Delirium

More short storyage. If you've ever created something you loathed, this is for you.

I screamed as I clawed out of the dream's loathsome grasp. The sickly yellow glow of the streetlight shambled its way into the room as I crawled out of bed, my flesh creeping with the lingering horrors that still haunted me, assaulting my every sense, defying my ideals of everything that was true, just, pure and right. They were still there, the screaming, writhing shapes, chimeric and dreadful, reaching out of the darkness, consuming everything. They were still there, in the darkness behind the eyes where worlds collide.

I took a faltering step toward the desk, desperate to remain where I was, to try and find solace in the blissful oblivion of a dreamless sleep, yet compelled by an unseen force to continue, unwilling yet powerless.

I sat down and took the pencil and paper, the result of a frustrating and unsuccessful night's sketching. On a clean sheet, I began to draw. Furiously, expeditiously, I drew; rough, Ill-formed shapes at first, mere suggestions of their true, terrible forms. Slowly, they began to take on detail, and a further dimension. Even as I drew, they grew of their own volition, expanding, becoming more than just two-dimensional accretions of my liquid, swirling terror.

I froze, looking down in terror of what I had done. In a rush of frantic hope, I grabbed a cigarette lighter and set the hellish sheet ablaze and threw it in a trashcan. With trembling hand, I put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it. Suddenly as the cigarette's red glow materialised in the darkness, flames rushed up out of the bin consuming the atmosphere, leaving a haze of ashen, choking mist. A high-pitched shriek filled the room, teeming with hate, fear and loathing. I knew then that there was nothing that I could do. I knew that it was all over, and that it would be me that ended it.

I grabbed a bottle of whiskey off the desk and took a big pull on it. As the fire slid down my throat I hurled it at the wall, and, delirious with fear, remorse and disbelief, I kicked the trashcan at the shards of broken glass. The horrific flames caught on the liquid and began to burn even brighter.

The fire spread.

The cigarette dropped from my lips as the flames closed in on me, and the writhing, soulless umbra consumed me.

The last thing I heard was the screams. My God, the screams...

-T