Midnight Guest

There was a stranger standing on my doorstep in the night, black hood drawn against a torrential downpour, coat collar turned up to a toothed wind. How long the stranger had remained upon my stoop, I do not know, only that at the seeming stroke of midnight did the cloaked figure ply the graven metal knock upon my oaken door. Despite my trepidation in regard to receiving guests after the hours of civil invitation, I felt myself compelled by a cold press against the very heart of me to extend my hand unto this figure, this dark figure who stood upon my doorstep.

With uncertain hand, I did open wide my door and soon felt the harsh elements of the night reach out from the cold street to wrap me in paralyzing embrace. I bade the dark stranger enter, before the hurricane should undo all the work which a vigorously stoked fire had thusly strained to achieve over the past hours.

Wordlessly, the stranger entered and so did I close the door behind, shutting out the angry, shrieking protests of the unseasonable monsoon to let it resume its muted efforts against mine oaken doorframe and sturdily constructed windows. I made to take coat of she who was now my guest, for it was indeed a female who now occupied in my hall. She made no motion to unfasten the laden garment, even though its function of protection against cold and wet had since been quite thoroughly nullified by the ferocity of the tempest beyond my door, so she stood in my hall, dripping water in such a way that it seemed as though a cloud of storm had taken refuge within the folds of the garment and continued to rain its burden of precipitation upon my floor in mockery of the four walls which had so ably kept its brethren at bay.

Seeing that my guest must be cold and wet, I remarked that I had made a fire and built it large, and I would be most relieved should she ensconce herself before it, if only because seeing her in so damp a condition did indeed cause my heart to weep for her.

Twice more I bade her to come and stand before my hearth, until finally, wordlessly, the stranger did enter my home. Yet before I was allowed to offer direction for my guest to find the hearth, her step, easy and measured, took her straight to my study wherein the hearth had been stoked. She moved and stood as though the house was her own, as though I were the true guest but had by some measure been the fool not to have understood this apparent fact. I felt myself prepare a protest within my breast, but it was punctured as though by knife and it thusly bled as heavy air from my lips as I looked up into the face of the stranger.

Hers was a face which every individual would know, even before the act of seeing. For I looked into the depths of my guest’s hood and I saw what seemed to be a skull without muscle, tendon, or sinew, then a flash of lightening, curious as I to see, did light my room and I saw I looked upon a pale face, whose skin was the very color of a bone bleached by desert sun. I recoiled from the sight, it could not be helped, for though I saw a face I could not yet seem to perceive the eyes that lay therein, and it seemed to my frightened and lying eye that I stared not into a mortal’s eyes, but into a tractless void of darkness far beyond any world that living souls may tread.

“I beg your pardon a thousand times,” I pleaded of my guest. “I am afraid the conditions of the night have overcome my sensibilities and I am as liable as an infant to startle at the smallest disturbance or most sudden noise in my present state.”
My guest made no move to return my entreating gaze, nor did she move her lips to speak, and it seemed, in my fragile state, that I could not even see her breathe, though I knew that to be an impossibility, despite how I could see her stationary ribs through her still-soaked garment. Her ribs which had not yet moved to take a breath. And her garment which continued to drip water upon my floor at an unchanged pace. And her black hood still heavy with rain despite her unhealthy closeness to the flames within my hearth.

That was how I knew her face, though I knew it not. For does not the mind of science rule among us? Do we not see that which cannot be explained, only to dismiss it as something which merely needs one wiser than ourselves in order to perceive? And so the rational mind may cast aside the inner struggles of most keen heart and soul, and so assured, once more I did scoff my fears. Irrational they were, despite the growing darkness in my hall! Balderdash was all it could be, even as the fire began to smother, as though a great iron fist were closing down upon it. Only when the head of my guest finally turned to look me eye to eye did my mind give up the reigns of logic. And as it did, pale face of my guest did approach me, quite independently from its robed body so that it could study me with the eye that was no eye, for there was no whiteness or color to be seen; even the black was absent, leaving only the hollow gaze of the grave.

