They were a source of nightmares, but no different than the unchanging environment to other children. At a young age, I thought it was normal to see the world around you shift and fluctuate. I didn’t know the difference before mom once sat me down in the kitchen, made some hot cocoa with marshmallows, and explained that I was special. That I had been given a gift at birth. That the world I saw around me at night wasn’t the same world other people saw. Naturally, I had many childish questions back then. A gift? Who gave me this gift? Would my benefactor feel insulted if I didn’t want this gift? When I saw a rotting head of a moose sticking out from my closet door, what did other people see? Since then I have learned not to question these visions of mine. They’re real for me. They can on occasion even hurt me. Closing my eyes delays the inevitable, but it doesn’t stop the world around me from evolving. Only the natural environment is constant. I have seen roads turning into rivers of blood. I prefer sleeping in forests or wide, open grassy fields. As a child, I once tried sleeping in our backyard. I… I prefer not to speak of that night. I still carry scars on my back, and I’m not sure if was it the tire swing hanging from the tree, or our picket fence that was the culprit. I carry my meager belongings in my pockets. What doesn’t fit me in any form or shape I discard or store in lockers either at the gym or swimming hall. I have a few of the lockers rented for life. For what I touch stays in normal state and shape. Of course, there’s a catch. The object must be smaller than me. If it’s bigger, it’s touching me instead of the other way around and will change

.

Since the siren’s call of Abby’s brunch had sapped the minutes I had left for indoors today there was nothing much to do. I walked around until I was calm enough. Then bought a hot dog from a vendor.