The Perfect Nightmare

Part 1: Chapter 2

“How is this even possible?” Jack fumbled with his cup of hot chocolate as he pulled it from the microwave. Charlie sat across the kitchen island from him, her eyes focused on her own cup. The strange door to the void had disappeared after they exited, as if it had never been there in the first place. She refused to look at him.
         “I saw something in there that confused me – I’m not sure how to respond to it,” Charlie said, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. “And I noticed the smell of blood in the air when we walked in.”
         “Oh,” Jack muttered, looking away. “I… I don’t know what happened. I woke up and they were dead.”
         “But why didn’t you call 911? Why did you put their bodies in the darkness?”
         “It asked for them. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” Jack responded. Charlie reached across the counter and grabbed his hand. He stiffened at her touch. “I’ve thought about running away, about burning the house down with my parents inside, but I am not capable of killing. I know I’m not.”
         “Jack...” she said sadly. “You killed them. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can move on and accept what the darkness wants from you.”
         “Excuse me?”
         “I learned something in the darkness. I learned that we have a purpose, if we just accept it. The darkness wants both of us. That’s why it called to me. That’s why it showed itself. This house is more than a simple house. Something lives within the walls, and it needs us to become real, material, living.”
         “What if I don’t want it to live? What if it isn’t living for a reason?”
         Charlie looked at him with wide eyes. After a moment, she closed them and smiled at him. “It doesn't matter what you want. The moment you killed your parents, your fate was sealed. The moment you dragged their bodies into the void, the house owned you.”
         “And what makes you the houses liaison?” Jack questioned. Charlie tilted her head, the smile still on her face.
         “It chose me. It sought me out. You just happened to be here,” her voice was different, it was too sweet. He shook his head. “There is no turning back. You cant take back what you did, what the house made you do.”
         “Made me do? What do you mean?”
         Charlie shook her head and looked down at her cup. “It doesn’t matter. You’re stuck, you can’t get away. And now I am, too.”

Jack showed Charlie to the guestroom and wished her a good night. He made his way to his bedroom and closed the door; he was surrounded by darkness wherever he went. He had forgotten to grab light bulbs from the pantry and cursed himself silently, but he was too tired to care and he fell onto his bed. The moment his head hit the pillow, his eyes closed and he drifted into unconsciousness.



Charlie couldn't sleep. She stared at the ceiling with unblinking eyes, her mind blank with the black of the halls that she had traversed. She could feel something deep within her stirring, like it was gently being woken up by the darkness within the house. She didn't know what was going on, but it felt right somehow – it felt like it was meant to happen.



The sun rose and golden rays of light filtered through the curtains. Jack opened his eyes and rubbed the sleep away. He glanced at the wall at the end of his bed as he stood and stopped halfway off the bed. The wall that was previously just a wall had been transformed into a dark doorway.
         “No, no, I am not doing this,” he muttered, turning away from the darkness. He pulled his shirt over his head and walked to the bedroom door. With his hand on the knob, he looked over his shoulder at the dark doorway one more time and felt a strange pull on his body. A knock on the door snapped him out of his daze and he turned the knob. On the other side of the door stood Charlie, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
         “Hey, what’s going on? You look spooked,” Charlie said. Jack turned and pointed at the dark doorway. “Oh shit, when did that happen?”
         “Sometime during the night, I assume. I’m not sure what it means, but I feel like I need to go in there.”
         “I don’t think you should go in there alone, Jack,” Charlie said, putting her hand on his arm. He stiffened for a moment, then relaxed and placed his hand on top of hers.
         “I think I need to, Charlie. Maybe I’ll find some answers,” he whispered. He wrapped his arms around her in a light hug, then turned away and walked toward the darkness. “I’ll be back soon, I hope.”
         And he was gone. Charlie walked to his bed and sat cross legged, facing the darkness. She staid there for hours, waiting for him to come back through the doorway. She didn’t go to the bathroom, she didn't eat anything, she didn't leave the bed – she just stared at the doorway.
         The sun was low in the sky when Jack finally emerged from darkness. His skin was so pale he looked like a mannequin, and he was shaking uncontrollably. Charlie jumped off the bed and grabbed the blanket to wrap around his shoulders. She sat him on the bed and knelt in front of him.
         “What happened?”
         He remained silent, his eyes vacantly staring passed her at nothing. Charlie waved her hand in front of his face but she received no response.
         “I’ll go get you something to eat and drink,” she said, placing her hands on his knees. Before she could stand, before she could remove her hands, Jack grabbed her and kept her there.
         “You were right,” he whispered. Charlie cocked her head in confusion, but before she could say anything, he continued::
         “I killed them. I wanted to kill them. I wanted them to die for so long, to leave me alone, to just disappear. I killed them.”
         “It’s okay, Jack. It’s fine. Their bodies are gone, we cleaned up the blood. It’ll be weeks before the police catch wind of their disappearance. We have a while to figure out what to do,” Charlie tried to reassure him, but his expression didn’t change.
         “You were right about whatever lives in that darkness, too. We were chosen. We were chosen before we ever set eyes on this house. Everything we have done has led up to this moment. We have no choice but to listen,” he said. Charlie looked at him with wide eyes.
         “Alright,” Charlie finally said, “what do we do now? What exactly does it want from us?”
         “It wants souls. It wants whatever life is left in someone, however many days or months or years they have left to live.”
         They sat in silence for a long while, Charlie still kneeling in front of Jack, his hands on hers. When he was ready, when he was warmed up and his tremors had stopped, they left the bedroom and the dark doorway in the wall.