Creatures of the lighthouse

   Jane took off her socks and put them on top of the heating. She had no idea the lighthouse had radiators in all its rooms but it really came in handy that that was the case. She also took off her pants and shirt and decided to stay only in her underwear, lying on top of her jacket. The storm outside did not seem to subside, if anything it was getting worse by the minute. The rain was so strong that almost nothing could be seen, except when the light from the tower passed over it and revealed. But even then, it was just the pissed off sea and the razor sharp rocks that had been the whole reason to built a lighthouse there.

 For many years, the tower had been managed by a human, a man that stayed there several months and then was replaced and had to come back again later on that year and so on. But rather recently, that had ended with the modernization of the tower and the installation of an automated system. That was the reason why Jane had been forced to kick the door several times until the old cement caved in to her efforts and the door flung open.

 The machines and computers that controlled the tower now occupied most of the space but there were still spaces to be used by people, possibly for tourism or by the person that had to come and fix the system in the case of any failure or something like that. It all looked so new and clean, except for the ground level that was slowly flooding due to the storm. Jane had found an old folding chair and had used it to prevent the door from opening as she had broken it when entering.

 She had been walking for days along the national park that surrounded the lighthouse so Jane knew exactly where she was or at least she had realized it when she found the tower when the rain started to get really dangerous. All the time she had been walking in that place, she had thought that animals were the ones to be careful about but it wasn’t the case. The storm had scared them all off and she was the only living being stupid enough not to take shelter when in had been obvious for many hours than the storm was going to arrive to the coast.

 Deciding to check for food, Jane realized she didn’t really have much food on her backpack. At first, she had a lot of provisions she had brought from home like dried fruit and things like that but now her rations were very low and had nothing to calm her stomach, which was growling like a wounded wolf. She decided to go down to the middle level of the tower and check out a kind of deposit there was there. No idea why, but the door was opened so she had free reign to check everything out. There were cleaning products, paper, some tools to fix things, a big bag of sand (for some reason) and, finally, a survival kit that she opened in haste.

 The kit was a very complete and Jane made a mental note to thank the people that managed the lighthouses when arriving to society. It had flares, a flashlight, more tools but also some beef jerky and juices in bags and candy. It wasn’t the most nutritious meal ever but Jane guessed it had been put there in the case of an accident or something. It wasn’t really to survive on for more than a week so Jane knew it was perfect for her as she believed she was only staying for one night.

 She went back to the top floor with the whole kit and started to eat as she sat down again on her jacket. But realizing the floor was too cold, she decided to stand by the heating and look outside, in order no to get bored and maybe getting sleepy. She ate the beef jerky slowly: it was very hard to chew on it and had to yank pieces of one by one, so it took time to finish a single portion, which was good in order no to ran out of it.

 Then she gasped and almost dropped her meal. She raised her head and looked outside, sure she had seen something when the light of the tower had hit it. But there was nothing, only water falling from the sky and the water from the ocean that was very violent. Aside from that, only the rocks and none of them had the shape of what she had seen.

 Jane sat down again and realized it was impossible that a person would be outside the tower as the storm was very violent. And who she had seen did not seem like a normal person, it was like a very pale person, almost like the way people have painted ghosts over the centuries. The more she analyzed it all; she realized it was really silly. She had been silly to think about someone been out there and it had possibly being the light playing ticks on her tired mind.

 She decided to look in the kit again and she found one of those blankets that keeps you warm without electricity (the one use by paramedics). She just used that as her blanket lying on her jacket and used her hands as a pillow. Before that, she had turned off the light on the top floor of the tower and everything was now in darkness.

 Her eyes closed and then open and then closed only to open again a few seconds later. The light of the tower annoyed her but that really wasn’t the reason why she couldn’t sleep. Jane was, for the first time since she had begun her adventure, very scared. She didn’t mind the heat outside or sleeping in a tent or even the bugs. But there was something deep inside her telling her than there was something weird about that tower and, furthermore, that what she saw had not been an optical illusion of some kind.