I screamed then. I know I must have screamed. I screamed until my lungs cracked in hopeless effort and my eyes did weep blood! But my scream merely found itself caught in the black eyes of the pale woman, dropping dead into thick smoke before even my own ears could perceive mine own utterances of horror. I thrust my hands out before me, thinking to trip the pale woman upon her own cloak, but even as I moved to do so the cloaked opened to greet me, yawning as wide and high as the very gates of Chaos!

Alas, my hearth did vanish, as did my books, and my chair, all drawn into the abyss before my waking eyes! And the sound! The horrid, wretched sound! It was a sound that was no sound, for when has one not even registered one note with one’s ears for even one moment in a lifetime? Not one beat of the heart, or movement of hair? But this sound! It was a sound of unsound, swallowing, feeding, consuming! It was feeding! Feeding! Taking my soul from my body as an oyster is pried whole from its shell! I could no longer hear mine own thoughts! It had my mind! My very mind was clutched in the glacial grasp of its claws as my eyes burned with pain as they tried in vain to escape from their sockets because they saw what still approached: the face! The Face of the skull came toward me and my heart knew. The very soul of me knew that I looked into the eyes of that which takes life. There was no malice therein, for such a thing is not of this existence, but what I saw in that deepest of pits was my own frailty, my own mortality, and then, even as my eyes boiled inside my skull for seeing the ice of eternity, I did witness my own death.

As clearly as I see my own words on this page, I could see it!

I saw.

I perceived.

I awoke in my study, reclining in my chair, hands folded as though for rest, or in preparation for interment. For a long moment, I dared not move for the shock of what I had only just witnessed and the dread visage which most assuredly must still have been held over my sweating brow. But no blow came, nor frigid breath upon my neck. The hearth had long since died down and what few cinders remained were upon the verge of giving up the struggle.

With hesitant step, I stood, shaking, hearing no noise but for the ticking of my mantelpiece clock and the worried beating of my heart within its cage. As I pondered whether I was now or had previously been lost within a dream or some mad delirium, I found the room too bright for the dead of the night, and the sounds of the storm outside could no longer be heard.

Ensconced as my study was within the interior of my dwelling, I moved with hurried, anxious step to the large window of my main rooms, from which, on pleasant days, one could see out into the street below and witness neighbors passing to and fro. Indeed, as I cast aside the curtains in an overtly dramatic yet satisfying fashion, I found myself not looking out upon the darkest night of memory, but into the open arms of a bright new day. The sun beamed down exuberantly upon the citizens of the land below it, drawing everyone out into the street for pleasure instead of business. Even as I watched, a group of children, enjoying the weather, frolicked past my window, laughing in the unrestrained manner of youths as they chased one another hither and yon in no pattern that any adult could comprehend.

So comforted, I placed a hand upon my breast as the final nervous efforts of my heart relaxed and my entire being, body and soul, recognized that my waking nightmare had at last been banished. I felt elation swell within me as my mind reconciled with the evidence that I had indeed been dreaming, and I felt foolish to have been so easily bested by the phantoms of my mind. But despite its passing, I recalled the truth of the finite nature of existence and so resolved to venture forth into the city so that I might enjoy the glory of the day. I prepared myself in morning routine, then finding appearance acceptable, I did step out into the street in such a pleased fashion that I daresay I did canter lightly down the lane.

Alas, had I but taken a moment, even a solitary second, I could have placed even a fingertip upon the rug which lay before the hearth and felt the cold dampness that clung there still. I would find no such reminder when I returned to my place of dwelling six hours hence, the vision of the night previous long since dismissed as dream and forgotten. And the prophecy of my end, so precisely and painfully delivered by a pale woman not of this world, was unwittingly cast from my mind, its warning, and edification, lost to the winds of oblivion.