Please don't try to make any sense of this, because there is none (maybe, I think.....). This story is what happens when a desire to write horror collides with a bad head cold, painkillers and sleep deprivation.

If I Fall Off the Edge of the World
by Winter

I heard them again last night, those...

...itching sounds. Not scratching. Scratching is tangible. Physical. The sound of nailsclawstalons against skin and flesh and blood and bone.

Itching sounds are scarier because they

are                                                           your head.

                                                          in

Not in your ears.

I was with you when they came, itching away at my brain. We were in your dreams, I think, because mine were never as sanecoherentlucid as

yours.

Wish I'd known you. I think you were beautiful because your dreams are. They have flowers in them.

I remember flowers. I think. It's not easy to remember my memories sometimes. Especially things of the past. Like the.........................

the.........................

there was blood on my clothes this morning. Not mine because it smelled different and not yours because you don't have any. Not no more you don't.

* * * * * *

My mind clears up a bit when the morning fog lifts, and I could start walking again. The nights are always worse, because in the dark my thoughts get kind of fuzzy. Buzzed, almost like drunk out of my skin. It gets better when the sun rises, if nothing else then just because I know it's still there.

The road is more or less gone now. This morning I leave the last of the asphalt behind, and it's just dirt now. If it was empty before, it's a fucking wasteland now. Trees are all dead, just withered branches and dried-out trunks. I thought it would get better the further east I got, but it's not.

It's like the whole damn planet is falling apart.

Don't know how long I've walked. Weeks, months maybe. Can't tell from the seasons, they're all summer now.. The heat is getting worse. If I had an egg, I'm sure I could fry it on the rocks. I'm not sure what an egg is, but I think it's food. Like I think I said, I can't really remember much things.

Sun's behind me now, that means it'll be dark soon. And time for the sounds. They come mostly at night. Mostly. I wonder what they are. I don't wanna know what they are.

My hands are blistered. Fucking heat. They're bare, almost raw, and they look wrong. I think... I think I had fur once. Not just hair, fur. Real fur. I'm too scared to take off my clothes and look. Last mirror I saw, I smashed it before it could jump out and scare me. Think I'd freak for real if I really knew.

Seven years of bad luck? Great! That'd be a change for the better.

* * * * * *

Know...

Do you?

Do you know the scariest
Do you know the worst
Do you know the freakiest sound in the world?

                                                                                              (night again)

Thoughts are not as easysimple to grasp

freakiest
The sound, you know? The sound that cities make? The one that's always there, the hum? Air conditionings, cars, electricitycity...

The thing that permeates every silence, the mmmm you hear when you try

to
                    sleep?

Freakiest sound there is, is when it's not there.

A silent city.

That's why I ran, even though the itching noises were out there and they were closer and they were gonna and they were gonna get me! Ran through the dark.

I just couldn't stand being near that fucking dead city, cause I

          it was going to
knew                         eat me.

* * * * * *

I slept long this morning. Too long. Burned the side of my face on the stony ground as the sun rose. Can't remember why I'm so tired, it's like I worked out all night.

Think I know what day it is, though. Gotta be Sunday, right? Why else get a sunburn? My fingers can't really feel that well, but I felt my face and I think it has no fur. My hands have no fur and my face has no fur. That's wrong I'm wrong I...

Thoughts slipping for a moment. I can't afford to lose it while the sun's up, or I'd die for sure. Gotta look for food, look for water, look out for the sun.

I keep forgetting why I'm going east, but there's got to be a good reason, right? Otherwise it'd be just stupid to not turn back. But I think the west is gone. Something... something bad happened, and... it's worse back there. So east must be better, right?

Found water just after highnoon. Must be my bad luck kicking in at last. I drank so much I almost threw up, then I washed my burn. Would have bathed, but I'm too scared to take off my clothes. Not sure what I'd find, but I know I don't like it. I'm staying at the water tonight, so I can drink again before I start walking tomorrow. Just sitting here feels weird, not walking.

It's getting dark.

* * * * * *

Itching

Itching

Itching

Itching

Itching

Itching

Itching.

Itching.

Itching.

Itching.

Itching.

Itching.

Itching!

Itching!

Itching!

Itching!

Itching!

Itching!

Itch....

Itchy...

itch

                                        CLOSER

* * * * * *

The water was gone when I woke up. No, wrong. I was gone. Water's still probably just where it was, only I'm not. Filled my bottles, though, and they weren't gone. Nope, not gone. Just not where I was.

Still walking east. Must be a hundred days now, I think. Hundred sounds like a nice number, maybe should I celebrate? Bake a fucking cake? Dust flower and eggs that cook on the rock, with piss as the only liquid.

I don't think so.

I wonder what I'll find when I get there, wherever there is. East, I guess. Maybe just more east. Maybe there is no there, maybe the wasteland just keeps going until I'm so far east I'm back west again. Can that really happen? Something tells me the world is round, or at least used to be back when I could remember such things.

I don't wanna go back west, I think it's bad there. I think that's where the nightsoundsnoises are coming from. They're what's left...

Fucking nightthoughts fucking coming fucking out again. Shut up!