 Then, she heard knocking. The sound was weak but it was clear it was coming from below. Jane’s mind raced, thinking if maybe there really was someone in need out there or if there was really such a thing as ghosts or spirits. But for that last one, she had to punish herself in her mind: it was ridiculous that a grown woman than had learned a few things in life was now thinking there could be a ghost outside her door. It was preposterous and simply stupid.

 So she closed her eyes but the sound coming from the ground floor didn’t really help her relax in order to sleep. Trying to be logical, she concluded that the sound had to be because she hadn’t put the chair in the perfect angle to really close the door. So the wind was banging on it and everything was shaky and moving. So she decided to stand up and go down the stairs in the dark, with the flashlight, in order to fix that sound that could make her crazy if she didn’t do something about it.

 Barefoot as she was, she realized the ground floor was flood when she put her feet on the cold water. It reached ankles. She walked to the door and realized she had been correct in her conclusion. The door kept getting opened and closed and it was all because the fair was not good enough to keep it shut and the water out. So she tried to find something she could put on the handle of the door in order to close it for good.

 She had started walking towards the stairs in order to go up again and look for something or at least some told to help her, when the door flung open and the wind entered messing her hair and everything. Water also came in, making her fall to the ground, hurting her knee. She reached for the door and tried to close it but the door wouldn’t move and the wind was too strong for her. She pushed and pulled and did everything she could, but everything coming in from the storm was making her weaker and weaker by the second.

 It was then when, once again, she saw it outside. But this time she was sure she had seen it because it hadn’t been for a fraction of a second. This time, she had felt time get frozen and her eyes been able to detail every single part of the creature’s complexion. It was taller than her, very pale and with a larger mouth than any human she knew. Its feet and hands were very large and it watched her, very attentively. She noticed it had no pupils and that its eyes were very white too.

 But that lasted a minute or so. In the next moment, the wind subsided for a second, which Jane used to push harder and close the door with a loud sound. There was no need to look for something to lock it with because the door had closed so violently it had become jammed in its place. Nevertheless, Jane stayed there for a long while, only breathing.

 The next day, the storm disappeared. The weather outside was perfect, with bird singing and everything. After the door had closed, she had remained there for a while but she eventually found her way to the top and had some sleep. It took her a long while to open the door again and she did it fell of its hinges and into the flooded floor. Jane just went out and started walking along the coast, looking at the sea and how the storm was now there, again.

 And she thought of the creature but even now she doubted its existence. Maybe the monster was inside her and she had just seen it in a dire moment.

Thanks

   Blood was always difficult to clean off. She grabbed a sponge from the bathroom and put it under the water with some soap. She then grabbed the sponge and started cleaning her boots, as they were covered in red. The sponge, that used to be yellow, got heavily tainted and it was almost impossibly to clean it after having removed almost every trace of blood from her boots. As she walked the bathroom, she grabbed the sponge and walked with her footwear on the other hand.

 Her name was Linda, which means “beautiful” or “cute” in Spanish. But that had nothing to do with her. First, because her parents had no idea of another language and they would have never bothered to learn anything about a world outside theirs. Second, because although she had a nice body and all the curves men would like to stare at, she didn’t found herself all that cute.

 She put on the boots in the living room and then went to the kitchen to throw away the sponge. She grabbed a yogurt, cheese and an apple from the refrigerator and ate them all practically at the same time. She hadn’t had a decent meal in a while and she had to take that moment to eat something recharge batteries. As she gulped down the yogurt, she realized her hands had lots of little cuts and she had blood under her nails. When Linda finished eating, she tried to clean it off but failed.

 It was time to go. Linda took out a cellphone and checked her messages. She had told Marlon to only text her and never to call her. Apparently he had gotten the idea because she had not received any calls, only one text when he asked if she was ok. She answered by only writing “yes”.

