“This is it Mary!” The wind howled and burned in her ears. “We go now or we don’t go at all!” Mary clutched madly at the railing. The rain slammed into their bodies. Less than a mile away lightning was spit from massive clouds that were as dark as pitch. She saw the ground below them. She looked to her left and saw her friend climb to a precarious perch on the rust covered rails. ...
Darkness. It was always the first thing she saw. She would come home to it and she would leave in it. That was the way it was every time. Carol walked in the empty apartment and shut the door behind her. She liked it. She liked not being able to see where she was. The rest of her life was so boring; this bit of fantasy was all she had. She could make herself feel just a tinge of fear at first. She would fill her mind with all sorts of gruesome ../images. Each time to her surprise, she would get to the point where she would feel that bitter taste of real fear. So real that each step to the light switch was one too many. ...
The world always seems a little odd. It doesn’t matter who you are. It always seems odd. It seems odd in life. It seems odd in college. It seems odd in high school. At least in two of these places, odd is the order of the day. Every one feels it, and at least in that, we take some comfort. But not everyone knows how truly strange things can get. Not everyone can see that we aren’t in the normal world we would like. We call them crazy. Sometimes we call them paranoid. But unfortunately, most of the time, we completely ignore them. One person knew this better than most. ...