There is a weird smell

The downpour had finally turned into a small fine rain, scattered. Through the gap in the doorway, she could see in the distance the faint light of a ray of sunshine. An incentive to get out of his hole. She was still indecisive about venturing outside.
Yet she had to go out. She could not remain cloistered in this room. It had been too long since she had taken refuge between these damp, inhospitable wooden walls. Two days, three days, maybe a week she had fled the disaster? She did not know anymore. She kept only the memory of cries, explosions, her chaotic race through rubbish, bodies burnt or slaughtered, homes destroyed.

And then, the fury of the carnage had given way to a deluge of dirty rain, as if soot fell from the sky. Thick, dark gray clouds had darkened the horizon and she had run straight ahead, without turning around, taking the time to orient herself despite pain, shortness of breath, panic. She struggled against the torrents of water that gave her the impression of drowning each time she breathed.
It was a pungent, thick rain that made him nauseous. Around her rose a fetid, indefinable odor, at once sweet, disgusting, and rancid, violent. She did not understand where the smell came from, which made her cough, hugged her, suffocated her. The more she sucked in the air, the more she choked on that nauseating smell.

Out of breath and strength, she had collapsed by stumbling on a log of wood. Her race had thrown her against the wall of a rather dilapidated hut, which would certainly offer her a momentary hiding place. In any case, she no longer had the courage to go further. Once barricaded in this summary shelter, she had curled up in a corner and had not moved, as if her immobility could erase the existence of the threat outside.

But the smell was still there, even stronger than outside. A weird smell that enveloped her, cut her off from any other sensation. Her nostrils dilated as if they were looking for their origin. She sniffed, swallowing her tears and snot at the same time. She breathed in fits and starts, between two sobs, two hiccups, trying to forget the violence, the broken bodies, the black blood, the flies; to silence the groans of the dying, the pounding of the footsteps of those who fled like her, the furious cries of the aggressors. But each memory was accompanied by this pestilential stench and the images she could not repress seemed to increase the intensity.

Overwhelmed by the putrid odor that squeezed her throat more surely than a hand strangling her, she screamed and collapsed, her nose on the dirt floor. Rain dripped under the door and soaked the ground. The damp, sticky earth was smearing his face. She wiped herself with the bottom of her shirt, spitting out the dirt that crept into her nostrils and mouth. The earth exhaled a sweet aroma of humus, wood, leaves ...

The downpour had finally turned into a small fine rain, scattered. Through the gap in the doorway, she could see in the distance the faint light of a ray of sunshine. An incentive to get out of his hole. She was still indecisive about venturing outside, but a little courage had returned to her. Outside, the light began to chase the shadows. She smelled the perfume of the earth, filled her lungs with fresh air, sketched a smile and realized that the smell that had assaulted her so far was only ... the smell of her fear. With an assured step, she crossed the threshold of the door ... And the smell lifted her heart, just as she saw the man lift the ax over his head.
It was no longer raining, and moist soil exhaled the hot and spicy fragrances of the earth after the storm. A small channel of blood mixed with a slight, indefinable odor. But, lying on the ground, her nose against the ground, she felt nothing.

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The chapel

I had never noticed this chapel. You had to dare to take that narrow path that climbed to the cliff. It was necessary to cross the hawthorn barriers and aggressive mulberry trees. Force yourself to face the sea wind stronger and stronger. Fight.
The sea was not far, one could feel his salt breath, his breath iodine, one could hear his throaty roar, his hoarse call.
Frightened seagulls circled the short gray arrow. A fine drizzle began to invade the sad moor. The little church was not very far, I hastened to take shelter under his porch. Ugly gargoyles spit me their venom. I leaned against the heavy door to escape their acid jets. It was then that I felt the door swing hard on the rust of its hinges. A grim grinding sounded and a smell of old wax caught me in the dark, icy nave. I stood petrified for a moment. The chapel was empty and seemed abandoned. Some of the messy priests seemed to receive only heavy, sticky dust. A single dark-colored stained glass window represented, it seemed to me, a frightful scene of medieval torture.
I was cautiously advancing towards the altar, which I could hardly see in the darkness. As I approached, I saw that he was covered with a thick black cloth. I could not repress a thrill.
Outside, the rain had turned into a roaring shower. The water was beating the walls and the roof of the building with so much force that one might have said it had been plunged like a wreck into the bottom of an unleashed ocean.
The night had arrived in advance. I bumped into an upturned chair that I struggled to put back. The clatter of feet squeaking on the slabs echoed in a thousand broken echoes on the vault. I felt guilty of making so much noise in a place that normally called for serenity. I held my breath to listen to the noise that had been multiplied gradually. At last, the silence returned, but it brought me more anguish than the noise.
Nothing. A complete and disturbing absence of life. Only the warrior song of the water of the sky that ravaged the neighborhood was screaming with truth. Everything else seemed a nightmare.
Yet from the bottom of a dark corner, I received a kind of complaint ...
The suffering of wood?
What was behind the enormous pillar?
I remained a forbidden moment, listening more attentively. A groan ? An exhortation?
In the thick shadow I could see the squat mass of a sculpted confessional. I approached cautiously, trying to pierce the disturbing darkness. It seemed to me that the groan was coming out of there. A bitter priest was to murmur his litanies ... The access to the confessional was closed by a wooden door. The voice had to come from the grid. A roar of thunder tapped in my heart, jostling him with the strength of a bull. This storm made me feel uncomfortable. I felt like I heard a chuckle from the bowels of the booth. Had I been startled? Was I observed?
I was attracted to the black lair, mysterious and scary, as one is drawn to the emptiness that scares us. The temptation to enter it was the same as that which impels us to sin. Resist only amplifies the desire to succumb.
I did not even have time to reason my fear, I was already bent on the used kneeling. An infamous odor was emerging from the central lodge. A monstrous plague of musty and dead animal rose to my nostrils. Something or someone scratched the wire mesh that separated me from the priest's cabin. What did I have to confess? I realized that my throat was nailed, my larynx paralyzed. It was then that a pale gleam emerged on the other side of the gate. Too weak to see but clear enough to emphasize, shriveled on itself, a human form ...
Or almost...
I did not have time to question what I foresaw. The shape had jumped on the grate, and long claws grabbed me by the hair. A strident howl escaped from an atrocious mouth and I felt myself die.
At that moment when I thought I was going to disappear, caught up in the black mystery of the chapel, devoured by a savage curse, an excessive chime echoed, piercing my eardrums with cruelty. At the same time, the being had sprung from his hiding place, standing before me in a blood-red halo! The deafening bells amplified their din, the walls of the chapel began to tremble. I was down. The monster dominated me with all its fury. I saw him with terror tear down his mouth wide open on me ...

My clock radio was right for my sleep at 7:15. I woke up swimming, breathless, ravaged. I watched with horror all around me: I was in my cozy little room. My programmed coffee maker was whistling, sending out jets of boiling steam. A delicious smell of coffee filled the room. A good breakfast and this horrible nightmare would be forgotten.
I rejected the blanket at the foot of the bed. I got up and sat down to find my slippers. My foot scoured the carpet.
As usual, I could not find my slippers. Sighing, I leaned over. Where my foot had touched the floor, the carpet was torn, slashed. Four long scars.
I looked with dismay.
What I saw tore my heart: going beyond the leg of my pajamas, this hairy horror was NOT MY foot!

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Retrouvailles

Black gnarled thorns grow visibly around the bed. The face hidden under the covers, motionless, I observe, with fright, the brambles wrap around the white metal bars of the headboard and rise above me, until forming a kind of cathedral monstrous, with thick stalks inextricably interwoven into each other. At the back of the room, moving shadows. Only the illumination of my bedside lamp allows me to escape the darkness and to watch the advance of the shadows. In my arms, the rag doll offered by mom for my six years reassures me. Fingertips, I feel the padded body and hair wool. My fingers are wriggling on the soft body of the doll and I feel, in the palm of my hand, a tenuous pulsation. The shadows are getting closer, that's for sure. Above me, from the cathedral of brambles flows a black and tarry substance that falls, in fine nets, on my sheets. Under my fingers, the palpitation is racing. I lift the sheet. Eyes sewn in wool, now flows a thick dark matter. I scream and wake up sweaty. The room is empty. I do not dare to get up, put a foot on the ground. Mom comes running, she heard me scream. She sits on the edge of the bed, comforts me, surrounds me while I lie down in my cozy bed. She promises to stay with me until I go back to sleep. She knows me customary nightmares.

I feel my eyelids heavy and, even if I struggle, while my mother caresses my blond curls, I end up sinking into a deep sleep. Mom is still there, on the edge of my bed, eyes of intense black. Behind her, I can see shadows with fuzzy outlines, barely visible, so light that they look like smoke. They stand just behind mom who remains impassive, her big black eyes turned to me. Other shadows arrive, rank behind the first and give them more thickness, material. Mom is now surrounded by a black and moving mass that melts on her without her moving or showing any emotion. The mass becomes opaque and I do not see the face of mom anymore. I scream with all my might, open my eyes. Mom jumps. She had stayed close to me and had finally fallen asleep. She sees my terror and reassures me, again. I observe it, scrutinize it from every angle. His eyes are of their usual hazel color. Her features are drawn, she is tired, but smiles tenderly. She caresses my cheek and invites me to lie down. I must sleep soon because sleep taraude. I beg her to let me sleep with her, in her bed.

She refuses because she knows full well that my father will oppose it. I explain that there are shadows under my bed that scare me and patiently wait for the right moment to catch us. She smiles and assures me that these are children's terrors of the most common and that there is nothing real in all this. Growing is also for each of us, overcome his own terrors night. She offers me to look under the bed if it can reassure me. I tell him I do not care. She sees that I am worried and want to persuade me of the baseness of my fear. She leans. I beg him to stop. She lies down on the floor, puts her head under the bed and does not move for a few seconds that seem very long. I call him. She does not answer. His body is frozen. Slowly, his body disappears under the bed. Unable to move, I can only see the horror of the situation. Mom's whole body is under the bed. Petrified, I sit, eyes wide open, all night. In the early morning, dad finds me like that. He takes me in his arms. I am mute and will remain so ever since. For a long time, Dad will look for mom in every corner of the house, in the garden, in the neighborhood, without success. The police officers, the psychologists that I met afterwards all agree that I attended a traumatic event, that I had to see my mother being kidnapped, perhaps killed, and that I am in a bad state. shock. Of course, they found no track, no footprint. I refuse to speak, to draw the scene as they ask me. Papa is infinitely sad, his big blue eyes are surrounded by black. He stays with me late into the night and often falls asleep beside me. After the intense dread lived the night of the disappearance of mom and the immense pain of his absence, my emotions dried up. I only feel the need to be in my room, where it all began, and the almost organic need to join Mom, as if I felt it still close, in a way.