 When she walked out the house through the back, a gust of very cold wind hit her directly in the face. Maybe rain or some kind of snow front was coming. But that wasn’t important right now. She just closed her jacket the best she could and walked towards the car that was parked just on one side of the garden. It was one of those houses where everything looks perfect. But what was inside was not perfect, unless you were a homicidal maniac with a thing for order.

 Linda dismissed the thought of it all and got in the car. She had found the keys in an ashtray inside, as if the person that drove the car was always very careful about them. Linda drove faster than the previous owner, getting to the highway in no time. She tried not to speed in order not to attract any attention but it was hard. Her only wish was to be very far away from there, and that had to be done fast or they would link everything that had happened the last few days to her. And she couldn’t face that.

 Night came fast and also a thin rain, which was more annoying than anything else. She kept driving, remembering the faces she had seen recently and putting tags on the ones that she would never see again. Many people had died violently because of her lately and it was something that, although not honestly shocking, she did want it to be left behind. She wanted to be free from those awful memories and sights; she wanted to be left alone.

 However, as the “gas” sign on the car’s dashboard started beeping, she knew that wasn’t going to be possible. Right now, many cops, many people in general, were thinking that it was all her fault, it was all because of her and it was her who had done it all. And they were right, at least partially. Because she did have blood under her nails, because her body did ache because of the struggle and because she had seen what no one else had seen that week.

 Seven hours after departing the house, Linda pulled over a gas station. It was self-service, so she used the cash she had found on the house to fill the tank and hope no one would catch up with her there. She entered the store to pay and realized a table had been set up inside and, before she could walk back, the family having dinner there noticed her and smiled. Somehow, they were happy to see her, even if she had no idea who they were or what they were doing. Suddenly, people got up and smiled and she saw food on the table and remembered.

 It was Thanksgiving Day. She had forgotten all about it as she had been too busy dodging life. She walked closer and asked to pay for her gas but the family invited her to a plate. She insisted on paying but the mother replied they had all decided to celebrate the day there because the station was family property and they couldn’t close it down so the best way to celebrate was to do it in the store and give any costumers a plate to share the joy of the holiday.

 Linda insisted many more times, looking out at the car, but every single one of them kept insisting. They then put a plate on her hands and she had to do something she had almost forgotten how to do: act. She forced a smile on her face and went around the table putting various types of salads and vegetables and turkey on her plastic plate. She then thanked them all and told them she would prefer to eat it in her car, as she didn’t want to interrupt.

 Then, Linda heard it again. She froze right where she stood as the voice, which was not feminine or masculine, invaded her head. She didn’t understood how it had found her again. It had to be close. She asked for it not to do anything to her or to the people there but, when she realized it, she had dropped her plate of food and was now holding the knife they were using to cut the turkey. Her arm moved and she was inside of her body, unable to control anything. But as she was about to slash one of the attendants, a bullet entered her leg and she lost balance, collapsing to the floor. She lost consciousness right there.

 The woman had some awful dream, were voices in different tones told her what to do. One wanted her to poke her eyes out, another one advised to grab a knife and cut her legs off. Another, deeper voice, ask her to just drop dead. And then they all stopped talking and she heard a beautiful female voice. It was someone she knew or at least she seemed to be very familiar to her. But that didn’t matter. The voice told her, in words that felt like a medicine, that she had to fight back, not letting them in.

 Linda woke up, panting and sweating in a hospital bed. She had wanted to move but two things stopped her: she was tied to the bed, as they did with mental patients, and her leg was hurting too much, so she could barely move properly. She tried to fight her restraints but it was useless and she tried to scream too but her throat was dry and she would only hurt herself. Linda couldn’t cry either, as much as she had wanted to do so many times before. Somehow, she couldn’t.

 Two men then entered the room, a policeman and a doctor. The agent started talking about how she was going to be incarcerated due to her having murdered over twenty people the past few days and her attempted murder of a family that had been seating about to have dinner. Linda just shook her head, unable to speak. The men ignored this. The doctor then spoke, telling her that she apparently suffered from a condition in which illusions and voices were very present so he had recommended the police not to put her in jail but in a psychiatric ward.

