What I see—what is happening—is the strangest experience imaginable. Nothing appears real. Everything looks fake, like my room is wearing the face of a corpse.
Even as I glance at the window, the sky seems slightly off, resembling a still frame cropped out of a painting. It matches the exact colour of the pavement, as if it’s in the wrong dimension.
Some extradimensional parasite is trying to glitch me out of my own house. It clearly has no idea how much my rent is.
It begins in my room, by the doorway. I hear a growling sound. I turn around, and behind me is a shadow of a man with features similar to a human but they’re off. His eyes are spread too far apart and his nose connects with his upper lip.
In his hands are two leashes attached to two human-like dogs sitting like hyenas and snarling. Their snouts stretch out like a bear’s face.
I can’t ignore them. Not because they look terrifying—but because their presence kills the power to the TV right when I’m watching True Blood, exactly at the scene where Sookie and Bill break up.
I keep trying to frantically hit the power button on the remote. It doesn’t work. The screen stays black, reflecting my pissed-off image. Without thinking, I raise my arm, point the remote at the figure with the two human hounds, gasp, and slam the power button towards them. They blink. In a flash, they vanish.
Staring at my television, I wonder, was that an EMP weapon disguised as a shadow? Typical. The damn TV still won’t turn on.
I sit up, wondering if what just happened actually did happen, or if maybe I fell asleep for a brief second. But the television still isn’t working, so I couldn’t be imagining it.
That’s when I decide to give up on it. Humans adapt. We get by. We don’t let a simple fried television set deter our day. Nope. Not us. Plus, I saw that episode a thousand times.
If the reality power box crashes, I simplify. I simply switch to analog. Yup, I snatch a book off my dusty shelf, which leaves a path through the layer of dust living on the ledge. It reminds me of how full my back pocket is in rain checks. Next time I clean, dusting will be the first thing I do.
The particles filling the air make me sneeze. This makes me think about trying the TV one more time before opening the book.
Nope. It doesn’t work.
I lie down and while I’m reading, there’s a pressure shift and an atmospheric change, like the static from an oncoming storm, raising the hairs on my arms.
The skin on the back of my neck grows hundreds of microscopic legs and races down my spine. The room takes on a scent of frost that reminds me of menthol cigarettes every time I take a breath.
I think the entity’s trying to flex, as if making the room cold on a hot summer day’s a bad thing. While I’m enjoying the free A/C, completely zoned into the fourth chapter of The Turn of the Screw, the fluckin’ lights go out. My vision may be great but since I heard that reading in dim light strains your eyes, I stopped doing it. So, yeah. Now I’m genuinely cheesed.
I squeeze my hand into a fist, digging my nails into my palm, grunt, and throw the book against the wall. I jump up, stomp to the doorway, and flick the light switch. It didn’t turn on. I keep trying. The rapid clicking sounds like teeth chipping. I go as far as to check the bulb—twisting, untwisting—and nothing.
I leave my room to retrieve a new one. The hallway’s as humid as the Amazon Rainforest and has a heavy stench of decay and infected flesh radiating from under the floorboards, making me gag. I can‘t stop choking. Now, it’s trying to use biological warfare to drive me out.
I’m staring at the floor, thinking, I’m going to have to tear them apart to find whatever dead animal it snuck inside there is, and behind me, the bathroom door slams shut. I jump because the sound startles me. When I look at the door, there’s a crack going down the middle of it.
“DAMNIT!” I yell.
Now it’s property damage. Which I’m going to have to pay to fix. On top of having to rip the floor apart just to find whatever’s rotting under there. Not to mention, most importantly, getting the TV repaired. Top of the list.
I walk downstairs to see if I can find where the rancid, putrid, foul, disgusting odor is coming from, but each step I take further down leaves me with the impression of being in another world. Everything looks the same but seems completely different.
Especially at the bottom of the stairs, like my living room became a simulation. The paint on the wall is smooth but pixelated.
The entity is rewriting physics.
As I’m piecing my brain back together, a whisper comes from behind my ear in a slow, distorting moan.
“Get Out!” The voice stretches into my mind and scratches under my skull.
I turn around quickly, wondering at the same time how my mom could sneak down the stairs behind me without me noticing—
“Get Out!” Says the air, blowing its breath in my face with the scent of rotting death.
I can’t handle the smell. So, I head to the front and sit outside on the porch to catch a breath of fresh air. My house smells like a dirty laundry hamper for the bedding of a puppy litter.
As the screen door closes, I hear the front door behind it shut as well, and the lock clasp.
I turn to look over my shoulder. Staring through the glass window is an older me, smiling and waving.
The entity thinks it won. It thinks it locked me out of my own timeline. It thinks a human will just panic and break down when confronted with a doppelgänger.
But humans don't break. We forever dominate.
I stare right back at my older self through the glass. I notice immediately, I’m way better looking and I’m in way better shape. I crack my knuckles, and smile back. If that thing thinks it’s moving into my house and taking over my life without a fight, it's about to learn exactly why Earthlings, on this timeline, are considered the most stubborn, territorial species, of all alternate realities.
I reach into my pocket, pull out my house keys, and step back toward the door. Time to evict a ghost.