In my bed, curled up under the sheets, I read tales by the light of the bedside lamp. My eyes are blinking. I rest the book and rub my eyelids. On the floor, in the luminous halo formed by the lamp, a shadow emerges from the space under the bed. She moves with great gentleness, stops for a moment, then resumes her graceful movement. I look at her without apprehension and ask her if it's her, if it's her. The shadow advances even more. I push back sheets and blanket, put my feet on the floor, kneel next to the shadow that grazes me. The shadow is nestling in the hollow of my small arms, caress my cheek. Miffed, I recognize mom. I lie on the floor, eyes closed with happiness, entwined by the shadow that covers me now and both we disappear, as if sucked by the floor, leaving behind us a faint glow in the dark room.

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The witch and the angels

Wild Cevennes. 1400. A middle-aged woman living alone. You can only go home after a long walk through the forest. We respect it, but we fear it. "Witch" is heard muttering. When we mention it, the villagers sign themselves. Maria. Nothing but his name seems to them a sacrilege. His very physique is inspired by the Devil. Busty, with long hair of fire. But the men pay her to sleep with her. Women pay for it to extract strange ointments for the skin. The children are fascinated by its beauty and its landmark filled with heterogeneous and odd objects. She welcomes all this little world with a flawless sweetness. Some people walk several days to meet her.
Indeed, she is also recognized for her "talents" and her discretion as an angel maker. Even the richest and most middle-class women use her services. Everyone knows it, everyone is silent. The older ones whisper the place of his hut to the younger ones. She had appeared one day, a few years ago, nobody knew where she came from, no one wanted to know.

Autumn, hide and seek the sun through the branches. Silence, except the steady sound of footsteps crunching on the thick carpet of dead leaves. An old lady holding hands, or rather trailing, a very young girl, even a little girl. The latter has a prominent belly. She cries noiselessly, she seems terrified. Maria is waiting outside, indecipherable look.
She guessed that a child would arrive today. She waited and was not mistaken. She knows the Old Woman. She has already brought her patients. Girls of joy most often. But here it's different, she knows it. Clotilde releases an aura of unbearable suffering. She became pregnant after a rape. That of his father. It is he who ordered the "thing" to be thrown away, or it would be the little one who would disappear. A father who is a rapist, but does not wish to have a job on his name. While the girl is only a few meters away, Maria frowns. The pregnancy is advanced; the operation is going to be tricky. Especially as the youth, and the narrowness of the child's pelvis are all factors of danger for his life. When the woman is newly pregnant, it is enough that it makes him absorb a light poison and that it inserts a thin pointed stick into the hole to trigger the bleeding. Except that the fetus must be at least six months, maybe seven. Maria will have to start delivery with a very strong infusion, and probably kill the viable infant right out of her mother's hot, bloody belly. She is furious that the Old Woman has not come before with the girl. She hates doing that.
She brings the two women back into her cottage and stretches out Clotilde. She takes her pulse, breathes her breath, observes the color of her eyes. She deftly feels the tense belly in order to take a mental note of the size and position of the fetus. He is not quite well placed yet and moves in an incredible way. Maria grunts outright, the operation seems more and more difficult. None of the other two women dare to talk to him, let alone question him about the reason for his grunts. To tell the truth, they are even afraid of her. But the touching hand is soft, and when the witch speaks to explain to the girl what she is going to do, it is in a calm and gentle voice. Clotilde relaxes and stops sniffing. All she understood was that this red-haired woman was going to get rid of the thing that stirred in her belly. And that is rather good news.

Maria gets up abruptly and spins into a tiny, dark, remote room, where her entire pharmacopoeia stands. In a few minutes, she selected what she wanted. She puts water to boil over the fire in a strange skin hide as she reduces the dried plants into a fine powder. She throws it into the bottle as soon as big bubbles blister the surface. The mixture gives off a strong and unpleasant odor. As soon as she has cooled down, she orders the child to drink it in one gulp. Clotilde succeeds not without repressing a gag. While waiting for the potion to take effect and start not only to cause contractions, but also to dilate the cervix, Maria makes the girl talk to relax her to the maximum. And probably to hide his own anguish. It is very rare that she is so anxious before operating. She trusts her gifts and most of the time makes fun of her patients. But this child touches her, she can not explain why, and it seems to her essential that she live. The little girl finally begins to shake, and grimaces of pain to twist her thin face. Maria examines her at regular intervals, measuring with her fingers the progress of the work. After several hours, it's time. The witch pierces the water pocket and asks La Vieille to press her entire weight on the girl's abdomen during the outbreaks. Time passes, the contractions are eroding, they are all glistening with sweat and Clotilde grows with excruciating cries of pain. We finally see the baby. But it's his shoulder that shows up, not his head. Maria spits her fingers into the gaping mouth of the vagina to try to turn the baby a little. In vain. She catches a wrought dagger, burns the blade quickly and incises. Blood flows. Clotilde screams. The old woman slaps her. Clotilde fainted, her belly twitching. The old woman shakes her like a plum tree to wake her up. Maria shouts to leave her alone, while she takes advantage of the looseness of the flesh to catch the fetus and pull it to her. A little blue being
finally appears in its entirety. She quickly breaks the umbilical cord with her teeth, smearing her face with blood, and pulls it to expel the placenta, which she drops to the ground before placing the baby motionless on it. The old woman takes it and undertakes to empty his mouth to make him breathe. The fire-haired woman loses patience and rebuffs her saying that it is useless to revive him because she will have to kill him, and that she should rather help him to bring back Clotilde. She washes it summarily before stitching it with a tendon filament that has been broken up beforehand. The girl moans without getting out of her fainting. She is white, emptied of too much blood. The old woman cradles a tiny and silent boy who has never shouted. Maria is almost as livid as the little one. She takes the pulse of the latter, which is extremely weak. The night has long since fallen. She did everything she could to save the child. Must wait.

In the morning Maria falls asleep on the ground holding the hand of a cadaver of a ten-year-old girl, as for the Old Woman and the baby, they are gone. A hunter will discover them both at the edge of a path a few days later, tight against each other. The infant's eyes were wide open. It seems that it means that his soul rode without having found peace.

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confidences

I have never had a lot of luck in my life. An alcoholic father, a schizophrenic mother, a tyrannical big brother. My father was beating me, my mother laughed for anything and did not care about my mouth all day long. She also had the phobia of my hair and always a pair of scissors on hand. My brother was constantly trying to scare me as soon as my back was turned or when I slept. And then, whenever he had the opportunity, he hit me with his big muscles big ass.

My dad was not better. With his fists he stroked my head as softly as a boxer and his punching bag. With his feet, he used it as a football. And he was a good penalty shooter. My mother had her favorite caress: scratch my skull with the tips of her pointed nails.

One day, I told my father that he drank too much. I almost died of an ethyl coma, because this bastard had stuck a neck in the back of my throat and had poured his liter of whiskey daily. One day, I had the misfortune to refuse that my mother cuts me the five millimeters of hair that had grown on my head during his psychiatric detention. She pulled them out with my teeth. One day, I refused to play with my brother. He forced me to play the ossicles. With my fingers.

And inevitably, all that, it leaves traces, sequels. Finally, at first I thought no, I thought I was out, because after my graduation I had the idea to set up a travel agency at discount prices. I must admit that after a difficult start, business took off.

Until I meet my girlfriend, Stephanie. Sculptural body, sharp intelligence, fusional love. We never did anything without each other. She loved traveling and for the holidays, sometimes for a single weekend, it was flying all over the world. The only thing that bothered me at home was her fucking craze. I did not like boxes, I never liked that. I ended up letting her go alone. She began to return at impossible times, drunk more, with the smell of alcohol and horny males. And every time I remonstrated with her, she laughed like a little fool. It ended up annoying me. To really annoy me. I think she took for all the crap that my damn family gave me. After another silly smile, I put all her passions together in one and sent her to boxes on the other side of the world.
It was a few months before I fell in love again. In the meantime I went to see a psychiatrist and was prescribed powerful sleeping pills to stop nightmares and hallucinations. I saw my mother, my father, my brother everywhere. It was horrible to see their charred bodies again. Fortunately that day I slept in college and I was not charged. I'm still wondering who was able to set their shit on fire.

I stayed a little shorter with my new girlfriend. Six months, I believe. I also met her at my travel agency. As in all love stories, at first it was going well. But she began to become strange: she was inventing all kinds of manias like being allowed to grow the nails of the hands, feet and varnish them in red like my mother. I do not like red. She was doing too much makeup, it looked like a whore. And then every week, she went to the hairdresser. I hate hairdressers. In addition, when she came back from these hair pullers, she laughed like an idiot. Yes, a real idiot. It ended up annoying me. To really annoy me. By extremely annoying me. I gagged her and put her still alive in a big box. In a magazine, I read that one could die laughing by brushing the feet of honey then licking them by a goat. I could not see myself buying a goat. But there were swarms of red ants in my cellar. And rats. Good fat rats. I do not remember how long she screamed, but I found it long, too long, and I was afraid the neighbors would hear it even though the nearest house is two or three hundred meters from the house. mine. I do not know why, I strangled her thinking about my mother. But the ants and rats had already had a good puff in the neck and his head remained in my hands. I immediately thought of my father and I shot in as in a football. Goal ! I did the Ola in my honor. Then I took her head and hit her so hard with my fists that her pretty face was nothing more than a mixture of skin, hair and brains mixed with clay. To relax, I played the ossicles with his fingers. It's funny, I took a monstrous pleasure.

I am choosing their destinations. Yes, I made several boxes with her body because I could still hear my mother's laughter inside, and I ended up cutting it with an ax and a saw.

Ah, I always hesitate: Borneo for his back, Cuba for his ass, Switzerland for his thighs. It should be over again, I have a lot of relations in the customs and from friends of the East who will buy me the organs.
To remove the genetic traces, I still have to contact my childhood friend Didier, a firefighter. It is really good to make believe that a fire is accidental. As before.

I can not wait for everything to be over, I can not wait to go back to the agency. In addition, I think I have the ticket with a beautiful little chick, single plus. A certain Stéphanie Duval. She looks a little like my mother, she has the same name as her, but I think this time I will manage to keep calm. Well, if she laughs a little bit too much, I'll just pull her tooth out, it'll calm her down and she'll understand that I do not like people to fool me.