 Again, Linda tried to scream, but couldn’t.

 She was transferred to a psychiatric hospital two days after they had extracted the bullet. There, she wouldn’t be isolated but she would remain for life. They had deemed her “incurable”, so she was just left alone with her thoughts.

 As much as she tried, for several years after her demise, she never regained the ability to speak. However, people understood her all the same. She had no idea why and she had no need for an explanation. The voices, both the crazy ones and the beautiful one, disappeared from her life. So she was just a regular girl living in a place filled with the most criminally insane people in the world. And all because of what some voices had told her to do, controlling her mind and body.

 As she got older, the clinic used her as the patient that welcomed any new additions to the madhouse. It was then when she realized how it was possible that people understood her. And it was amazing no one had said anything, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Maybe she was manipulating them too but realized that was too far fetched. Linda could only be in their heads, that was it.

Breathe the forest

   The young man, maybe thirty years old, sat by the brook and took his shoes off. He rapidly put his feet on the water and trembled a bit before the cold water relaxed his pain. He had been walking for at least two days without stopping and his feet really needed a rest. He had blisters and burns so the last stretch of his walk had been especially painful. But he finally got to the brook the map indicated and he knew he was going to be all right, at least for the time being.

 Rains had come and go the past few days. It never really stayed but, when it did, it appeared to wash down every single part of the forest. He was afraid that rain may come back and wash down the river the few things he still had but he had to stop and he would have to take care of things when they happened and not before. So in a matter of minutes he had taken the tent out of his backpack and had started the installation. At one point, he had to take his feet out of the water, which he didn’t like so he tried to put up the tent fast. When the night came, he ate some bread and fruit he had kept from other days and decided to lay down for a bit at the edge of the water; his feet again soaking there.

 He put a sweater beneath his head and started looking at the stars. It was amazing how amazing the sky looked out there, in the wild. Back in any town or big city, the sky was normally dead, only a couple of stars visible. But there, it was like looking at a huge picture of the universe. Actually, that was exactly what it was. He remembered reading how all we see in the sky happened a long time ago and he started wondering how many intelligent beings were looking at the sky thinking exactly the same he was pondering on.

 The man fell asleep right there, feet on the water. He didn’t woke up during the night, only turned over, adjusting his pillow. Although the weather had not being very good, it was still spring and sunny days were not unheard of in this region of the world. The wilderness was a beautiful place to be during spring because everything came alive: the animals, the flowers and even humans could feel that surge of life coming out of them. When the man woke up, he felt the smell of the flowers growing by the water. He stood up and realized his body ached a bit but not much more than when he slept inside the tent, in a sleeping bag. He tried to stand up but his feet hurt a lot and the roots and stones by the edge of the water didn’t really help.

  It was hard, but he managed to take off all of his clothes, leave them on a small pile by the tent and then walk straight to the brook, that had become wider during the night. The water reached his ankles when standing up but that was good enough for taking a proper bath, which he hadn’t done in a long time. He scrubbed his skin with his fingers and nails and did the same all over. He got his hair wet too and tried doing funny hairstyles until he realized they only worked when bathing with shampoo, which he obviously wouldn’t use in this pristine environment.

 When he was almost ready, scrubbing his neck, he suddenly felt something strange. He felt someone was near. He looked around but didn’t see any anyone, not human or animal. He continued with his bath but then he heard the grass and turned around fast, as a fox ran away from him. The man smiled, amused by the curiosity of the creature. He stood up, in pain, and walk clumsily to his tent were he had a towel to get dry. Then, again, he saw the red fox getting near through tall grass that grew where the forest begin again. His dried fast and kneeled in order to get his camera. When he did, the fox was out of the grass, looking straight at him. The man took a couple of pictures but the animal was scared by the sound of the shutter.

