Zack caught himself, regained his upright (or was it upside down?) balance. A floating machete drifted past his head, the handle was a darkened color, far from normal. He gripped onto it and celebrated in finally having a weapon to defend himself with. It wasn't much. But Zack would go for anything he could get his hands on at this moment in time. The portals around him, his portals, all blinked three times. The four Main Mind Gates all blinked once, and Zack knew they were the ones that truly called for him. He thrust his weight forward, pulling himself toward the portals. His heart thudded in his chest, knowing the danger that might lurk beyond the swirling vortex. He reached the portal, hands steadying themselves on the edges of it. He gazed inside of it, the oceanic blue of it glowing in the whites of his eyes.
He plunged forward.
He awoke in a bed, the covers pulled up to his chin. The room around him was child like, a desk with a lamp and a few books that were no thicker then a pinky finger, sky blue walls painted with dog fighting planes and the occasional cloud. A single T.V. sat in the center of the room on a black table. Zack's skin tingled at the feel of the soft silk of the covers, it had been such a long time since he felt the warmth, the feeling of safety within such a childish thing. He smiled and thought that maybe everything had just been a dream, a horribly real dream, but still just a dream. Soon his alarm clock for school rang next to his bed and his jumped out of it, ready for school and the real world. He threw open his drawer and dug in it for the right clothing. He couldn't wait to see the girl he'd had a crush on, to see his friends all laughing and joking at lunch. To pass notes around in class while the teacher drone on and on about Columbus and his discovery of America. His mind kept flashing to the nightmare, always going back to the Mind Gates, but that was just his imagination, he-
A scream from the other side of the house echoed up the hall and into his small room. It was blood curdling, it sounded like a rabbits scream, high pitched and merciless to the ears. Zack's face went pale, almost powder white, and his legs felt like ten pound weights. He pushed himself up from the dresser, approached his door, opened it, and stepped down the stairs. He'd made it halfway down the stairs when the shadow of a monster and his father battling was projected onto the wall. The monster had long arms and plunged them deep down his fathers throat, that was enough to send Zack flying up the stairs, into his tiny room, and shut the door. He crawled under the covers of his head, relishing in the warmth and safety it gave him. The monster came trudging up the stairs, it's weight splintering the flimsy steps. He could hear other bumps following it's steps and thought, in a sadistic manner, that the bumps were the heads of his parnets, bouncing with each step and coming loose. The thought made him cringe and bury himself deeper in the covers. He brought his hands together and prayed for safety.
The door opened.
His room turned pitch black, the monster dragged his parnets' bodies over to the edge of his bed and plopped them in front of it. Their eyes stared into his, un-blinking. A fly buzzed into his mothers nose and Zack thought he would puke. Dried blood hung onto their chins and edges of their lips. The monster wrote onto the walls in their blood, it made a crimson cross, then a circle was drawn around it. The monster wrote something else, something in english, on the bottom of it's masterpiece. When it turned around and faced him, Zack shut his eyes tight. The monster gripped his parents heads, pulled back, and the sound of their spines cracking echoed into his ears. The monster slid under his bed bonelessly.
Zack peeked from under his covers, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. He could hear his heart in his ears thundering madly, sounding like a jack rabbit in the cold silence of his bedroom. After forty minutes his eyes adjusted to the dark and he saw what the monster had written. It chilled him to the bone, made his blood run ice cold through his veins, his heart skipped a beat.
I know you're awake
The creature's arms erupted from under his bed, attempted to grab onto his head. Zack fought with all of his might, pushing the monster away from him. He punched at the long black arms and succeeded in defending himself. For a moment at least. The long arms fled back under bed. He heard a low growl, and scrunched back under his covers, tears streaming down his eyes and glittering in the soft darkness. He heard the growl before anything else. The creature had snuck around to the other side of his puny bed and stared at him from the back. Saliva dripping off of it's forked black tongue. It slowly reached for him. Zack spun around in time to have the giant black hands wrap around his head and tear, he felt the skin twist in defiance, but he knew it was over. A flash in his vision and he was back to his real age, no longer a child. He had his machete and hope dawned in his pale eyes. He brought the machete down, using whatever strength he had left. The monster wailed in pain when it's arm severed, the end looking like a splintered branch. It fell back onto the bodies of his parents and he heard a blood curdling crunch of their bones cracking and breaking and splitting from the weight of the monster.
White blood sprayed onto the walls, onto him. He cringed away from the bleeding monster, still howling like a dying dog. Zack drew the machete back and aimed for the neck.
He succeeded.
