Day?

It’s been three days since it happened. I think.

Truth be told: I can only guess. I can’t tell time accurately anymore. Not in the conventional sense.

I really don’t know what I’m into here but I’m knee-deep in it. I’m a little freaked out but…I didn’t survive a couple years in the sandbox just to punch out now. So I’m writing in this journal, to keep my head on straight. To remember things, important things. And if I don’t make it maybe someone else will benefit. Maybe.

I guess the best place to begin is when all of this started.

I had just finished my backshift and I was off for the rest of the weekend. Emily was supposed to be coming over later in the afternoon so I decided to relax in my living room, catch a couple of shows, a couple of z’s. Just a normal day…until it wasn’t.

It started with the TV first. I was half dozing off when the characters started talking gibberish. It was enough to wake me up as I wasn’t quite sure if I was hearing them right. It was English but it made no sense. Like they were just saying random words and stringing them together into a sentence with no rhyme or reason. Just a big pile of gobbledygook.

The more I paid attention the more I began to notice that something was off. For starters, the female lead had eyes that were off-kilter. I mean one eye was way higher relative to the other, like a Picasso painting. Then there was the male character she was in the scene with. He had seven fingers on each hand! 

I just sat there, watching this bizzaro world play out in front me until at one point they both stopped talking their nonsense and just turned towards the camera. Staring, that’s all they did. They said nothing, did nothing. Just looked, right at me it seemed. It was starting to creep me out so I shut the damn thing off. And that’s when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.

It had turned pitch black outside. I mean dark. I couldn’t see a damn thing. No stars, no light. Nothing. At first I thought it must’ve been some sort of eclipse so… I opened the window.

I never want to hear that sound again. It’s messing with me just thinking about it. Thinking about the screams. I never want to hear that sound again.

I must’ve blacked for a time, how long I can’t be sure. About all I can remember is shutting the window immediately and the next thing I know I’m waking up in my bedroom and the outside is still just as dark as it was before.

The first thing that started to go through my head was maybe this was it. PTSD, shellshock. I saw some messed up stuff going off downrange when I was in country. Stuff that I thought I had under control.

I snatched up my cellphone and tried to call Emily. But I had to rub my eyes because nothing on my phone made any sense. The text was in a language I’ve never seen before, some real alien moonspeak type symbols. So I figured it was better to call 9-1-1 instead. There was a tone, someone picked up, but the female voice on the other line sounded like a robot, with the static of a bad connection.

“Be mindful through acoustics.”

I thought I was tripping balls. So I start begging her to send someone, anyone. I’m all kinds of a messed up. Help me.

“Servicing is premature of the required time. The nature of yourself is without the indications of soothing measurables of petty lavishing.”

She kept going on like for a bit but I hit the end button. I dialed Emily’s number through pure muscle memory. The tone was off, sounding like it was underwater but she picked up. Or someone (or something) that sounded like her did.

“Tommy? That sound you? Are parts good? Waiting with you is loud.”

I hung up.

In a pure fit of panic I went to open the front door, realizing maybe too late that I’d be opening up to an abyss. Instead, I was confronted with an underground parking garage. Not my front lawn, not darkness, just…a parking garage. The smell of oil and wet pavement filling my nostrils. I closed the door and sat back down on my couch. Thinking for a few minutes before I got curious and checked my back door.

Sure enough, my backyard ceased to be. Instead, I opened up into what could only be a hospital ward. I shut the door and walked back to my kitchen. Opening the fridge to grab a bottle of water from the case I bought yesterday. Just as I started drinking, something else happened.

It’s hard to describe. I heard a *click* and my vision did this weird flicker, kind of like when you changed the channel on an old television. A frame flip I guess?

Well, right after that happened, I saw that the case I had opened was sealed again. The bottle I had taken out had been replenished as if nothing happened.

So, I don’t know what to make of that. It’s almost as if everything just resets. It’s happened again a few times now. I’ve experimented a bit and I think if I change something or move it from it’s original spot, a replacement takes it’s place. I have at least three cases of water now. Plus an extra loaf of bread I took out of the cupboard.

But before I can experiment any further with this, something has come up. Or rather…

…someone has taken up residence on my front porch. He’s been pounding on my door on and off for the past couple of minutes now. I keep hoping he’ll go away but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

I’ve looked through the peephole when he stops knocking and wanders away from the door, but he just sprints back and starts breathing heavily while looking through from the other side. Something isn’t right about him and it isn’t just because he has three legs, one of which doesn't bend. It’s the way he talks too…

“Upwards through the ground and green lights asunder pecan. The clerical soda of maritime hemorrhaging times verily Xanadu.”

Just like the 9-1-1 operator, just like Emily, just like the characters on the TV. That strange way they all talk.

He’s getting more violent with the way he pounds on the door…

…I’m going to have to deal with him.