It got him.
2 Weeks ago, I went to visit a close friend of mine in his college dorm. I knocked on the door, and he opened it and said, “Come in. I have something to give to you.” He looked extremely panicked, and I could tell that he hadn’t been taking care of himself. He looked pale, had bags under his eyes, his hair looked extremely greasy, and he was extremely skinny, to the point where I could see his ribs.
I asked him if he was alright, and he said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Look, I need you to read this. Everybody else thinks I’m crazy. You are the only one who could believe this.” I asked him about our other friends, and he said that even they didn’t believe him. After a bit, I walked out of the room, then drove to my apartment, and put it on the kitchen counter. I asked one of our friends if I should believe anything this book says, and he told me not to.
I forgot about it until last week, when I got a text message from a group chat with our entire friend group, saying that the guy who gave me the book had mysteriously disappeared. As they were talking about his disappearance, I grabbed the book off my kitchen counter and started reading, because maybe, just maybe, there was something that gave a hint on where he went.
“Day 1: I bought this notebook to document what I’ve been seeing out of the corner of my eye for the past year. I doubt anyone will believe anything in this book.”
He was correct in thinking that. Nobody, including his closest friends, believed him.
“I don’t really care if anybody believes me or not. I just want to write everything down, hoping that someone, somewhere, will believe me.”
I think he was planning on publishing this somewhere, too bad he went missing to even try to.
“I’ve constantly seen this thing in places just out of my sight. One time, I saw it creeping over me right when I was about to fall asleep; it could have been a nightmare, though I doubt that.”
I turn a page to a sketch of the creature, with a stickman for scale. It seemed to be a few feet taller than him, so I’m assuming it’s about 9-10 feet tall. After I saw this, I took a picture of it with my phone and sent it to the group chat. After I sent it, a group call immediately started, where I was immediately asked questions like, “Where did you find this? Did he give you this?” I read the next page out loud to the group call.
“Day 2: I was on a video call with my professor when I saw it behind me. This was the first time I was able to see it with my eyes, even if it was on a webcam. It had its hands on my shoulders. I swear I could feel it tightening its grip; I was convinced it was going to rip my arms off.”
The group call stayed silent for a solid minute after I was done reading. A girl whom he used to have a crush on back in grade school broke down crying. “I should’ve been there for him!” She yelled.
She would shortly leave the call. I read the next paragraph.
“Day 3: I lost my job because of this thing. It appeared right in front of me when I was carrying a batch of fries, and I accidentally threw the hot fries in my coworker’s face. I’m lucky they didn’t press charges. I doubt a court will believe ‘A monster appeared in front of me, so I threw hot fries at my coworker to defend myself from it.’”
A guy I introduced to him chimed in and said, “I remember that happening. I was seriously considering cutting him off after he did that. I thought it was him just trying to be a jerk.” I turned to the next page.
“Day 4: It’s everywhere I go now. It still tries to hide from me. I’m starting to hear it mumble something under its breath. Tomorrow, I’m going to try to hear what it’s saying. My professor told me to stop coming to classes until I get myself together. It’s that thing’s fault. I just know it.”
Everyone in the call was silent at this point. I checked the calendar on my phone, and I realised that it was the anniversary of my girlfriend’s death. She was driving in an old Nissan when a truck rammed into her at 120 miles per hour. The person who did it ran out of sight shortly after they did it. I got to the scene right after the person ran off. According to the dashcam footage and the police at the scene, the person who crashed into my girlfriend did it on purpose. I read the next paragraph.
“Day 5: It stopped trying to hide from me. I heard what it’s trying to say. It’s just been repeating ‘REMEMBER’ with the numbers 1, 5, and 8.”
“Aren’t those the numbers on your girlfriend’s license plate?” One of my close friends said. I confirmed that it was, but said that it could have been a coincidence. I turned the page to read the next and last paragraph.
“Day 6: It started saying something different today. It still says “REMEMBER,” but now it’s followed by 3 letters, A, K, and L. I realised that it was my friend’s girlfriend’s license plate. The same girl I crashed into, because I was angry that everybody, including my closest friend since GRADE SCHOOL, stopped talking to me after I started college. I tried texting the entire friend group individually, except for him, and they all thought I was crazy. I invited him over to give him this book, and to try to apologize.”
He never apologized to me; it seemed like he was going to say something before I left, but he just let it go. I was extremely angry after I read this, angry enough for my friends to tell me to leave to calm down. I didn’t calm down. I drove over to the crash site, pulled over so I wasn’t blocking the highway, and searched for the man who killed my girlfriend.
I found him after an hour of searching; he was on the ground, sitting. I grabbed the collar of his shirt, and I felt some of his skin. It was cold. I checked his pulse. He was dead. It seemed like he gave me the book, got out of his dorm, and decided to sit at this exact spot until he starved to death. Some of my friends drove over because they had the same thought as I did. I told them one thing before driving away. “He’s dead. It got him.”