Blogtober 2021: Mist

WORK FROM HOME, DAY 29

Whatever is on the other side of this door pounds on the door again causing me to scream out and stumble backward. I recall the piece of advice I read on ridding oneself of a poltergeist, the one about confronting it. I stomp toward the bedroom and fling open the door. A fine mist obscures the floor and the whole room is enveloped in a stark and uninviting chill. With a shivering voice, I yell at the entity.

"Get the hell out of my house!" That oughta do it.

The bedroom door slams and I feel the blood drain from my face. A lamp on the bedside table to my left slowly rises and hurls itself toward me. I duck and scramble toward the door. I pull and jerk on it, but it won't open. As is something from this is pushing it closed again. Or maybe something from the other side. I can't tell. A roar begins like distant rolling thunder and grows into a bellowing howl that forces me to hold my ears. The lights flicker on and off.

"STOP!" I cry out from my knees. "For the love of God, STOP!"

The room falls silent except for what sounds like breathing behind me. A presence of some kind presses in on me but I don't dare turn around. I can't imagine what it might be. I don't want to imagine it.

"Go away," I whisper. "Leave me alone."

"I can't. You won't let me."

"What are you? Why are you doing this?"

After a few seconds, it responds. "I'm you. The you that you hate. Go see for yourself."

The bedroom door creaks open and the hallway stretches before me like a long lonely highway through a desert. The bathroom light flickers and a mist rolls out of it.