The head lolled to the side when the machete dug itself in the jet black flesh. It's head twitched for a moment, then the wails stopped, and the head removed itself from it's throne. The monster had no eyes, only sockets, but Zack still felt the stare of it on him. He breathed a sigh of relief and turned around to see the bodies of his parents. They were caked in blood, the tails of their intestines hanging loosely over their groins. The change was quick, the intestines wrapped themselves slowly back into the stomachs, the eyes melted, the flesh flew away from bone, disappearing in the air. The bodies gathered themselves off the floor, the arms growing longer, the legs shorter. The features of their faces were melted by the eyes as if they were acidic. The hair fell out in handfuls and soon, they had lost all the features they had only moments before. The monsters lunged forward. Zack flinched back, narrowly escaping the hands. He tripped on a toy gun and his back was against the wall. In his fall, his hand had let loose of the machete and it skirted across the room. The two monsters watched him with intent fascination, savoring their luck. Zack could feel his heart beat, he could hear it. They slowly approached their prey, like hunters going for the deer that doesn't know it's dying. Zack licked his lips, and dived for the machete. The monsters let out a high pitch scream that made a drop of blood fall from Zack's ears, but he pushed forward and grabbed the handle of the machete. The first monster grabbed his leg and pulled him back to it. He cut it's hand (claw?) off and pulled himself up. The other lumbered toward him, punching at the air around his head. He was forced back against the blue wall. The monster, knowing this, ran forward, it's maw spread wide open. Zack closed his eyes and struck randomly outward. He felt a trickle of cold liquid collect around the handle of the machete. He opened his eyes and saw the opened mouth just inches from his face. The monster was dead, the blade had cut cleanly through it's heart. The other monster was recovering from the loss of it's left hand, it would only be a matter of seconds before it avenged it's fallen brother. Zack tried ripping the machete out, but something had caught onto the blade. He tried kicking the corpse off. No use. He began sawing the body in half. White blood poured from each cut onto his clothing. He sawed through flesh and bone, going through it completely and mercilessly. He'd made a sloppy cut and the body slipped off the blade. The second monster had just recovered and now strode towrads him. Zack ducked it's first punch, second, third, and buried the edge of the machete into the monsters side. It's siren like wail echoed through the house and it grabbed him by the shoulders. He hack twice more at it's body before it tossed him into the wall. He felt his back crack when he hit the wall, but it didn't feel like it was broken. The monster seemed angered by this, and tossed books at him from his desk. They hit with little force and Zack walked against the flowing tide of paper and plastic coveres. He reached the monster and brought the edge onto it's head with a sharp crack! and the monster's arms fell loose at it's sides, the legs went limp, and it's body hit the floor dully.
He stared at the corpses. They were gruesome, and the white blood plastering their faces made it worse. Zack threw up onto the carpeted floor. He stared into his bile, thinking about how he got here, everything that led up to this point, it all seemed so unreal. The first portal leading into his head, he'd been the only one who saw it. Why did his mind call him into it? He'd been asking himself this question for a long time. Now he just wanted to know. He swept a hand across his mouth, wiping away any bile that had attached itself to his stubble. Zack looked at the machete in his hand, it's grey steel blade was speckled in white blood, white as snow, white as a cloud. He looked up and saw what the monsters had truly been.
His daughter, her light blond hair (her mothers hair, Zack thought) was speckled in crimson instead of white. Her mouth was drawn forever in a scream of pain. Her eyes had rolled up in their sockets. She had been twelve when she died.
His son, his little boy, was the monster who'd thrown the books. He was missing his hand, and a big chunk of his head from the machete swipe. He had been eight.
And his wife, his beautiful wide, who gave her blond hair to their daughter. He soft features, those emerald green eyes that he'd falled in love with the day he saw her, all of it was covered in crimson. Her head faced him, the body was on the other side of the room. The eyes, like his daughter's, had rolled up in their sockets. The whiteness of the eye scared him more then the blood.
He realized everything. When he'd awoke, he hadn't fought another monster, he was in the body of his son. The monster had been him. He'd killed them all. It was him. He'd gone mad and-
But that's not quite it was it? He hadn't gone mad, he'd been perfectly sane. Why he'd done it was still a mystery to him, but he knew now. He'd never been crazy. He had meant to kill his wife, his daughter, his little boy.
Zack stared at the bodies for several minutes, his face was a wooden mask. It showed nothing. Then a tear ran down his cheek, dripping off of his chin, splashing onto the carpet. He broke into tears. His heart shattered at that moment, but his mind reformed. His hand tightened on the machete until the knuckles turned white.
All the blood began flowing toward the center of the room, the bodies deflated, becoming skeletons. All of their blood began spinning, spinning, spinning, in a crimson wheel. Each drop of blood called to him, singing to him. The room took on an iron smell. Zack didn't deny the portal, his legs moved forward, putting the feet up and putting them down. Each step drawing him closer to the crimson wheel. The wheel pulled him in the last few inches, taking him away from the room.
Away from his family.
