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I never meant for this to take on a sinister feel, no not really, but when you write your imagination just grabs hold and takes you to a place where the night is home to monsters and you're alone with a flashlight running out of batteries and an evil grin in the dark.
No, I never mean for anything to be evil or tainted or sinful, my imagination just grabs hold, and maybe that imagination is evil and tainted and sinful, but you can't take imagination away. Everything is real, whether we see it or not. Because they live with us, ghosts, vampires, demons, all of those are real because we fear them, and the fear is real isn't it? Sure, things like pixies and unicorns and angels are real, but what about our evil imaginations? If they were real would they really fly and grant wishes? Or would they stab someone with the horn on their head?
We all know fear, we all know what it is like to be scared or startled or however the ******** you want to put it. We know the feeling and we all just want to be held in someones arms in our favorite blankets. We just want to be told they aren't real, they don't exist. But they do. Always have and always will. They live in the darkest depths of your imagination, scaring you in the night. A giant spider on your ceiling, zombies roaming the streets, a mysterious being with no face watching you sleep. They are all real. They are all watching you. I was never much of a writer, but I know now that I've hit something, the gold of writing for me if you would. You might not like the story itself, but know that we all have different tastes. I'm doing this less for you, the Reader, and more for me the Writer. Because without me you wouldn't read and without you, I never would have started this to begin with. And so, without further pause, my story.

I had just woken up, the morning sun gleamed over the horizon out of my window. The blinds were opened slightly, enough to let some sun in but not too much to blind me when I wake up. I pulled myself out of bed and began the morning ritual we all know: Pick out Clothes, shower, Put clothes on, coffee, go.
Today I was feeling special, so I decided to shower first. Feeling the warm streams of water hit my back and dribble down my face almost always wakes me up, but not today. Instead, they make me sleepier and sleepier. I was on the verge of sleeping standing up in the shower when the telephone rang. I pulled myself out of the shower and stumbled to the phone, picking the C shaped phone out of the cradle and putting it up to my ear.
Static.
Nothing too strange, I guessed, maybe just something wrong on their line. I went back to my room and threw some clothes on. I didn't care what I was wearing, my job didn't demand any sort of uniform. so I pretty much wore whatever I wanted. I through on a grey T-shirt with the Beatles on it and some jeans. My black sneakers, and a jacket completed my look and I left, forgetting about coffee.
The best thing about working near to your job, was that you could walk there. Gas was expensive as ******** nowadays and I only drove when I was going somewhere, like meeting a friend a town over or maybe seeing the folks. My morning walks were usually cold (as getting out of your warm bed and out into the world can be some days.) and today was no exception. The hair on my arm rose and pushed against the fabric of my shirt. I was too tired to itch at it, so I went on.
Nobody was out this morning and all the cars were in their driveways respectively. I wondered if today was Sunday or Saturday and checked my watch, which had time and date on it. It was a Monday morning, six o' clock. I guess everyone wasn't in the mood for waking up. Monday fever I s'pose. I continued.
Slowly, I began to wonder if my watch was accurate. The streets were empty, even the usually busy road I pass was empty of all cars. Still, I pressed the walk button and waited for it to turn green, why I don't know, it felt right.
A low fog had taken over the town and I had finally reached the gas station I worked at, the pumps were all empty, but some black fluid was next to one of them, so I knew I wasn't the only one awake. I walked in, flipped the lights on, turned the sign on the door to open, and waited.