I stopped seeing the shrink, but as he advised me I continue to write my journal. It helps me, it really helps me extract my dirty past from my soul. As the psychiatrist has often told me, I'm not responsible for anything ...

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Open me your door

It's been six months now that Alex could not sleep, or only a few hours here and there. And again, it was due to exhaustion or sleeping pills that he drank every night. Six months that he still did not understand why his wife had left without saying anything, leaving them alone, he and Lucas. Their son. He too lived it badly, very badly. The incessant nightmares punctuated her nights, their nights.
This night was no exception to the rule.
- Dad ! Dad !
That shrill voice screaming in terror, Alex heard it every day, every night, whenever night fell. The first few nights, Alex did not pay attention, but it became recurrent, he had finally found that Lucas howled at the same time. Not in the same time slot, no. At the same time ! To the minute. This could in no way be a coincidence. One night, in anger, Alex had destroyed his radio-alarm clock with his fist. He could not stand to see that hour that was showing off those big bright red numbers. In the shadows of his room, he had the impression that only these three figures existed.
Three, three, two.
Since then, even if he happened to see the time sometimes, he waited in the shadows that his son calls for help. A half-light to which he had not got used. She scared him. He had never realized how scary the night could be. The grinding of a door at the neighbors, a cracking wall, the roar of the refrigerator, no sound escaped him, not even the meowing of a stray cat and even less the howls of Lucas. Alex dreaded closing his eyes. Even one second. He did not want to see his son, the rest of his life, fly away. So that each night, he hastened to reassure his son of his presence.
- Dad ! Dad !
- Hush! Dad is here, champion. Alex whispered.
Lucas clung to his father, as if he was going to fall into the void. Alex could feel the terror his son was feeling. He was sweating profusely and his little heart was beating so hard it felt like it was ringing all over the house.
- He was still here, dad. At the window, I swear. Crying boy.
- It's still a nightmare, my boy. Look, the shutters are closed.
- No, I do not want to watch, dad.
- Okay that's good. Do not look. But I'm here now.
It was the same ritual every night. Lucas saw a shadow through his window. He could not perfectly distinguish the features of this individual, but he could see his eyes perfectly. Big yellow eyes and very white skin. This is how he represented it on these drawings that he sketched every day. Two big yellow eyes on a white face without lines and a black shadow, imposing, like wrapped in a big hooded parka. She was standing in front of her window, an observer, staring at him with that look to make a dead man pale. According to the child psychiatrist who followed him, this was how his son pictured his mother's abandonment: a threatening shadow. As the sessions progressed, the doctor explained to Alex that his son was imagining a kind of evil creature watching him and waiting for Lucas to look at him to make him disappear like his mother. He lived in utter denial and in his world it was impossible for his mother to abandon him.
- I love you, my dear. Hold on, we'll be fine. Alex whispered, a tear rolling on his cheek.
Lucas had fallen asleep, as always, huddled in his father's arms and waking up only in the early morning. Alex would have liked to take him to his bed and hug him tightly, but according to the doctor it would not help him overcome his fear. Then, with a tight heart, he did as every night. He put it back in his bed, bordered it and kissed him on the forehead. Then he left, still in the dim light, to return to his room. He persisted in not putting the light on, because he wanted at all costs to remember that it was night. He was trying to cope with his depression, to hold the dragee high so as not to abandon his child. He had become insomniac and not to sink into the abyss of dementia, he imposed complete darkness during the night so as not to compromise his circadian cycle.
Alex came into his room and pretended that he did not see those three luminous numbers that took up the whole surface of his wall and blinked like after a power failure.
Three, three, two.
He lay down and wrapped himself in his duvet. He tried to close his eyes, but he could not. Always this fear of losing his child. Then he looked in spite of himself at this blinking hour, reminding him of that famous night at three thirty-two minutes. That night when, waking up, thinking that he had heard screaming, he had discovered his empty bed. He had not worried too much, but not seeing his wife return to the room after half an hour, he had risen and thought he was dying when he found out that she was not in any room in the apartment. He had tried to reach her on his mobile phone, but he had stayed at home. Like all his stuff, by the way. His world had collapsed like a house of cards in a draft and now only held a thread ... Lucas. If he was not there, he would have already surrendered. Finally, the man was only strong with a woman by his side. Without her, Alex had the feeling of being useless and not being able to face fate. How long would he be able to stand up? How long can he protect his child? He was doing his best, but every day that passed, Alex was just rehearsing all their arguments. He had always thought that they were indispensable in a couple and that they allowed love to continue over time, as long as they were not too frequent. But this certainty was shaken that famous night at three thirty-two minutes. Since then he had been desperately searching for what could have caused her to flee in the middle of the night, without bringing anything with her and even giving up her child. He did not recognize the woman he had married the year before and who had shared his life for ten years.
Alex was out of his dreams and his heart racing as he heard those little feet drumming on the floor.
- Dad ! Dad ! Lucas shouted again.
This time, he was running fast in Alex's room, frightened as if he was being hunted down. He was suffocating, he had never seen his son so frightened. Alex got up and intercepted the little boy who jumped instantly into his arms.
- It's over, darling. It's finish. Do you want to sleep with dad?
- Yes Dad. Cried the little boy.
Alex lay down delicately in the bed, hugging his son tightly against him.
- Oh no, daddy! I left comforter alone! Lucas shouted.
- Calm down. It does not matter, we'll get it back tomorrow.
- No. No. No. Excited his son. We can not leave him alone! He will take a blankie with him.
- Nobody is going to take anyone, okay? Alex answered calmly.
- If dad, he'll take her away. Please, go get it. I think I made a mistake. Pleura Lucas.
- What? What do you mean ? Nonsense ?
- I think I opened the window.
- Do you think so, or are you sure?
- I do not know dad any more. Please, go get blankie.
- OKAY. I'll go see, but calm down. Do you know that windows or doors should not be opened in the middle of the night?
- Yes, I'm sorry, dad. I do not know why I did that.
- It does not matter, but you have to promise me not to do it again.
- It's promised, dad.
Alex had not yet cleared the door when his son called.
- Dad ! You can close the door when you leave.
- Good, Lucas. Stop Please.
- Please, dad.
- That's enough, I have it for thirty seconds. I come again.
Alex crossed the hallway between the two rooms, and when he entered Lucas's, he felt a shiver through his body. He had the impression that he was being watched. He turned his head in all directions, but saw nothing, not even those yellow eyes that opened behind him and disappeared immediately. The window was indeed open and he hastened to close it. He then fumbled with his son's bed and grabbed his comforter, a little blue bear with one eye missing and a nose that looked like an old fabric that would have gone through several centuries. Even in the dark, he knew it was him, because he had the smell that only his son seemed not to feel.
- Dad ! Help ! Let go of me ! Let go of me !
Alex's blood spun and he strode to his room. He banged against the wall in the hallway and found himself on the buttocks. A pain radiated his coccyx. Alex got up, put aside his obsession and looked for the switch, then turned it on.
The light burned his eyes, and his son's absence broke his heart.
- Dad !
The cry came from the living room. Alex turned around, fear intermingling with anger made his heart beat into his temples. He arrived in the living room and turned on the light, but his son was still not there.
- Lucas! Lucas! Alex shouted.
Like rising from the far end of a cave. Darkness, perhaps? His son's voice answered him like an echo.
- Dad ! Dad !
There was only the kitchen left, so he opened the door with a big shoulder, but saw nothing. He was nevertheless convinced of it. It was from there that he had heard the last cries of his son. His eyes were attracted by the door of the buffet, left open. Then, just ahead, he saw the little blue bear. It was impossible, unthinkable, he could not be there. He approached slowly, fear in his stomach. He felt his heart beating in his throat now.
- Lucas? Alex asked in an uncertain voice.
He stepped forward and crouched in front of the door, he put his head down.
- Dad ! shouted the little boy who popped out of the buffet.
Alex was surprised, but with a reflex, he clung to his son and was caught inside. It was suddenly cold and the silence that reigned here was deafening. He was plunged back into darkness, a darkness even darker than those he had known so far. He must have been in a nightmare. It could only be that, he thought.
- Lucas? Are you there, champion?
Alex could not see anything, he was groping his way. He did not recognize where he was. All his senses were on the alert in search of the least noise, the least smell. He was cautiously advancing in the maze of these paths, blind, guided by a kind of invisible aura. Instinct ? The sixth sense? In the distance, a ray of light appeared on the floor. There was surely a door. He hurried and started running.
- Lucas? Lucas?
After, what seemed like an eternity, he finally arrived at a door he did not wait to open. His mind failed to crack. He had trouble accepting what he saw.
- Dad ! You found us.
- Lucas, but ... I do not understand.
- Hi Alex. I missed you so much.
- Julie? It's not true ? Julie, it's really you? Oh my dear.
Alex ran to hug his wife and son. Then he kissed Julie passionately. She had missed him so much. At the touch of his lips, the breath that came out of his nose and seemed to run all over his body, he could not stop his tears from running.
- Where are we? He finally asks.
- I do not know, Alex. I'm stuck here since earlier. When Lucas started screaming.
- Since earlier ? It's been six months since you disappeared, darling.
- Six months ? Oh my God.
Julie put a hand to her mouth and repressed a sob, imagining her husband and son, alone, without news of her.
- Hush ... it's over, we're here now. Explain to me what happened. How did you get there? Alex asked.
Lucas started screaming. He looked scared, so I got up and went to see him. As the nights are hot this summer, he sleeps the open window. I closed it, because strangely, it was cool in his room. There I noticed that at the end of his room the door of his wardrobe was open. I approached to close it and when I arrived in front, I saw ...
- A white face with big yellow eyes? Alex asked, seeing his wife hesitate to describe what she had seen.
- How do you know ? Did you see it too?
- Not me.
- Oh no. Lucas. Julie cried, looking at her sleeping child on her lap.
She continued her story in pain, every word seemed to tear her flesh away. That sudden darkness, that thing, that monster, that creature that had paralyzed her with fear, her paws resting on her and caressing her entire body. Then, his flight. Long and endless. She had run, without stopping and turning when she was out of breath, she had landed there. In this light room. There was nothing here. Only light and a door leading into those dark corridors.
- Do not blame me Alex, but ...
- But what ?
- I knew that these corridors could lead me to you, but every time I tried to go ... I saw ... those eyes ... this ...
- It's good, I do not blame you. Do not blame yourself either, okay?
- I tried Alex ... I tried, but with every attempt ... I could not find a way out ... and ... and ... oh, my god. Julie cried, shuddering.
Julie began to cry unceasingly, her eyes closed. She winced in terror as she touched her body. Alex grabbed her hands and hugged her tightly. On his neck he saw what looked like scars. For having traveled his body with his eyes and hands for so many years, he knew she had none before he disappeared. He was so intrigued that he slowly cleared Julie's sweater collar and shuddered at the sight of her back.
- Julie. What happened, darling? Alex cried.
- She's ... this ... this thing. Every time I walked through this door to try to find you ... I always found myself in the dark ... in endless corridors ... no way ... no. I never found you ...
- We're here now. She tried to reassure her Alex.
- I was running as fast as possible ... I saw her in the distance ... her eyes Alex, they terrify me. They appear without warning and there, you feel her posing ...
Julie closed her eyes again, she began to tremble, as if she was hypothermic.
- Its paws. She continued. Then she tries to draw you to her. I resisted him and I was able to run away every time. But it was always the same pain, I felt that she lacerated my back with scalpels. I do not have the strength Alex anymore. Do something, please. Get out of this nightmare.
- I'll get out of here, darling. I promise you. But I'm going to ask you one last effort. We have to go back to these corridors.
- No Alex, I'm so scared. There is no way out here. I already tried.
- Yes, there is one. Believe me. I just got it. The night you disappeared, I remember that the door of Lucas's wardrobe was open. I closed it, that's probably why you did not find a way out. I closed it. I'm sorry, sweetheart.
- You could not have known. Julie kissed him.
- If my reasoning is the right one, then at the other end of these corridors there is a way out, because nobody at us has closed the door of the buffet.
Alex stood up and extended his hand to his wife to help him get back on his feet. He then woke up his son, who, from the height of his six years, seemed to be armed with unshakable courage. He told them that they had to hold hands as hard as they could and run without stopping until they saw light. It would look like a tiny window and they'll have to jump in without thinking when they see it.
They looked at each other in the eye and crossed the door towards the darkness. They did not wait and ran. Alex opened the march and with one hand extended forward he tried to guide his family to the exit, the rescue, and with his other hand, he felt that of his son, she seemed so thin and fragile. Julie, meanwhile, closed the march despite this fear of being lacerated back again. It was so cold, the air was humid. It smelled like mildew. They ran all three, losing breath, without turning around. Alex called his wife every ten seconds to make sure he was there. Lucas was starting to let go, he was exhausted. When they finally saw the light, a tiny window - as he had imagined - seemed to be drawing in the distance. Suddenly, halfway, a shadow slipped down the hall. They stopped breathless and frightened at seeing this pale face. Two big yellow eyes opened and the shadow went towards them, slowly, then faster and faster. The atmosphere gets colder again, so much so that they see condensation coming out of their mouths. Alex felt the little hand of his son clinging to his.
- Alex! We turn around! What are you waiting for ?
- No baby. We go for it.
- Have you gone mad? Julie worried.
- Trust me. We go for it and when we are up to it, Julie, you do not stop. You take Lucas in your arms and you go to the light.
- And you ?
- Do not worry about me. Do not think, he comes here. DARK! DARK!
They ran off, Julie stared at the exit and nothing else. She ran at a brisk pace. The exit approached more and more and this small window became bigger and bigger. She was now so big that she could throw herself inside and land with her son in her kitchen, in the light, at home, at last. Then she turned suddenly and stared at the door of the buffet. It was as if she was in apnea. Eyes wide open, she looked at this door hoping to see Alex come out. The seconds were slowly fading and the weather seemed suspended. Alex would not want her to take the risk of putting them in danger, he was probably telling him to close the door, but Julie could not do it. It was stronger than her. His gaze rested successively on this door, open on the darkness, and on his son. This gift of life that brings you joy and happiness. Then, Alex appeared, bloody, she helped him out of there.
- Close this door! Alex shouted.

