Chapter 2 – Chap 2

After my experience with Piri, I didn’t want to play outside for a while and for a long time, I didn’t see anything else unusual. There always seemed to be something just out of my sight, though. A ripple in the air, or a rustling movement in my peripheral vision. My next experience, though, was much darker; when I first began to see the world as it is instead of through the eyes of an innocent child.

I didn’t actually see anything else strange for a long time after my time with Piri. I guess that I eventually just assumed it was a dream or just some weird happening. My second memory is one of the most vivid that I have. Everyone has heard the stories about various cryptids or urban legends, but those aren’t what people should be afraid of. People should be afraid of the monsters that they cant see. And even after years of living with this blessed curse, i wish that i couldn’t see them too.

My next experience with the unseen happened when i was fifteen years old. I was still young and impressionable and full of hormones. I was a freshman in high school and the creature that I saw there, and most often, is what I call a fear imp. They look like small monkeys but nearly weightless, with skeletal hands, feet, and tails. Their eyes are sunken, milky-white orbs, and their hair is short and course, ranging from black to brown to green. Being small, they aren’t very intimidating but they are some of the most vile and vicious creatures that I have ever encountered. And their danger isnt what they can do to a person physically, it’s what they do to a person’s mind. Unlike hobgoblins and other mischief-makers, fear imps are truly malicious. When they sense negative emotions in someone, they jump onto their shoulders and sink their nasty little claws in so that they can whisper fear and doubt and hatred into their thoughts and subconscious.

There are various methods to dealing with and even ridding yourself of a fear imp. Among these are ignoring them (as I do), seeking help from a therapist or family member, or even medication. But keep in mind: no one is immune to fear. And the more you fear and doubt, the deeper the imp’s claws sink in to feed off the negativity.

This memory is more like a set of memories spanning a few months.

I know most people start high school with at least a little trepidation, but my friend, Nick, was terrified. He didn’t much like people and, because of his parents, he was afraid that he was a disappointment to anyone and everyone. I saw Nick on the bus for the first day of ninth grade and that’s when I first laid eyes on a fear imp.

“Nick, what’s that on your shoukder?” I asked because, to me, the imp looked like some kind of strange toy or backpack accessory.

Then it turned its head to stare directly at me as if it knew I could see it.

“What?” Nick questioned back, looking at his shoulders. “Theres nothing there but my bookbag straps.”

“No!” I shot back a little too harshly. “Dude, theres some kind of weird monkey-thing sitting on your shoulder!”

Nick just stared at me. The fear imp grinned its devilish grin. “You’re trying to play a joke on me!” Nick accused.

The bus stopped in front of the school. “I wish you weren’t trying to make fun and laugh at me, Jackson. I’ll see you later.” Nick said, sounding hurt as he got off the bus.

I didn’t mention the imp to him after that, but I did pay close attention to my friend.

Fast forward a few weeks. Nick seemed alright, if a bit irritable. The imp, however, was darker and constantly flashing its evil grin, baring its crooked and pointed teeth.

I was sitting with some kids from my science class that I had to do a project with at lunch. I saw Nick and invited him to sit with us but he shrugged me off saying that they would just make fun of him later if they got to know him. I told him that they wouldn’t do that and I really wanted him to have lunch with us. Nick just smiled weakly and walked away. I remember feeling worried about my friend; it wasn’t like him.

As nick walked away, the imp turned to glare back at me.

For a couple of months after that, Nick seemed to avoid me and not want to talk. I was really concerned so I decided to go to his house to try to talk to him on our first day off for Christmas break. It was December eighteenth of that year.

Nick opened the door after the first knock. “What do you want, Jackson?” He asked me wearily.

I remember facing him squarely, completely ignoring the imp perched menacingly on his shoulder. “I’m worried about you. You havent so much as spoken to me in months.!”

“I’m fine!” He snarled back. “Go away.”

“Yoyre not fine!” I nearly yelled. “We used to hang out all the time! Video games, movies, lunch! Something is wrong with you and I think it’s that… THING on your shoulder! It hasn’t moved since the first day of school!”

Before Nick could respond to my outburst, I heard his father, Marcus, shout from inside: “Nicholas! Shut the damn door, you little freak! I ain’t payin’ to heat the outside too!”

Nick just sighed. “Leave me alone, Jackson. Stop trying to trick me for a laugh.” He said before closing the door in my face.

It is with great weight and sorrow in my heart that I recount the next and last time that I saw Nick. For what it’s worth, his funeral was a beautiful ceremony.

Not two days after the exchange at his front door, Nick’s mother came home from work to find him missing the top of his head, a shotgun and note on the floor by his body. The shotgun had belonged to his father.

The note was simple and stunk of hopelessness and fear: “To whoever finds this, I apologize about the mess. To my parents: why was I never good enough? All I wanted was some kind of approval. Instead, i lived (if you can call it living) afraid of making mistakes; afraid of beatings. Afraid of being a disappointment. I never asked a girl on a date for fear of rejection. I rejected my only friend because i was scared that he was just like everyone else, making fun of me. The freak. The weird, quiet dude. The next school shooter. Just know that when I pulled this trigger, it was finally peaceful. No more doubt. No more fear. No more me. You’re all welcome.”

Tears fell freely down my cheeks as I read the note at Nick’s funeral. From the podium by the casket, I glanced at the people from my classes and Nick’s family before resting my gaze on his casket. There was a ripple and it was there, sitting hungrily on the casket lid.

I stared in horror and jumped in shock when it moved.

It jumped dow. From Nick’s casket and ambled across the floor before taking a seat on his mother’s shoulder and it slowly sank its claws into her, staring at me with its milky eyes boring into mine.

A few days later, Nick’s mother hung herself.

//These things feed off negativity. Please, do what you can; what you have to to keep them away. And from personal experience, if you wake up one day with a weight on your shoulders… dont listen to it. //