Paranoia

Think then conclude and act accordingly.

Darkness starts to crawl on the town like a nightmare. Outside, wind is howling like a tortured soul insanely pushing back and fourth every single window in the building. It feels like the very building is shaking out of fright. Tonight, cute is not on the menu, and it seems like this is going to be a long night..

You have that little article to write for tomorrow. The wind is still knocking on your window like a madman. You can't even concentrate, you won't while that annoying big shadow near the border of your visual field is slowly moving towards you, then to make things worse, it instantly vanishes as soon as you look its side. This is not a pleasant matter, you should join the only human being living in the room next door.

This creepy mirror is still in the corridor, it insists on showing horrible things moving while you are not looking at it. Those things are alive, you could swear that one of them is gazing at your back from the lightless corner, that is exactly when you expect a cold hand on your arm, a firm grip on your shoulder, an unknown entity to hit you as hard and as painful as it can, and.. Then, it jumps right to your face! Your heart pounds one strong beat. You forget how to breath. You freeze. The world around you become one pintura negra^*. The thing moves out of your way.. So, it was a stray cat! What a pitch-dark stray cat is doing on the third floor?!
You make few steps in your neighbor's room, you exchange few comments with him about the bad weather.. Then that strange faint sound comes from the unused room down the corridor. They say that a young girl was killed and buried in that room. You hold your breath. You open your ears. You listen carefully. There is nothing except the wind playing its melancholic requiem. Then as you resume breathing you hear it again. Your neighbor heard the same thing. That kind of sounds is more intimidating than what the gloomy weather could make, and then you wish that you are both living a mass hallucination. You desperately try to change the atmosphere talking about anything that crosses your mind.

Eventually, it was late enough to return to your room. As you enter the room, you feel a menacing presence lurking under your bed and a killing intent coming from the darkness of your closet. You go straight to your bed. You try to avoid abrupt moves. You sneak under your blanket. You believe that the thick blanket would transform to a protective fortress, or that, by some miracle, it would become the cloak of invisibility. Perhaps, deep inside, you know that you will be noticed as soon as you turn on your bed. Your efforts will be for naught. Your instincts clearly know that when you turn off the lights, all of these demons feeding on your fears will attempt things that will drive you to the edge of insanity.
What will happen? You will be fed up resisting soon.. Let them go.. Unleash these fears of yours and embrace madness.. It is one secure shelter..

Better have an insane grin on your face when you are being eaten alive and your guts are spread on the floor..
Better be unconscious when you are buried alive with no tools to dig your way up to fresh air but your claws..
Better let the lights on until noon lest you be sorry for the foolish idea of facing "them" alone in the dark..

That night, the wind kept howling until dawn to cover the hysterical laughter coming from the third floor of a nearly uninhabited old building.

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Footnote:
* : Pinturas negras
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