One year later...
Several hundred kilometers away, Alex, Julie and Lucas had returned to normal life, or almost. They had left their apartment immediately after closing the door of the buffet. They would not have been able to stay in this place for another minute and decided to go far to rebuild their lives. There, where no one would judge them. There, where no one would stare at Julie wondering what had happened to her when she decided to leave in the middle of the night, abandoning her child. There, where no one would look at Alex with pity, wondering if it was his crazy woman who had slashed her face. There, where no one would speculate on Lucas's chances of escaping unhurt in this life, in this world. Nevertheless, they managed to lead an ordinary life ... the day only. For when night fell, before going to bed, they could not help remembering these horrible memories.
Lucas was brushing his teeth, and when he finished, he went to bed. The only piece of furniture in his room. There was no wardrobe or closet and not even a dresser. There was nothing that could open to darkness. The whole house was so, there was not a single piece of furniture with doors. It was simpler and more reassuring. Easier, because every night, Alex checked that all the doors of the house were closed. He had just gone around, and then every evening, he went to check a second time. Always in the same order, the front door first. He checked that it was tightly closed on all three locks. Then the door to the bathroom, then the bathroom and it would end up in the rooms after going through the kitchen. In the kitchen, he checked that the padlock on the refrigerator was securely closed and that the cooker door lock was in place, as well as the door of the microwave oven. Always the same ritual, an obsession. Then Alex joined Julie for the rest of the night.
3:32 ...
Like every night, even when he was sleeping, Alex could not help but wake up and get up at the same time. He made sure that his wife and child were still there, then went to check one last time that no door was open. Always in the same order. When he was in the living room, he felt a shudder that made him shiver with fear. The curtain of the French window waved slightly as when a summer breeze was coming to you. Only at home, that was impossible, because never again could they feel this pleasant sensation. Unless he forgot to close that door.
- No ! It's impossible ! thought Alex.
He walked to the French window slowly, his heart resonating in his throat. He had a bad feeling. He slowly put his hand down, then, relieved, he found that it was closed. Night had fallen quickly last night and he had not had time to shut the shutter. He had resolved to close only the curtains, not wanting to risk opening the window. Alex was sweating, he swallowed hard and caught himself smiling.
- You're stupid. He thought aloud.
He looked one last time through the window, as if to convince himself that there was absolutely nothing. That all this was playing out in his imagination forever perverted by this thing. He jumped suddenly and fear made him lose his balance. In front of him, standing against the window, stood the shadow and the face without features, without soul. She stared at him with her big yellow eyes and seemed to have interfered in her head. Alex could even hear him whisper.
- Open me your door !

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The dead man who was still walking

The dead man who was still walking

To live without looking, to live by excluding from its field of vision a whole portion of the world, the inhabitants of the villages which surrounded the accursed place had become accustomed to it. It happened, however, that their eyes betrayed them and went, in spite of themselves, towards the furnace, towards that frankness of hell that the invader had opened on their land. At night, the flames rose to the sky to lick the foolish clouds of this sad plain. They could still be seen, thrilling, thirty kilometers away, those flames. They never looked at them, or at least never to many. This common look would have called a comment, an exchange to which all refused. But when you were alone, urinating in a farmyard at nightfall, you could not help but take a look at this conflagration, as if to make sure that the sinister curse on the country was still effective. . In the morning, in the air frozen by the cold, the column of smoke rose straight, like a waving tube, to go to smoke up to the throne of God and show him that the devil, here, had taken control. Then the wind rose. That day, he came from the East and Karol Grzegorczyk understood that he had designated them as a target. This day would be theirs.
He hitched the mare under the black snow that had been falling on the region for several months without stopping. But you had to live, you had to breathe that air, you had to never look in the direction of the cursed place. Maja, the heavy mare, set to work with her habitual placidity. Behind the little plow, the land of Poland turned on its sinister fertilizer which, at once, began to cover it again. Here, fed by the ultimate crime of men, potatoes came out of the ground that his wife and daughter were eager to pick up and put in baskets. Three years earlier, this work was done by telling jokes, singing songs and even laughing, sometimes, while passing a jar of clear water. Three years earlier, it was not rushed, just back to the farm, to clean the precious tubers from their stain. Three years ago, and still today, it was hard to imagine for a moment that this lost, untrammeled corner of Treblinka would become such a sad day.
This morning of August 2nd, 1943, the sun shines on the horizon and the earth, watered the day before of a short shower, already smokes. The ashes are so thick that Karol put his handkerchief in front of his mouth. For two hours now, noises have been coming from the camp and have come to strike the surrounding countryside as one knocks on a door behind which all the consciences of men have been hidden. These are shots slamming in this early morning. These shots, even if they are not exceptional, seem today more numerous, different also. They look like a battle, but a battle is the most unlikely thing that can happen in hell. Over there, everyone knows, even if nobody talks about it, we decided to exhume and burn tens of thousands of corpses, bodies massively buried under Polish soil for more than one year. It seems that the wind of history is itself spinning and that the devil of Berlin, caught in a sudden fear or modesty, has decided to erase the traces of his unspeakable crime.
The sun rises in the sky and Karol removes her wool. The heat will not delay to overwhelm them as already overwhelms the darkness that flies all around them. His wife and daughter wave to him and call him. He stops Maja with a click of his tongue and she immediately submits. Hanna points to the direction of the camp. The detonations are less numerous, but it seems that this time, it is the whole complex that flames. But there is something else.
Karol puts his hand in visor. As pushed by the sun, a column of men comes to them. Hanna joined him and stuck to his side with Agnieszka, their daughter. His wife's hand squeezes his forearm. A few words, which fear has repainted in the same black as rain, come out of his mouth with difficulty.
- Let's go back quickly Karol! Let's go in ... something is happening. Something we should not see. Something that ...
- Yes, let's go home!