 He stayed naked for a while, as he decided the day was warm enough not to wear clothes and no one was going to be there anyway to look at him. As he was not fit for a long walk, he tried to come up with something to do while his feet got a little bit better. He his feet on the water again and took pictures of everything that was around him. Birds were starting to sing, feeling the gentler weather of the day. Some butterflies also flew over the stream and some squirrels, but nothing as big as the fox that apparently was now far from there.

 When putting away the camera, the hiker realized he food only for a couple of days: two slices of bread, some berries, and honey he had gotten from a fallen hive and the last piece of a rabbit. He decided to cook that, as it was about to get bad. He lit up the small burner and cooked the meat. He hoped no big animals were nearby, because the smell was pretty strong for such a small piece of meat. He ate it with a slice of bread and a few sips of water from the stream. He washed the pan on which he had cooked the meat and decided it was best if he moved his camping site, in order to prevent the arrival of a bear or a wolf.

 A few minutes after, he had his backpack on and had started walking along the stream. He was still naked, which felt oddly liberating. He didn’t see the point in wearing clothes in such a remote area and, after all, bonding with nature was better if you tried to be just as nature. He kept walking for more than an hour until he realized the more he walked, the more trees started to appear on either side of the stream, which seemed to have decreased in size, more like the brook he had seen the day before. Rain mustn’t have been strong so the river had no way of staying large. He walked some more until he reached a nice patch of mossy grass. He set up camp there and decided to lie down, his feet hurting a lot again.

 Maybe it was because of the pain or because he had gotten tired from the walk, but he felt asleep again, just after putting up his tent. The weird thing this time was that he overslept and woke up at night. He had n way of knowing the time but he knew it was very late as even the only sound came from the water of the stream. He didn’t stood up when waking up, he just lay there and thought about a dream he had often: it was a bout him feeling stressed, in fear, unable to breath. When having that nightmare, he often heard many voices, some known, some others not. Because of that dream, he had sweated as he slept and know his body felt deprived of energy.

 Trying to forget what he had seen and heard, he stood up and ate some of the berries he had in his backpack. He then walked to the edge of the water and put his feet on it. He ate every single berry trying to think about his past, about the people he had left behind and the thoughts that still hurt him. He didn’t really wanted to think about it but the nightmare had put everything back on his mind. He had travelled from a very far place to this forest in order to find peace and calm but that seemed to be almost impossible. It was just like everything he had attempted to leave behind had found its way there and now it was acting up again.

 The last berry on his hand fell to the ground and rolled over a bit farther. He tried to get it but then a small animal came out of the bushed and bit the fruit first. Then two more animals just like the first one but smaller, came out of the bushes too. It was a family of hedgehogs. Each one bit a small piece of the berry and finished it in a glimpse. They all looked at the man and he attempted to touch them but the remembered their spines. He then looked around for more berries and realized a nearby tree had small apricot-like fruits on it. He stood up slowly, walking with care, and grabbed four of the fruits from the tree. He put them in front of the hedgehogs and waited.

 He waited until the small creatures started biting the fruit and eating. They filled up on just two of them and smelled the man, apparently thanking him for the food. They turned around and disappeared by the bushes, probably to get some sleep. This event had taken the man out of his mind and reminded him he had to sleep again in order to restart his walk the next day. His feet still hurt but he couldn’t afford to stop his journey because of it. This time, he did go inside of them and the sleeping bag.

 He didn’t sleep a lot and woke up very early. He put everything on the backpack fast; put on some shorts and started walking through the forest once again. Later that day, he arrived at one of several posts in the forest, where a park ranger told him people had been looking for him, fearing he was lost or worse. He thank the man for his worries and decided to tell him that, sometimes, he just needed some time by himself to keep on breathing correctly.

Dream Sequence

I run. Not really knowing where I'm going or why do I move so fast, faster than I would normally run.

