An eerie wail pierces the night. But this is not what wakes Percy up. It’s the tug on his bedsheets that do the trick. Percy sleepily drags the bedsheets over himself. And drifts right back to sleep.
The clock reads 4: 00am. But it’s not Percy who sees this. It’s the thing tugging on his sheets who notes this.
An eerie wail pierces the night. And this time it’s in Percy’s ears. Percy screams too, but since he’s a boxer, he also throws a punch in the direction of his left ear. Instead, he punches the nightstand really hard.
A searing pain tears through his arm and he lets out a string of curses. He remembers the wail and tremulously asks who’s there, but all he gets in response is a loud fart. He feels hot in his nether regions before he realises his bladder has long since let go. The fan starts to creak, as if in the rotation, but there’s no light. Percy frantically reaches out in the general direction of his bedside drawer, reaching for any form of light, but he cannot find so much as his phone, but whatever’s in his room has found his legs and is yanking on them. Percy desperately reaches out for the posts of his bed to no avail, he screams for help some more.
Percy quickly jumps up once he senses whatever it is has relaxed its hold. He kicks wildly, but comes in contact with nothing, surprisingly and the thing catches his legs again, and continues dragging.
His buttocks have also relaxed their hold, and Percy is all too aware of the slimy substance, being squished as he is dragged kicking and screaming down from the bed, to the floor and out of his room.
There’s another eerie wail this time, and it’s in his front. His head is being banged over things and he has no idea where anything is. He just moved in. But then his face hits the carpet. He makes to grab the edge of the carpet when the lights suddenly come on.
He is greeted by a lot of people, gathered in his suffocatingly small living room, beer-cups in hand. His best friend, the one who did the dragging, burst out laughing as he scrambles away from Percy, hand over his nostrils, sweat-soaked. Everyone is high-fiving his best friend for playing such a grand prank and taunting Percy, slapping him on the back, saying he needs to go change, that he stinks. He makes a quick survey of himself, checking for broken bones. Nothing, surprisingly, is broken. Someone has a video camera, and they aim it at his shit-and-piss soaked boxer shorts. He swats unsuccessfully at the camera and turns to hurry back to his room and clean up.
He pauses mid-stride, around the corner to his room, then he turns back and waves at everyone, wondering why his best friend would invite a crowd to watch such a disgraceful prank.
Then he remembers it’s graduation day, and being the valedictorian he is the recipient of the valedictory prank.
But his best friend had moved to Canada before graduation.
And he graduated ten years ago.
And that every single one of those guys is dead.
Or has been so for the past 7 years.
He should know, he killed them himself.
Then something at the back of his mind reminds him, he’s alone at home.
And he has no neighbours.
……………………………………………………….
The police officers would later watch Percy on a tape that was lying conspicuously around in a very bloody room, being dragged into the corridor by nothing, waving at nothing, swatting at nothing, hung from both hands to the railing on his living room wall by practically nothing and agree unanimously that the video should not be sent into evidence. But they would hear the wail and cringe.
Because each man in the room sees himself in the video, crucifying Percy. And since no one accuses them out rightly, the idea is accepted.
Ten years later, the officer with the idea to destroy the video is found, crucified too. The officers who watch the tape of his death agree that it should be destroyed. Because they each see themselves.
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