But they stay there, all three. Frozen by the spectacle that is offered to them.
They may be a thousand and they are moving right in their direction. They flee as if some force had banished them from hell. Karol, his wife and daughter, have now all three carried their hands in visor. All three, side by side, right leg forward, stand in slight imbalance on their ground broken by the plow. All three seem to pose for a photo that, if it had been taken, would have gone around the world for centuries. Agnieszka still holds a potato in his hand. She suddenly looks at her and seems to be wondering what to do with it. The basket is too far for her to throw it in. The column is approaching. Karol sees them better now. They are not men, but dead who walk towards them driven by the rising sun. They have no face, those who are bare-bones have only a thin cover of skin resting on their skeletal frames.
They are always moving forward. Agnieszka cries softly and Hanna shudders as if an icy wind had just risen. Karol now sees that some of these dead are carrying weapons. There is nothing scary about these weapons, they seem terrible burdens to all those bodies without muscles. They are almost on them now. The sun is still so low on the horizon, that it seems that this strange and frightful troop is preceded by another. This one lies on the ground and undulates on the plowed land. These shadows, Karol thinks, seem to want to tear themselves away from the control of their masters and flee faster than they do.
They are now all around them. They looted, like a flight of starlings plundering the sky, all the apples from the baskets. Some, almost without stopping, lean in a furrow on this earth, black ashes of their brothers. They then pick up one of these tubers forgotten by the Grzegorczyk, rub it on their legs and munch it raw. One of them, almost a child, suddenly crashes in front of Agnieszka that the stupor froze on an ultimate tear. Without a word, she gives him his potato that he puts in his pocket. He looks at her for a long time. He is only a look, his eyes have devoured his head. He stares at her as if it were her, not him, who seemed to come from another world. Finally, as if pushed by the collective consciousness of these beings, he leaves and loses himself among them.
All have passed and without ever having asked their bodies, the three have rotated and now look away. Maja herself turned around, before burning violently, as if to drive away this nightmare vision from her big animal head. This little army does not know where it is going, if it is not far from the flames. Tonight, almost everyone will have been caught and killed.
Agnieszka will die sixty-two years later, day to day, and even, almost, hour to hour. She will shake between her eyelids, just before the rocking, this image of a little dead man who was still alive.

On August 2nd, 1943, the deportees of the Treblinka camp revolt. They seize weapons and fight. A thousand of them escape and fifty will survive. To tell...

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When we discovered the net

When we discovered the net

When we discovered the net

Midnight! I had made good progress. I did not really want to sleep. So, like almost every night, I decided to go for a walk on the Internet. At the time, it was so amazing, innovative ...
Alas, there was not much interesting, I visited one or two sites and then began to get bored. Maybe someone had left me a message? I was going to consult my mailbox. Super, Xavier sent me a hello and a file to download!
I launched the download and was about to see the virtual show he promised me in his message. A little cigarette, download time and I settled comfortably in front of the screen smiling in advance of what I was going to discover.
Yes but that's it, impossible to open the file sent by Xavier. No software installed in my computer could read it, remember that we were at the beginning of the Net. I was trying through a video program, nothing to do, only a series of figures, letters and incomprehensible codes appeared on the screen.
I went into a program of image processing, nothing either, otherwise improbable sounds emitted by my computer that kept pointing out errors of misconfigurations and other barbaric terms that I did not understand anything.
By accident, I launched a word processor that managed to open the downloaded file, but still in a language of codes amphigouriques. I learned nevertheless that the file that Xavier had sent me was a sort of small virtual video staging our two children Eliot (his) and Fanny (mine) who were on vacation at his place. I was mad, it must have been nice to see. What a pity !
But I had no solution and it was late, so I decided to leave the program, and not to clutter my computer, to overwrite this unreadable file. To do this, I sent it to the trash of the computer. But by the time I clicked on the trash can icon to erase the file, I heard like a noise. Not a computer sound, not a funny little sound, almost a child's laugh. I listened, but everything seemed in order. I had to dream, it was probably a noise from the sleeping city, the TV neighbors or I do not know ...
I clicked on the icon in my trash again to erase the file. But at the same time, the little laugh came back.
Intrigued, I went to check by opening the window, to listen if it did not come from the street. But everything was calm and the cold of a silent night entered the apartment. Everyone was sleeping, it was time for me to do the same. After closing the window, I went back to my computer. Come on dodo everyone: the computer, the job and me!
But when I returned to my computer, an incredible shock shook my stomach, on the screen the icon of the basket was propelled by jolts in all directions, as if something inside wanted to leave!
Instinctively I closed my eyes to take back and control myself, but when I opened them again, the trash continued its incredible ride on the screen.
What was happening ? I grabbed my mouse and tried to click on the icon, without really knowing why, probably to stop it, to stop this ride.
But as the mouse pointer reached the trash. I heard a voice ... the voice of Eliot!
- Now, I'm screwing over. I want to go out and go to bed with a bottle of chocolate.
Febrile, I approached again the pointer of my mouse near the trash. It was Fanny now, who was talking to me, I was sure, I recognized her voice.
- Mom, we want to go out now! It's not funny anymore, to be there!
In spite of myself, I murmured in front of the screen.
- Fanny? It's you ?
- Yes mom. And we're tired of it! We want to get out of there!
- Where are you?
- In the file, Mom! In the file that Xavier sent you. He was laughing at his computer show, but now it's not funny at all. Eliot is tired, he wants to go home and me too.
What was happening seemed to me totally implausible. The virtual video sent by Xavier had finally started, but how could he have programmed Fanny's answers, how could he have foreseen my questions ?!
I was trying a new question.
- Eliot, do you hear me? If so, tell me peanut!
- Peanut Zabeth, but I want my bottle of chocolate.

Calm down, I had to stay calm, but my legs no longer supported me, and I could not hold back the uninterrupted tremor of my hands.
I tried to control myself, to reason. But that trashcan icon jiggling on the screen terrified me. I stood, stunned, in front of my computer, waiting for the rest, but nothing happened. Otherwise this basket that was moving in disorder and moans more and more agonizing of the two children.
- Mom, it's too small in there! I want to go back home.
Fanny's voice was not virtual, on the contrary, she was so present, so worried and tragic. I tried a new question to thwart Xavier's programming.
- 5 and 5, how's my chip?
- 10 Mom, but why do not you worry about getting us out?

Ten, she had answered ten! As Eliot had said peanut! Xavier could never have imagined that I ask these questions. Reality froze me with fright. It was absurd, impossible, foolish, but it was too late to try to doubt, one had to act.
The first thing to do was to remove this file from the trash to avoid any mishandling. I did not even dare to imagine what would happen if I erased it.
My hands were sweaty by moving the mouse cursor. It is not so hard to move a file, I did it every day, but there, I was sure, it was critical, vital!
I was trying to control my trembling hand, not to let go of the mouse before reaching the "open" option. It was important not to empty this basket. I did not understand what was happening, but, I was sure, if this file faded, a disaster would happen.
- Mom, do not be mistaken, whispered the voice of Fanny, who understood what I was doing.
I finally opened the folder of the trash, the file was there, apparently intact:

File: COUCOU.mim (2867009 bytes)
Download time (28800 bit / s): <27 minutes
This message is a multipart MIME message and will be saved with the default filename COUCOU.mim

Quickly take it out of the trash folder, put it back on the virtual desktop of the computer, relax and think.
It was impossible, Fanny and Eliot could not be in there, they could not be in the computer, it was impossible. But it was just as impossible for me to hear them speak on the computer, I did not know what to think. One solution, to forget the stupid and wicked ground of reason to deal only with the problem of the moment: to get them out of there! It was necessary to open this file, to view it and the problem would perhaps be solved, but I could not open this file. I wanted to cry, to break everything, to forget this nightmare, I would have liked not to have opened my e-mail, to have no modem, not to have a computer, not to know this bullshit of Internet, but it was too late. My two little loves were stuck behind the screen and they were counting on me to do something.
I heard Eliot's voice, which became more and more poignant, he was thirsty, he was hungry, he was fed up.
Tears in my eyes, I stared, incredulous my screen. I was desperate, I was scared, but it was too late to complain, I had to find a solution.
- Do not worry Eliot, I'll get you out of here soon.
I had stuck my mouth close to the screen, so I wanted to comfort him. His little voice, stifled by the glass of the screen, answered me gently, he wanted to wait a little longer, but he was hungry. In my head, a thousand questions swirled, I did not know how to open this file, I did not understand this computer of misfortune. It was one o'clock in the morning, I did not know who to call for help and anyway if I had known, who would have liked to believe me?
First of all, it was necessary to calm the children, to occupy them to have time to think and find a solution. A crazy idea passed me by the head, but to the point where I was, I could always try.
Fanny loved to play with her Yes-Yes CD-ROM, so if I opened it and moved it to the file where they were locked up, it might occupy them. In addition to the game of Yes-Yes, there is a space with ice cream and sweets, enough to allow them to forget time.
- Fanny?
- Yes mom !
It was awful to talk to this file, without seeing it, without touching it, but I tried not to let anything go wrong.
- Fanny, do you want to go to Yes-Yes while I prepare for your trip? Maybe I can take you there.
Of course, the answer was not long in coming, the children cried with joy, nodding. I pulled out Fanny's favorite CD-ROM, inserted it into the reader, the familiar little music started. I crossed my fingers as long as the manipulation worked!
- We hear him mom, but how do we go? Fanny asked me.
- Wait, I'll try to put your file in the program.
I was afraid, and if it was the mistake not to commit, the "manipulation" inconsiderate, and if I damaged their file! But all of a sudden I heard them.
" Thanks Mom ! Thank you, Zabeth, it's great. Oh look there there is Pumpkin, come quickly we'll say hello. "
I held back my tears and shouted at them to think of asking the merchant for a big ice cream, tonight they had the right to take what they wanted. Then I left them, to try to solve my problem.
Although I entered the computer help program, I found no solution. In any case, I never understand anything about aid programs. I did not dare open the Internet to ask for help from potential correspondents, I was too afraid of losing the children.
I could not do anything. I only got coded pages, monstrously incomprehensible to me. Proof of my helplessness.

Sometimes I heard a burst of laughter, a song of Oui-Oui echoed by Eliot and Fanny who gave me courage while I froze with fright. When, how, could I finally get out of there !!

Going back from Windows Explorer to MS-Dos Commands, with a detour via Microsoft Exchange, after a recording in HTLM format, a glimmer of hope came over me, the file appeared to be finally open in reading. And while the hourglass of the computer forced me to wait, I began to hope. Perhaps I had finally found the solution. I did not dare to say anything to the children, I was staring at the screen. I prayed to all the gods, all the saints, all the networks, all the Internet servers on the planet. It had to work. It was necessary to leave this nightmare.

As the hourglass of the computer turned and returned, I made all the promises of the world, I would stop smoking, I would never eat a crumb of chocolate, I would walk to Silicone Valley, I would not I would never do it again, I would do all this and more if it works, but do it, make it work.
Suddenly the blued screen, then seeming to fray, turned into a multitude of greyish multicolored stripes, a strident and continuous beep emerges at the same time as the cries of Fanny and Eliot. Unable to catch my breath, eyes haggard, staggering panic, I saw the screen darken. Silence comes at once, along with a flashing message on the screen:

FATAL ERROR - ALL NON-REGISTERED DATA WILL BE LOST - FATAL ERROR

Almost whispering, I called, throat knotted:
- Fanny? Fanny? You hear me ? Eliot? How is it going ?