Hundreds of houses built on cliffs, white as snows with small tile roofs above nice little balconies. And I run on them, on the tile roofs. They must have been built by someone very skilled as now tile moves. The problem is I slip sometimes and I realize what's there, beyond. Nothing. Big black nothing.

I stop for a moment and look in front of me. There, at the end of the tiled houses, there are platforms that move. They look like big wooden circles and they move as wheels inside a clock. And then, something even stranger. The clouds above the largest circle, which is covered in what appears to be moss, turn black and start spiraling down, forming some kind of tornado. It's colored black and green and seems beautiful and grim at the same time. I feel hopeless as I see it.

But then the sky appears to suck the tornado back in and everything goes back to normal, normal for this world I mean.

I look back. No one. But I feel followed, I feel that if I don't move the tiles may begin to move and collapse under my feet. And I know really well I don't want this to finish here.

I resume my running, from one roofs to the other, jumping over gaps between houses. When I do it, I watch down: a long fall and then, pitch black.

When I finally get to the first moving circle, I fall to my knees. It's not that my legs hurt, they don't. But it's rather the feeling of having no air to breathe. I feel like a bug on a jar. I instinctively gaze up, to the sky, but there's nothing. The clouds are cotton white and the sky blue, peaceful for now.

I get up and jump to the next platform. My foot has not touched down well and I fall, hitting the ground heavily. I feel hopeless again. With one look I confirm it: the tornado has formed again and, somehow, it looks more menacing now.

Once it goes back to the sky, I continue, this time analyzing every jump carefully as falling may be fatal. The fun thing is I know I'm dreaming. I know I cannot die. But the feeling is so strong, so powerful, that my breathing accelerates.

I get to the last platform, before the one covered in moss. I realize something: in the center of the circle there's a small sand pyramid. I know it's sand because the surface seems to move. Deep breath and jump onto the fluffy surface.

From there I can finally see my next destination: there are more moving platforms that descend slightly to a floating green valley. I have to pass by the pyramid the start my trek towards the valley but then everything turns black: the tornado descend on me. Hopeless, in pain, wanting to scream but can't. Those winds around me make me feel like killing myself but I cannot even move so I know the tornado wants only to torture me.

I hear voices and feel, in a few seconds, every major feeling I've had. My head is about to explode as I'm rendered useless and fall to the ground. From there, I see the pyramid being dissolved and sucked by the tornado. It seems to last for years.

I want to force myself to wake up but I can't. Is it really a dream? What is real? Stop it! I can't breath. I can feel death near...

And then it ends. The grains of sand that make up the pyramid slow fall into place again and the small structure rests there again, on the green carpet.

Taking a deep breath, I stand up and jump on to the next platform. Then I run, from one point to the other, like in a video game, as I did on the tiled roofs. I have to run away from that vacuum space. I do not want to feel like that ever again.

I finally get to a place of rectangular wooden platforms, all covered in grass. Strangely, this is the first place I see people. Although, when I come closer, I realize they are machines. They are dressed in old clothes, with big dresses for the ladies and top-hats for the gentlemen.

I wander around, fascinated by them. They walk around the platforms, as if chatting as they take a stroll on a european summer day. On the bigger platforms, there are black ponds. Realizing how thirsty I am, I kneel in front of one: it's not water but dark beer. It doesn't matter. I drink until I'm satisfied and then sit there, watching the holograms and robots walk about, ignoring my presence.

Then, I feel I have to go on. I look back: the tornado is forming. I get up and walk the other way, past a few more couples and then, at the bottom of the small green valley, there's a cave.

And something strange happens: I smile. Somehow, I know now everything is fine and that this is, in fact a dream. I look a this bizarre world one last time, before entering the cave.

I wake up confused, feeling I have been running a marathon. My legs actually hurt. For a second, I recall everything that happened on the dream, as I stand up to have breakfast.

- I have to written down. - I think, as I pour a lot of orange juice into a glass. After all, I've been running a lot.