chaos_silk | 2/24/25

It started with a string; small white and fluffy, jutting out from where it had been caught on something and pulled loose from his jeans. Henry thought nothing of reaching down to brush it away. Then it morphed.

It wasn't a string, it was viscera. Simultaneously muscle pink and blood dark. It oozed on his leg, the smell was awful. He recoiled away from it, accidentally throwing himself to the floor to get away from it though it was firmly attached to his leg.

And then it wasn't. Or rather, then it was. Just a string. Nothing big.

Except it was.

Next it was the sink. One moment he was washing dishes normally, the next his hands were covered with blood, his dishes were broken and everything around him was rotting away. Then a moment later he was fine, hot water and soap, clean and fine.

Except he wasn't.

And the worst part was, he didn't know if it was real or not; if he was experiencing Walter's world bleeding through again even though he killed him once (twice) or if he was just losing his mind in the normal, mundane way. The smart thing to do would be to move, the smarter thing to have done was to have never moved into the apartment in the first place.

But with the housing market being what it was, the rent justified staying. Especially after it was reduced due to Frank feeling bad about not doing anything while Henry was chained up in his room being held captive by a crazed serial killer.

The official police report stated that Henry has been starved and beaten while the copycat killer carried out his ritual in the hidden room. They found body parts, they found Joseph. They found enough evidence to prove that Henry was innocent.

Walter was dead (again), Eileen moved away, but Henry stayed. He bought the medallions, he bought the candles.

The fridge starts meowing? Light a candle. It will go away.

Wake up in the middle of the night and Walter is watching from the pictures? Light a candle. It will go away.

Blood comes out of the faucet while you're showering? That's why he always wears a saint medallion.

It will go away.

Only it doesn't.

It doesn't get better. The only difference is: Henry gets tired of the clock going backwards and the TV showing subway world? He goes outside. He sits and watches the leaves in the trees.

He's not trapped anymore, this is his choice. He's reminded with every haunting. He doesn't turn on the light anymore, just lights candles everywhere. (And he doesn't think, pretends to ignore the parallels between Joseph's apartment and his own now.)

Then:

"She's dead now," says the radio, the voice quiet; haunted and familiar. Henry turns the page in his book and scowls when the words morph from his cozy murder mystery to the words of the crimson tone. The ritual cannot be stopped. Over and over again on the page.

"I made it look like a car crash," Walter says through the static. "She fell asleep at the wheel."

Somewhere in the distance, a bell rings. Henry relights the candle and waits. The static doesn't stop, the book doesn't turn back, and, worst of all, Walter appears in the corner of the room, maniac grin on his face.

"You're next."