Nothing. No answer, otherwise this message unbearable on the screen. I was paralyzed, I was shaking all my limbs, yet it was necessary to ensure, find something, get out of this madness, recover them.
Normally, when the computer displays this type of message, there is only one thing to do: disconnect the computer, count to 20 and open it again. But if I did that, what would happen to the file where Eliot and Fanny were locked up? What will happen to them? I must admit, I looked at the screen without daring to do anything, I screamed in pain, I ran away from the screen, I did not want to know anything, forget everything! It took me several minutes to recover and leave this crazy state of panic. I came back to my office, ordering me to calm down, I sat down again at the computer. I put my hand toward the stop button and closed my eyes by cutting off the power. The apartment was monstrously quiet again, without the breath of computer ventilation. I counted to 20, without cheating, neither too fast nor too slowly, then I pushed back the power button.
At first there was the usual sound of the fan, which starts up again, then the sound of the screen, which starts charging and lighting up. I remained tense, waiting to be able to intervene again, but at the moment when the screen became readable: HORROR! I screamed to burst my eardrums: they were there, both, crying, nose against the window of my screen: Eliot and Fanny, their two faces stretched towards me, imprisoned calling for help, me begging to get them out of there.
They were stuck in my computer!
I put my hands on the screen, but they felt nothing of my caresses and cried by calling me. I was terrified, I was ashamed. I was unable to save them.
A start made me react, all that was not possible, it was a dream, a horrible nightmare. Fanny was not at Xavier's, I was not fighting with the computer, I was dreaming. The proof, I had only to get up, go to Fanny's room, see her and wake up completely to get out of this foolish dream. I rushed to his room. I was going to see her in her bed, sleeping quietly, I would only have to kiss her to reassure me completely. I could then go back to bed, laughing at what I would say to his father tomorrow when he returned from Brussels. It must be said that he is used to my incredible nightmares and will probably not be more surprised than that!
I gently pushed the door of Fanny's room. But when I got to her bed, I had to fall back into the horrible reality, she was not in bed!
She was locked in the computer with Eliot.
On his bed dragged one of his favorite stuffed toys, I took it crying, what would become of them? What could I do?

That's when this incredible idea came to me. If I could not get them out of there, I only had to join them! I was going to scan myself, scan myself, to join them, then we would all three via the Internet find the server Xavier who could perhaps, him, save us. I quickly wrote a note that I put prominently on the table next to the computer. Then I started the scanner program and closed my eyes and put my head on it first.
It was not really unpleasant the heat of the scan lamp.

***

I do not know if people have understood the little word that I left, I do not know if they are many to look for us behind their screens. But what I do know is that all three of us have a hard time finding ourselves in this mess of paths and the Web. If only someone could direct us to: XAVGTET@compuserve.com, it's been so long now, maybe he changed email address ....

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I have a sister that my folks don't know about

I have a sister that my folks don't know about

I have a sister that my folks don't know about

Shirley persevered through a horrendous disease. It went ahead all of a sudden when she was just a young lady. One minute she was playing outside and the following she could scarcely stroll to the restroom. Her body was feeble and she was tormented with exhaustion. Her adoring mother dressed her in a robe and laid her in her bed.

She was kept to her desolate room, gazing unendingly at the backdrop and chipped roof. As time passed her muscles squandered away. Her hovering mother brought her dinners, for the most part soups and hot tea. Her dad could scarcely remain to see her. He was required for conveying the young lady to the restroom. He turned away his eyes and it went poorly by Shirley.

The room that was her jail was little and scantily outfitted. She was not permitted electronic gadgets as the screens could hurt her eyes. There was a plenty of books yet Shirley was seldom solid enough to hold them up to peruse. The vast majority of her time was spent resting or looking out the window. The window was somewhat high for her to see obviously out of however the sun was there. In the long run she developed to despise that glad sun, insulting her with brilliant summer days.

Shirley ached for camaraderie. Her mom dependably offered to remain yet Shirley had never been close with her. Rather, Shirley started to envision a young lady in indistinguishable bind from herself. A young lady caught in a bed. Her bed. Be that as it may, topsy turvy. This young lady was lying on the underside of Shirley's bed, enduring the dull and residue. She would make up little melodies about herself and the other young lady.

Myself and my sister in obscurity

Long to go play in the radiant stop

My dim sister would grin and grasp my hand

Furthermore, we'd never return to that room again

From underneath the fronts of her bed, Shirley started to have full discussions with her dim sister. She would spend the mornings weaving splendid stories and the evenings deploring over their urgent condition. One day her mom came into the room, a bowl of grain soup in her grasp.

"Who are you conversing with?" she asked, sitting on the seat alongside Shirley's bed.

"Gracious, nobody," Shirley answered, glad to have a mystery for herself.

Her mom put the bowl onto the bedside table. "OK like me to bolster you?"

"I think I feel ready to today." Shirley attempted to sit up. Her body was for the most part bones now.

"On the off chance that that is the thing that you need." Her mom got up and strolled to entryway, looking back once before shutting the entryway.

Shirley glared. "She's continually making me feel awful. Awful to have the capacity to get things done for myself. I wish I could simply show signs of improvement so she'd disregard me." She gradually connected a hand to attempt and handle the spoon when she heard something move underneath her bed.

She delayed, endeavoring to advise herself that she was distant from everyone else. In any case, when she glanced back at the bowl a dark thing (an arm?) came to up from underneath the quaint little inn it to the floor. Shirley's breath gotten in her throat.

After some fast thought, Shirley chosen that her psyche was playing traps on her and that it was unrealistic for somebody to live underneath her. At the point when her mom returned for the bowl she was vexed to discover the substance strewn over the floor.
"Shirley, on the off chance that you can't eat independent from anyone else, you need to give me a chance to encourage you!"

"I'm sad," she answered unobtrusively.

"I will get you more soup." She exited in disappointment.

Shirley sank profound into her bed, considering the circumstance. The onerously upbeat sunflower backdrop lingered over her. It felt as though it was coming nearer. Something stirred underneath her bed. She held her breath, endeavoring to tune in as deliberately as she could to the sounds. A delicate, relatively imperceptible breathing exuded from beneath.

Shirley's mom returned with a whirlwind of development. She took her average seat close to the quaint little inn the bowl of soup down. Without soliciting she pushed a spoonful from the hot fluid between Shirley's lips. Shirley choked and spit it out. Her mom glared.

"Eat the soup, Shirley."

"Mother, I believe there's something-"

"Simply swallow it and you can let me know after."

Shirley attempted to hold the flavorless fluid down. She was so tired of soups and stocks. What she wouldn't give for a steak or a ground sirloin sandwich. Her mom wiped her face and glared. She stroked Shirley's hair tragically. "What have you progressed toward becoming, little bloom?"

"Mother, I believe there's something under my bed."

"Just spilled soup. I'll get it." She twisted down and started to wipe up what survived of the soup.

"No! Something is truly down there!"

Her mom snickered. "You really are an infant once more, right? Will mom investigate and frighten away the awful beast?"

Shirley stewed in her displeasure. "Don't worry about it. I'll simply rest now."

"Great infant needs her snooze," her mom kidded. She shrieked a few kids' tune as she left, shutting the entryway behind her.

Shirley moaned the profound murmur of depression. She shut her eyes, endeavoring to rest.

Quietly, she felt something pull at her spreads. The covers gradually started to get off the bed. Shirley kept her eyes close, startled. As though egged on by her dread, the covers were tore from the bed savagely and Shirley lay revealed. She endeavored to make herself as little as could be expected under the circumstances. Circumspectly, she opened an eye.

Creeping up the finish of the bed was a young lady made generally of bones. She had pure black skin and white eyes. She moved as though in agony, pulling herself up and over. At the point when her hand contacted Shirley's leg she started to produce little rushes of smoke, similar to she was being singed. Shirley just felt a tremendous chilliness. The young lady crawled over Shirley, laying herself down. Her face was actually the equivalent as Shirley's.

"If it's not too much trouble released me," Shirley whispered, tears streaming.

The young lady looked into, additionally crying. Her tears were a delicate red. "Po… disregard… "

Shirley scowled at the voice, which sounded precisely like her own. "What?"

The young lady moved her jaw around as though she had never talked. "Mama… po… disregard… " Desperately she indicated the entryway. "Murder… Shirley… "

"Try not to hurt me," Shirley cried, squirming underneath the beast.

The beast put her head down. "Never… leaf… ing… "

Shirley did the main thing she could consider, she started to shout. The young lady's eyes developed vast and she moved off of Shirley and onto the ground, skittering underneath the bed. Shirley continued shouting until the point that her mom came in running.

She took a gander at the covers and Shirley's alarmed body. "What occurred, little bloom?"

"A beast! She lives underneath my bed!"

Her mom assembled the covers and lay them back on her girl. "I figure you may require something more to eat. I'll make you a crisp clump of chicken noodle."

"No, I'm not kidding. You need to get me out of here. She said she would slaughter me!"

"Shirley Hardie Jackson, you quit telling stories. I'll send your dad in to care for you while I make the soup." She shook her and swung to take off.

Shirley saw a dark arm connect from under the bed. It pointed at her mom. In a little voice it whispered, "Execute… Shirley. Mama… po… evade… "

As her mom shut the entryway Shirley started to get it. With this understanding came a flood of dread and sadness. She took a full breath and propelled herself up to a sitting position. Everything hurt. She made a sound as if to speak and asked unobtrusively, "Would you say you are endeavoring to state 'poison'?"

She heard snaps from underneath her. "Indeed! Truly! Poy Shun!"

Her dad ambled into the room, his eyes red as dim packs pulled them down. He remained in the entryway, not taking a gander at her. Shirley glared. "Do you know, father?"

"Realize what?" His voice was feeble. Fragile.

"Do you realize that my mom is harming me?"
He all of a sudden took a gander at his girl without precedent for months. The torment in his face was unfathomable. "She said it was just for a tad, so she could have her child back. She props disclosing to me she's up to stop."

"You need to get me out of here. She will execute me."

Her dad stopped for a second. Shirley envisioned the musings that twirled in his mind. His affection for his significant other, his failure to give her another infant, his mystery and his help of at long last being discovered. He strolled to her bedside. "Rapidly, before she understands."

He lifted Shirley from the informal lodging relentlessly out the entryway. Shirley thought back to see her dim sister, going after her, wishing to be spared also. "I'll return for you," she whispered, trusting the soul could hear her.