After the first hour of no costumers it felt weird and I felt like the only person not invited to a party (High school memories!) and after the second, I said ******** it and left. I put a sign on the desk that read:
BACK IN 15 MINUTES
Or at all, I thought.
Walking home, I really noticed how quiet it was. The high pitched ringing sound you get in your ears if things are quiet enough, the one that hurts to listen to for more then thirty seconds? Yeah, imagine that for a whole walk. I started talking to myself in an effort to keep the noise out of my head and most of the time it worked.
Sometimes it didn't.
And sometimes, it wasn't a ringing noise, but some sort of voice. At first, it was low, quiet, a distant whisper. Slowly, it grew in strength and overpowered even the ringing sound. I couldn't tell what it was saying, but it was smooth and had a... fluid quality to it. I say fluid because when it spoke, I could feel the water from the shower drip down my shoulder and onto the white porcelain tub floor. I couldn't help but listen to it, and I found myself stopping for a few minutes just to hear it. It was overpowering, so much so that I didn't even realize the lack of people, or the low fog enveloping entire streets and houses.
When I made it home, I had managed to take a word from the fluid voice.
Become.
It was strange and I was trying to figure it out and the obvious question stood stark among all other thoughts: Become what? Then another cold thought entered my mind: Or who?
It was enough to make my heart skip a beat and my skin to get paler than paper. What did these voices want? I thought about forgetting them, but they were so... soothing. They calmed me in a moment, this time the words were easy.
Calm, breath, live, for us.
I smiled and my already half moon eyes closed. I was standing up on a sidewalk about to fall asleep. And I didn't care, all I cared about was the voices. They soothed and calmed me. Then I heard another voice, this one was in no way soothing and actually sounded kind of threatening.
"HEY!" It yelled, it sounded like a man, kind of raspy like someone who smoked too often. "Don't listen to them!"
My eyes opened like shutters and I looked in front of me. The voice belonged to a man with salt n' pepper hair. He had ice blue eyes. He was tall and lanky, standing maybe three inches taller than myself and I'm 6'3. He had stubble growing and looked all too much like a comic book soldier. He wore a white shirt, jeans, and black boots. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me, I awoke completely, like a bucket of cold water had just been poured on my entire body.
And the fog was gone, there were cars in the streets and people staring at me. I looked around, trying to figure out what happened. The man in front of me shook my shoulders again. He said something that I couldn't make out, I was too focused on my thoughts. How tired was I? How many times could I have been hit by a car?
"Well?" The man asked, his face showed some concern.
"Well what?" I asked, blinking a few times.
"Did you see him?"
"See who?"
"Him." He made a strange symbol with his fingers, crossing the index with the middle, and the pink and ring. He stretched his thumb to the center of his palm and pulled it across his chest. He muttered something and closed his eyes before looking back at me. He whispered: "We cannot talk here, too many. He might be watching." He took a pen out of his pocket and wrote on my wrist, his address. I pulled my wrist away before he could finish and he swore, he got an angry look on his face and he said the last thing I'd hear from his lips: "He'll find you."
I was pissed at this point, who would find me? I decided to ask him but when I opened my mouth, he stabbed himself in the throat with his pen. Everyone walking by backed up, me included, and he ripped the pen down. Blood squirted onto my shirt and I threw up. The strange man laughed, but it came out as a gurgling sound. He fell to his knees, still holding the pen and gurgling laughter, then finally fell forward, shoving the pen deeper into his neck. I retched and tried not to notice the indent of the pen at the back of his neck.
I managed to make it home, still shocked from the suicide I'd just witnessed. I thought about sleeping, then eating, and tossed them aside. Nightmares would haunt me tonight, and a significant portion of my life. The blood was still fresh in my mind and on my clothing too. I had forgotten about my blood stained shirt until I looked at myself in the mirror, I was pale, wide eyed, and blood drenched. I took the clothes off and jumped into the shower. I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed but somehow felt blood on my skin even though none touched it. An hour in the shower and it started to get cold, I stepped out, dried my face, and looked into the mirror.
I wasn't the only one in it, there was someone else. It had a blank face, the deepest form of black, and it was skinny. As skinny as Jack ********' skeleton. I could make out human features on it's head, a nose, ears, and indentions where it's eyes would be. But a mouth? None. It had no mouth nor a hint as to where it was.
The thing wore a robe that hid most of it's body, but it longs arms that ended in sharp, pointed, hands. It used those hands to caress my cheek. I could hear the voices now, dim like they were the first time, but getting louder and louder and louder until they were roaring in my head. I could hear thousands of tiny little voices all screaming the same thing, all at the same time, all high pitched and low pitched.

HIM They chanted, low at first.

HIM Rising.

HIM Booming in my ears, overpowering every sound and then....

A long cut appeared below the nose and spread wide open, I could only think that this was it's mouth and that I was going to die here. Naked. Alone. The mouth spread into an impossibly wide grin, perfect black teeth in jagged rows greeted me, and the faint smell of dead cattle greeted me. The tiny voices all stopped at the same time. The thing talked and watching it's mouth move was horror in and of itself. The huge mouth spreading, thinning, forming words. It had no tongue.

"I am Fear. I am always watching you. I am always here, in the mirror as your doppelganger, as the being that watches you sleep, as the stranger who follows you home..." It ran a finger down my spine, I shivered and it spoke some more. "I am every spider and every creak that wakes you up at night. I am Fear."

My heart stopped, I couldn't breath.

Fear, as it called itself, plunged it's sharp fingers into my rib cage, they spread themselves and the pain, like a thousand razors on the skin, erupted all over my body. I blacked out.

I awoke in a hospital, stitches all over my body. They told me I was lucky to be alive, to have escaped a murder like that. But I didn't. He was still with me, he still watches me, he still torments me in nightmares and as the dark corner of my room. I guess he did his job, I am afraid.
It's been sixty since the Fear Incident, since he first came for me, and I'm sitting in my house right now. My wife has passed away this summer and I'm getting old. I'm around eighty seven, most of my teeth are gone, my hair is bleach white, wrinkles cover my skin, and the most important detail is: I'm old.
Three light taps on my door, they sound like a child is making them. I'm looking through the window and can only make out a black clad figure, it's Fear, and he's grinning right at me. I blinked and he was gone. Then I felt something breathing down my neck.

"We have some unfinished business."