Pain. Pain pain pain pain pain! I just cut my finger off. Just my pinkie, nothing vital. It was the only way to keep sanewholesome.

I'm pretty sure now, as it's getting darker, that there won't be no east soon. It's just gonna end, and I'll fall off the world. At least my finger doesn't hurt because it's not there anymore, though where it should be hurts.

* * * * * *

...closer...

* * * * * *

My clothes are starting to fall off. So damn hot! A patch on my thigh was gone this morning, and there's still a bit of fur underneath. Brown or grey or cerise or something, I can't really remember the colours. Maybe the itches tore the patch off during the night. I think...

I wish there was a God so I could swear to her.

I think I saw them. During the night, just beyond the dark. They had eyes so black they dimmed the moonless dark. Now that the sun's up they're gone, but in the night they can probably take me.

I wonder why they don't.

My thigh has blistered now, and the fur comes off when I touch it. What the hell's wrong with everything? I tried not to let the sun see my skin, but still I'm burned. It's as if even the shadows give off heat.

Just after highnoon, I saw it. Whatever I've been walking to, it's there. Beyond the horizon, but I think I saw it anyway. The edge of the world. I wonder if I'm gonna fall off or if they'll take me first.

* * * * * *

Claws... claws I want I want claws!

Scratch that itching scratch them before...

They're so close so close now I can hear hear them hear them.
Feel them so near they almost touch brush against my field of vision feel them feel them hear!

They are they who are they who are gone. Everything.

They are everything and then there is me oh God who's not there anymore (dead)(playing hooky) them and there's me.

And when they take me there's gonna be bo more me only

                                                  THEM

* * * * * *

I think they're still out there, though the sun's up. My thigh hurt and my whole arm is bare from clothes now. bare from fur too. Blistered. And my finger's still gone, and I don't know whay but that surprisesstartlesscares me. Cut another, keep the night away.

Fuck! how that hurts!

Keeps my mind in line thouhg, and I'm running eastwards. Found more water, but no food. Nothing at all except dead branches that taste like ashes. I'm not sure what ashes taste like, but I think it's kinda like dead branches. It's hotter than ever, I think my brains are melting.

My clothes keep falling away, and when I leave them behind I sometimes turn around and they're burning. I'm almost naked and guess what? I think I'm male. Blistered and furlesshairless, but I think it is a cock.

I can see it now, it really is the edge of the world. Chasm. Big dark hole from left horizon to right horizon, just a day's walk away. If I can survive the night with them so close itching and closer. Third finger doesn't hurt as much.

* * * * * *

I know what happened now. It's almost funny how clearlucid my thoughts are even though it's night, when they were so chaosblurred in the evening. I remember fights, and killing. People killing people killing people. All killing all until only THEY remain. Itching their way closer. All of them, all the deadkilled, looking for me the only me the only one left alive.

Maybe my sanesanesanity's going after all...

I remember the stonewalledstonehouse. Church. Before I started walking east to get to the endedge of the

world...

I saw inside, saw through the window or was it door can't remember. But the children. I think God, she died that day. The children were...

No adults just the children and they were my mind died too that day I think

The children were so many and then so few and then only one and he kept on kept on eating until he too joined THEM the dead and came after me!

All dead and all mad, or all mad and all dead.

Itching and itching and itching closer and closer and closer and they will take me they can take any time

* * * * * *

But they let me go, even though they stay close, no matter that the sun is up. They're still waiting there just out of sight.

I find some water again, and I drink it even though it scalds my tongue. and I think it sunburns me from the inside.

Then I run. I want to be at the edge before the sun goes down again. Before they take me. I still don't know if I'm gonna jump off or if they're gonna take me.

My clothes are all gone, and my fur is all gone, and my skin is all blistered. It kind of hurts. Wish I had medicine. I remember medicine. It was little things that made you better when you felt bad. I can't remember how they worked, but I think you prayed to them. Or something.

Still running but it's going slow. My feet don't work too well anymore. The sun is sinking fast, faster i think that it has the right to.

I'm at the edge of the edge when it goes down for the last time ever.

* * * * * *

THEYTHEMTHEY

Through the fearpanic I can't help but wonder about you, about your dreams I was in. Will they still be around after I'm gone too?

Who were you? Wish I'd known. I think you were young a boy not old, because your dreams were so pure and clean and oh God (not!) it's THEM.

they're there, just inside the darkness, no longer itching but gnawing. Gnashing their teeth and

oh so many teeth

Waiting for me to be them as well. I wanna jump but it's darker down there.

What if it don't kill me, jumping off?
                                                         ?
                                                          ?

If I fall and fall, and I don'r die? Fall forever? I think maybe better to eaten be eaten.

The stars don't look as bright as they used to. Don't think it's my
                                                                                                       eyes
                                                                                                                but

the stars are fading. The edge is coming nearer I think it's growinggettingbigger.

Everything seems to be fading, except for THEM. THEY finally come out, darker than the darkness I can't see them but they look horrible and it hurts and it hurts when the eat and they eat and eat

And the edge, its coming closer too, I think it wants to eat me as well will that hurt too?

And they eat me up just as I think my last and I wonder, wonder if I'm sinking to the ground
                      or
                          or
                              if I fall off the edge of the world.