…

A long time later, after the preliminary and the restoration, Shirley reappeared her youth home. She could walk now however the toxin had done genuine harm to her muscles. When she moved it resembled a beast may move; off center and moderate. Her close relative was there with her, helping her experience the house to discover what she needed to keep and what she needed to dispose of.

As Shirley moved toward the way to her room she swung to her close relative. "I'd get a kick out of the chance to go inside alone if that is okay."

"Obviously, sweetie. I'll be ideal over here on the off chance that you require me."

Shirley opened the entryway and was promptly hailed by the sunflower backdrop. How often did she tally those blooms? How long were spent in anguish, caught in that room? She strolled to the overnight boardinghouse upon it. The sleeping pad was so recognizable. She skiped a bit, a grin gradually advancing toward her face.

"Is it accurate to say that you are here, sister?"

Just quiet reacted.

Resolute, Shirley swung her feet. She brought down one hand with the goal that it hung off the bed. The capacity to move openly was so unfamiliar to this room it squeaked in disarray. Delicately, Shirley started to sing.

Myself and my sister in obscurity

Long to go play in the bright stop

My dull sister would grin and grasp my hand

Also, we'd never return to that room again

A dull hand connected and took Shirley's, hanging on tight. Shirley couldn't contain her satisfaction. Her sister slithered out from underneath the bed, ready to move so substantially less demanding at this point. She stood, staring at Shirley. The grins reverberated on one another's countenances.

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A Spam Call !!

"Hello, is this Mr. Henderson?"

a Spam Call

There was no genuine purpose behind me to get the telephone. The spam application on my phone got out the puzzle number immediately. Be that as it may, heck, I thought. Screw it. There was nobody else left in life for me to converse with. Indeed, even an obligation authority sounded great right now.

My significant other was killed in 2015. There truly isn't a simple method to state that other than getting it off the beaten path early. It was an arbitrary theft turned out badly. One blustery night, some wiped out tweaking fuck snuck into our home and shot her.

The suspect was called, two days sometime soon, and condemned to life in jail. Despite everything he stays there today.

I have worked in web advancement from that point onward. The activity is remote, and the field takes into account my recluse like conduct around here in the forested areas of northern New Jersey. The absence of medication testing is extremely only an additional advantage. I was consummately allowed to fuck up the rest of my own life.

I don't have any companions, any longer. Not so much. Some of the time... I get it is anything but difficult to search for fellowship in all the wrong places.

"Senior or junior?" I answered to the woman with a murmur before subsiding into the easy chair in my office with a container of wine. It was drizzling that night. The breeze whipped the old pine tree in our back yard so hard I figured it may topple.

"Uhh... Senior," said the truly, quiet voice on the other line. She sounded well-known, however I faulted that idea for the half vacant jug of wine.

"Conciliatory sentiments, ma'am, however... Senior passed on six years prior." I stated, somewhat irritated at the absence of record keeping at this place.

She stopped.

"Gracious gosh... gosh that isn't what we have here. I am so sad, Sir. We didn't know. If it's not too much trouble pardon the interruption and presumption. OK mind delaying while I check my records?"

A file organizer clicked consistently out of sight as static crinkled. My figure was that the lady held the beneficiary to her shoulder. I laughed a bit at the absence of sound quality.

"No, no, no that is alright, no issue by any means. No stresses. For what reason don't you begin by disclosing to me your name?" I solicited, reviling myself for the clue from indecent being a tease toward the end.

She laughed. Something about that giggle was exceptionally commonplace. "My name is Emily, and I work with his charge card organization," she said in a practiced tone. "Shockingly, we can't uncover which firm via telephone on the off chance that you are not on the record... which uh... you just conceded yourself, of course..."

"Alright."

"I am speculating that you are Mr. Henderson's child," she muttered while perceptibly looking over papers.

"Truly ma'am, truth is stranger than fiction. In any case, it's been years... I couldn't in any way, shape or form be screwed over thanks to the elderly person's obligation, right?" I asked ideally.

"All things considered, how about we check, will we?" there was a terrified rearranging and opening of books out of sight. "I am so sad, Sir," she answered with a remorseful tone. "The principles are in one of those three-ring fasteners, and they are extremely hard to discover. If it's not too much trouble hold for a minute."

"That is alright... did not know despite everything anyone kept records that way... do I get an email affirmation of this charge too?" I inquired.

"Reason me?"

"Email... like... electronic mail. An affirmation of the charge?" I asked once more, enabling my disarray to swing to dissatisfaction. What was this present woman's concern?

"We don't do that here... still a couple of years from every one of those extravagant highlights," she proceeded. "In any case, as you most likely are aware, late installments are an entirely major issue. They can even influence the financial assessment of a person when an extensive sum has not been paid."

"Alright, OK, obviously," I stated, truly beginning to become stressed and somewhat bothered. "What would i be able to do?"

"Is there a Mrs. Henderson in the family?" she asked discreetly.

"Mrs. Henderson kicked the bucket in '06,"

"What year did you say? Goodness my gosh. That is so frightful. I truly am batting one thousand today."

I panted. That was it. That state. I don't know whether it was the manner in which she said it, or the way that basically not excessively numerous individuals utilized that correct dialect. Be that as it may, when she did... something clicked in my memory.

My better half worked for a Visa organization, before we met. Her name was likewise Emily. The voice seemed like hers... in any case, it was more youthful. More cheerful than I recollected.

"What is your last name?" I inquired.

The line was quiet.

"See, look, I realize that is an irregular inquiry. Be that as it may, it would be ideal if you I think we know one another."

"I can't give that data out..." she began

"Alright. Did you go to Jefferson Memorial High School?"

"Yes..." she stated, dumbfounded. "How could you realize that?"

It was unimaginable. Emily was dead. The voice on the telephone scarcely even seemed like her. It was more youthful, more joyful, more hopeful. This sort of dream was really the kind of thing that had kept me up a million restless evenings before. But, I was wakeful. Would it be able to be a fortuitous event?

"Is your mom's name Eva?"

There was quietness on the opposite end of the line. At that point her mouse-like answer affirmed my doubts
"Who is this?"

I took a full breath. It is possible that I comprehended what was occurring, or I lost my brain. Should appreciate the ride. "This next inquiry will sound abnormal. What is the present date?"

"I am sad, Sir... what..? One minute." She delayed and rearranged around some more papers.

"The present date is July ninth, 1999."

It was incomprehensible. Might it be able to be the tempest? The commemoration of her demise?

"Emily, hear me out."

"Alright, Sir, this discussion is getting somewhat bizarre... we should hold it to the installment plan..."

"Hear me out exceptionally carefully.... One day.... one day you will meet a man. You will love him, Emily. What's more, he will love you more than you ever know." I needed to give her something to recall. "On your first occasion together, he will get you one present for each of the twelve days of Christmas."

"Sounds fantastic," she answered with a snicker and a murmur. "Is it true that you are one of those mystics?"

"I am not kidding. You will wed this man, Emily. He will get you the ring you constantly needed. The function will be In an excellent one in the place where you grew up. Your whole family will be there, including Aunt Zelda and your grandmother from Tennessee.."

"I like this fortune treat," she said with trickling mockery.

"Yet, after two years, on July ninth, 2015, you will be killed in the home you share together."

She moved the telephone anxiously.

"So what do I do?"

To start with, I endeavored to advise her to evade the house that day. To never date me, to remain away perpetually and locate a superior life elsewhere. Be that as it may, some place amidst my tirade, the line separated to the tune of a blood coagulating shout. I got back to discover a non-working number. She never addressed again.

I nodded off tuning in to the thunder moving through the sky. The shout from that night rehashed every now and then while flashes of her body on the floor periodically attacked my brain. I never scrutinized the call. I never inquired as to why. Possibly it was God; perhaps it was simply time. However, yesterday morning, when I woke up...

Emily was close by.

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I've been haunted my whole life because of what happened to me 63 years ago and have never told any soul about it _ until now

I've been haunted my whole life because of what happened to me 63 years ago and have never told any soul about it _ until now

It's legitimate: I'm an elderly person.

For the last couple years, I've helped myself by saying I'm in my "mid 70s," however math is basic and unforgiving. Today is my 75th birthday celebration, and God, the years do fly.

I'm not here for your well wishes; this is not really a turning point I'm amped up for. I'm happy to at present be here, obviously, however I discover I have less and less to live for with each passing year. My bones hurt, my children live far away, and the opposite side of my bed has been vacant for a little more than eight months now. Truth be told, when I make my choice against that goddamned Trump this November, I may have nothing to live for by any means.

So extra me your "upbeat birthday events" and your congrats, in the event that you please. I'm here in light of the fact that I have a story for you, and it's one I've never told. I used to think I kept it inside on the grounds that it was senseless, or perhaps in light of the fact that no one would trust it. I've found, however, that the more established you develop, the all the more debilitating it moves toward becoming to mislead yourself. In case I'm as a rule flawlessly fair, I've never recounted anyone this story since it alarms me, nearly to death.

However, demise appears to be friendlier than it used to, so listen close.

It was 1950; the setting a residential community in Maine. I was a kid of nine, fairly little for my age, with just a single companion on the planet to talk about—and his family, apparently spontaneously, chose to move 2,000 miles away. It was turning out to be the most exceedingly bad summer of my life.

My pop wasn't anywhere near and my mother was an errand prostitute—kid, was I pleased with myself when I thought of that one—so I wasn't well-suited to stick around the house. With some delay, I chose general society library was the place to be that late spring. The library's accumulation of books, especially youngsters' books, was small most definitely. In any case, inside the dividers of that parsimonious structure, I would locate no fixed errands, no bothering mother (God rest her spirit), and maybe in particular, no other youngsters with whom I would be relied upon to relate. I was the main child with a low enough societal position to spend his valuable long stretches of opportunity sulking in the midst of the bookshelves, and that was okay with me.

The main portion of my mid year was much more loathsome than I had envisioned it would be. I would rest in until 10, do my tasks, and after that ride my bicycle to the library (and by bicycle, I mean corroded log of poo connected to a couple of wheels). Once there, I would part my time between accidentally irritating the elderly supporters and intentionally doing as such. One wonderful woman really intruded on my unremitting tongue-clicking to murmur a "quiets the fuck down!" at me—the first occasion when I at any point heard an adult utilize The F Word. Enormous fuckin' bargain, I know, yet in those days it was incredible.
The dismal days swung to woeful weeks. I had really started appealing to God for school to begin once more—until the point when I found the storm cellar. I could have sworn I'd meandered every last trace of that library, however one day, in the far corner behind the remote dialect accumulation I unearthed a little wooden entryway I had never observed. That was the place everything started.

