Submitted by a nameless person on April 12th, 2001
I’m sure you will have noticed that I did not include my name as you ask. The reason will be obvious when you read my story. I hope it doesn’t make you think this is a prank or something, I promise it is real. But for now I’ll just start at the beginning.
I woke up on March first the same way I do every morning. It was a Thursday, so obviously I got ready to go to work. I work a retail job, I don’t really want to say what kind. But anyway it was a normal shift, as mind numbing as ever. That was until the end of my shift. There was this man who checked out, just a pretty normal older man. He was nice, he called me sweetheart, which made me wince, but overall I deal with much worse. The thing is though, I couldn’t stop staring at him. From the moment I saw him until the moment he left the store I was so focused on him to the point I kept messing up while helping other people. I do tend to daydream a lot, something I have gotten in trouble for on more than one occasion, but never like this. There really wasn’t anything about him to draw my eye, he looked normal, he was dressed how most people his age dressed. It freaked me out, but luckily my shift was done at pretty much that exact time.
I don’t have a car. It’s a long story, but luckily I live close to my job so I can walk just fine. I got off work at six that day, and I live about a ten minute walk away. Sometimes I do take my time a bit and it takes a little longer, but never too much. So when I got home and my clock said it was seven thirty it freaked me out more than a little. I remembered walking home, but part of me wondered if maybe my brain was just filling it in. I had done the walk so many times I barely had to think about the path anymore. I spent the rest of the night just trying to distract myself.
The next day I worked again. I kept catching myself gazing towards the door, waiting for that man to come back. I know how it sounds, and even though I don’t know much about what was going on in my head during that time I somehow knew it wasn’t a romantic thing. It felt like inspiration. I write poetry, not professionally by an means, but just in my free time. Every now and then I would see something that would just give me that flash of inspiration. Usually it was stuff in nature, or what little nature there was in the city I live in. I realized that this felt the same, but stronger. Usually when inspiration strikes I make note of it and I move on. I think about it, dream about what I want to write, but it never weighs on me this much. When my shift was done I started walking home again. I tried my best to focus on my surroundings, to make absolutely sure I was going the right way. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough. Or maybe I never really stood a chance. Either way, before long I found myself in front of a house I had never seen before. This was not where I had been walking, it wasn’t even on the way to my house. But here I was, standing on the sidewalk outside this house, gazing through the window with a feeling that this was exactly where I should be in that moment.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, but it was the man’s house. I saw him eating dinner with who I assume was his wife. They looked happy, that sort of happiness you see in old people who are getting sicker and sicker and yet are still happy to just be with each other. The house looked bright and warm, though I can’t say I was the biggest fan of the decorating style. Taxidermy lined several shelves, mostly small creatures such as ducks and squirrels. He must’ve done them himself, no sane person would buy that many critters to line their shelves. And this man seemed perfectly sane and normal. Perfectly, remarkably, average.
It took me a while, but I figured out where I was and made my way home. I was shaking so much by the time I was inside my door that I just fell on the floor and laid there for a while. The only solace I had was that I didn’t work for the next few days. I had two days to figure out what to do about whatever was happening to me. That’s what I told myself. And yet, when I woke up the next day standing over the sleeping form of the man, I couldn’t find it in myself to be surprised.
Have you ever been on pain medication, in that sort of hazy state of falling in and out of consciousness? That is how I spent my day. I don’t know where the wife was, whether she was running errands or what, but in my waking moments I knew that my work would go undisturbed. I found I wasn’t scared by what I probably should’ve been. The blood didn’t scare me, or his lifeless eyes staring at me accusingly. I wasn’t scared when I saw him cut open in his own workshop, tools and various taxidermy supplies at hand. I wasn’t scared when I sat him at the dining room table, his now glass eyes staring ahead, his stiff limbs unmoving at his sides. I suppose that’s not true, I was scared for all of that, but it wasn’t any of those things that scared me. What scared me was how good I was at it. The cutting, the breaking, the sewing, even the disposal of the oozing internals and accusing eyes that I had taken from him. It wasn’t the work of someone who had never done this sort of thing before. It wasn’t the work of me. I woke up the next morning with my hands stained red. I thought that perhaps I hadn’t removed all the blood, but no. Whatever had moved my body was too good at what it did for that. No, it was paint on my hands. Red paint staining my skin as if to mock me.
I tried turning myself in, but halfway through walking to the station or putting the number into my phone I would wake up in bed. I killed six more people that month. Two were also customers. One was my dentist. It astounds me that I haven’t been caught. Maybe I can’t be. Maybe that’s part of my curse. I stopped resisting before long, just let the inspiration lead me. After the second kill the paint wouldn’t even wash off anymore. I think a coworker asked me about it. I don’t remember what excuse I gave. And then I woke up on the first of this month, and for the first time in what felt like forever my hands were clean. It took a while before I believed that it was really over. I don’t know if I will ever believe it completely. But whether you believe me or not, I thought maybe if I told you my story and you published it then maybe it could help someone else going through the same thing.
I don’t write my poems anymore. I suppose I’m all out of inspiration.
Addendum
This is quite clearly linked to PS-S053683, that much is beyond question. This does make me wonder if there is a link between a predisposition towards artistic pursuits and getting chosen for possession. Could be worth looking into. As things are, I see no reason to hunt this individual down. The Gallery is done with them.
A█████ ██████,
Lead Analyst
Mod Discussion
Madeline_Brante: This is the first report I found in my apartment, as mentioned in my own. I’m not sure what to make of it. A few weeks ago I would never have believed it, but now it would feel silly not to. This at least establishes that stuff like this has been happening for quite a while, and that we are not the first people to try to get people to share their stories about this sort of thing. I wonder what happened to whoever was originally given this story.
The addendum stands out. It is clearly written by a third party, and they seem to know a whole lot more than myself or the original author. If I can find them maybe I can learn more. Maybe they’re the one leaving these here? What I assume would be their name is covered by the burns I mention in my first report. I’ve replaced them with censor bars since that is what the others see, and since it is far easier to portray on this website. Anyway, I’ve already received several more reports like this one, I will upload them when I am able.