The entryway was austere and produced using oak that looked far more established than the divider in which it rested. It had a handle of dark metal that truly looked antiquated—I wouldn't have been amazed to learn it was made in the seventeenth century. Engraved on the handle was what seemed, by all accounts, to be a solitary impression. I had the feeling that whatever lay past this entryway was illegal to me, and along these lines likely the most fascinating thing I would experience all mid year. I immediately looked around to ensure no one was watching me, at that point turned the overwhelming handle, slipped behind the entryway, and close it.

There was nothing; just obscurity. I made a few strides and afterward halted, scared by the totality of the shadow which encompassed me. I waved my hands before me trying to discover a divider or a rack or anything to clutch. What I really found was unquestionably inconspicuous—a little string, dangling from above—yet unmistakably helpful. I snatched it immovably and pulled it down.

Once upon a time, loads of lights were worked with strings, and this was one of them. My surroundings were in a split second enlightened. I was remaining on a little, dusty stage that looked as if it hadn't seen life in a long while. To one side was a crickety-ass winding staircase, made of wood and seeming prepared to fall at any second. The globule was the main wellspring of light in the room, and it was weak, so when I looked over the railing to perceive what lay underneath, the base of the staircase disintegrated into the dimness.

I was starting to feel terrified. This place—wherever I was—appeared to have no business in a town library. It was as if I were in a totally extraordinary building. Be that as it may, no nine-year-old likes to release a riddle unsolved. Thinking back, I wish I could advise my prepubescent self to pivot, return, do whatever else other than slipping that staircase. "You'll be saved a great deal of restless evenings," I'd state. However, obviously, I didn't realize that at that point—and I might not have listened regardless of whether I had. So as opposed to turning back, I took a full breath, grasped the railing, and glared undauntedly forward as I started my plunge.

The wood on the railing was dry and secured with fragments. I instantly let go, holding my hands out for equalization as I deliberately navigated the staircase. It was (or if nothing else appeared) long, and with just the diminish gleam from the string-globule far above me, my heart beat hardheartedly in the dimness. Indeed, even children can detect when something isn't right, I think—they simply don't generally care at all.

When my feet achieved the bond floor at the base, the light from the knob above was practically a memory. In any case, there was another light source, and God, I'll always remember it. Straightforwardly before me was an entryway, gigantic, and a profound shade of red. The light was originating from behind the entryway, and it shone out in thin lines from each of the four sides—a vile, faintly shining square shape. For the second time, I took a full breath and experienced an entryway I shouldn't have.

Rather than the wet room I entered from, the room behind the entryway was blinding. At the point when my eyes balanced, what I saw almost blew my mind.
It was a library. The absolute best library possible.

I expanded in ponder as I ventured, respectfully, advance into the room. It was excellent. It was littler than the library above, significantly littler, yet it was by all accounts nearly customized for me. The racks were stuffed with splendidly hued titles, the two easy chairs amidst the room were flawlessly agreeable, and the smell—my God, the smell—was basically mind blowing. Kind of a blend of citrus and pine. I basically can't do it equity with words, so I'll get the job done it to state that I've never smelled anything better. Not in my 75 years.

What was this room? Why had I never known about it? For what reason was no one else here? Those were the inquiries I ought to have been inquiring. Be that as it may, I was inebriated. As I looked around at all the books and lounged in the smell of heaven, I could just frame one idea: I will never be exhausted again.

In truth, weariness just avoided me for a long time. It was on my twelfth birthday, 63 years back right up 'til today, that everything changed.

Prior to that day, I visited my storm cellar haven as frequently as possible—generally a few times each week. I never observed another spirit down there, yet unusually stayed free of doubt. I never expelled a book from that room, however rather would get a specific volume wherever I had quit perusing amid my past visit. I sat, dependably in a similar profound purple easy chair, and continually leaving its twin desolate and straightforwardly opposite myself. That easy chair was mine, the other was—well, I guess I couldn't have explained it then much superior to anything I can now. However, it wasn't mine, that is for damn beyond any doubt.

On my twelfth birthday, I arrived later than normal. My mother had welcomed two or three cohorts and a few cousins over to our home to commend, a signal which I discovered more repetitive than contacting—extremely, I simply needed to spend my birthday sitting and perusing and smelling heaven. In the long run, our visitors went home, and I made it to the library around fifteen minutes previously shutting time. That didn't make a difference; the laborers never checked down there they bolted up. I was allowed to remain as late as I wished. This specific night, I was eating up the last parts of an epic experience; knights, swords, mythical serpents, and so forth. I didn't smell it until the point that I read the last words and shut the book.

The once stunning fragrance of that room had gone bad. I sat for a minute, agitated. Dispassionately, I could perceive that the smell was really the equivalent as it had been previously—that blend of citrus and pine. I simply saw it in an unexpected way, and I didn't care for it any longer. It was the nasal rendition of an optical dream; you know, the one that resembles a young lady looking in reverse, yet out of the blue you see that it's extremely an elderly person looking toward you? You can't unsee that, and I couldn't unsmell this. The spell was broken.

The scent likewise appeared, out of the blue, to originate from some place particular. With a decent lot of anxiety, I stalked around the room, sniffing the air like a crazed canine until the point that I went to a rack close to the back. The rack was impeccably ordinary, except for one title—a substantial, leatherbound front of strong blurred maroon, with one striking dark impression at the highest point of the spine. This was the wellspring of the smell. I opened the title page, and saw one sentence scribbled conveniently in dark red ink on the principal page:

Rest your distresses down, companion, and abandon them where they lie.

I gazed at this sentence, entranced, as I started to withdraw to my seat. I turned a page. Clear. The smell ended up more grounded. Another page, clear, and the smell became more grounded still. I ceased for a minute, stifled a stifler, and kept strolling. At that point, as I neared the rockers, I turned one last page—and there, in the equivalent evil print, was the exact opposite thing I anticipated that would see: my very own name. I dropped the book. I started to dash toward the entryway, however as I moved my look forward, my heart jumped to my throat and I ceased in my tracks.

The unfilled seat wasn't void any longer.

A matured man in a suit sat before me, one leg traversed the other, examining me with puncturing dark eyes and a light smile. This was very much. I tumbled to my knees and removed the substance of my stomach onto the cover. I wiped my mouth, gazing at my regurgitation, when I heard the man let out a laugh.

I gazed at him disbelievingly. "Who are you?" I asked, freeze in my voice.

The man jumped to his feet, got me tenderly by the shoulders, and helped me to my seat. He sat, by and by, in his own. "I fear we got off to an awful begin," he stated, looking at the heap of wiped out on the cover. "The smell . . . it takes some becoming accustomed to."
"Who are you?" I rehashed.

"Today around evening time, you will know hardship like you've at no other time known," he said. "I come as a companion, offering you shelter from it, and from every other tempest which lie ahead."

I didn't need anything more than to leave right then and there, yet I stayed situated. I asked him what he was discussing.

"Your mom is dead, my kid. By her very own hand, in her kitchen. The scene is frightful, I should concede," he said in sad tones, yet was there a lively flicker in his eye? "Without a doubt you wish to maintain a strategic distance from this way. I can demonstrate to you a more secure one."

My blood ran chilly at the abhorrences this man talked about, however I didn't trust him. "What do you need with me?" I requested, endeavoring to sound more daring than I felt. He giggled, an old, rough howl that appeared to shake him to his bones.

"Only your fellowship, dear kid," he said. At that point, detecting I discovered his answer lacking, he clarified. "I need you to come on an adventure with me. My work is honorable and you will make a fine understudy. Also, perhaps, when I'm set"— he murmured tiredly, running his hard fingers through his thin white hair—"possibly at that point, my work can be yours."

I stood up, rearranging toward the entryway yet never breaking his look. "You're insane," I let him know. "My mother isn't dead. She's definitely not."

"See with your own eyes, in the event that you should," he stated, motioning toward the entryway. I tossed him a scornful glare and dashed for the exit. As my hand shut around the handle, he said my name delicately. Notwithstanding myself, I pivoted.

"Your street won't be simple, companion. In the event that it ever turns out to be excessively for you, and I mean ever," he stated, delaying to clear his hand over the room, "you know where to discover me."

I pummeled the entryway behind me and took the incapacitated stairs two at any given moment. I left the library, scrambled onto my bicycle, and high-followed it home. The front entryway was totally open. I got off, leaving my bicycle in a stack on the ground, and moved toward the house warily. The elderly person was lying—he probably been. All things considered, tears started to sting my eyes. Heart beating, I ventured inside and required my mom. I heard no answer, so I transformed into the kitchen.

Right up 'til the present time, I don't know why she did it.

I've lived in that residential area in Maine my whole life, despite the fact that I've kept for the most part clear of the general population library. Once, in my late 20s, I brought the mettle to venture inside. Life was great around then, and my dread had started to transform into inactive interest. Where the way to my storm cellar haven once stood was just a clear divider. I solicited the bookkeeper what had moved toward becoming from that storm cellar, however in my heart I knew the appropriate response. There was no cellar, she said. There had never been a storm cellar. Truth be told, on the off chance that she had her actualities effectively, city zoning statutes precluded a storm cellar in the territory.

I've been spooky by that wiped out sweet smell, that noxious mix of citrus and pine, as far back as that long prior birthday. When I saw my mom in the kitchen that day, crumbled in her very own pool blood, I smelled it. At the point when a man professing to be my dad thumped on my school flat entryway, beseeched me for cash and beat me to inside an inch of my life when I cannot, I smelled it. At the point when my significant other prematurely delivered our second tyke, I smelled it, and again when she lost our fourth. At the point when our most seasoned child got in the driver's seat of the family Buick totally shitfaced and got his better half slaughtered, I smelled it.

I started to smell it intermittently as my significant other wound up wiped out. She passed on toward the end of last year, and now, only i'm without precedent for the greater part a century. Presently, I smell it consistently, and it feels like a welcome.

A couple of months prior, I returned to the library and the little oak entryway with the old handle was there—right where it used to be. My night walk has brought me past that library consistently since, yet I haven't gone inside. Possibly today around evening time I will. I'm scared to kick the bucket, truly, yet recently I'm much more alarmed to continue living. The elderly person was correct—my street hasn't been simple, and I question it will get any less demanding.

Rest your distresses down, companion, and abandon them where they lie.

He guaranteed alleviation. An asylum, he said. Is it safe to say that he was appropriate about that as well? There's solitary one approach to discover. All things considered, regardless I know where to discover him.

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