Poozikin

“Oh hello there, come, have a seat!” said the old doctor with the graying hair as I entered his office.

“Hello, hello doctor” I answered with a half smiling expression on my face as I set at his table. The table was riddled with various papers and folders fitting for a doctor like Dr. Melamedov. He was my psychologist. Ever since my mother had passed in an unexplained manner (the cops claim there was a gas leak that blew up her condo but for some reason they did not let me see what was left of her.) I am suffering from something similar to PTSD I suppose, I hadn’t been fully diagnosed yet with the disorder, but the doctor says I do see to suffer from mental trauma.

The doctor asked me to hand him my patient’s card and so I did, afterwards he asked, “So, how was your week?”

I looked into the aging doctor’s eyes and rubbed my hand across my chin, afterwards I had said, “Honestly? Terrible. The treatment is not working, I’ve been having nightmares every single night and for some reason I’m constantly c…”

The doctor cut me off there and started typing something on his computer while he says, “Describe me your nightmare, please”

I thought to myself, great… this again, this meeting is going to last longer than I wanted it to, I made myself comfortable on the chair and started retelling my nightmare to my therapist.

“Ok, I’ll start by mentioning one nightmare in which I’m locked in a tiny room and water starts filling it, until I drown, once I was dead in the dream, I woke up.”

The doctor responded to my description, “I suppose you feel like you are being stifled by something, to me that seems like a normal mourning process. Do you have anything else you would like to mention?”

I proceeded to say, “There was this one dream where I am in a dark lit forest and I am running around, terrified as if something is chasing me.

As if my life is in danger…

Nothing happens however…”

“And?” the doctor asked.

“Well it ended when I hit my head on a tree whilst running and I woke up with somewhat of a headache”, I answered, embarrassed.

The doctor had noticed the discomfort on my face and said, “You should not be ashamed, it’s simply a dream, and for the most part dreams aren’t as logical or coherent as life. Are there any other dreams you’d like to tell me about?”

I stared at the doctor, tried to think of something, but nothing came to mind, and so I said, “No, nothing, Doctor.”

Suddenly, I remembered something, vividly…

“I take that back, doctor, I do remember this one dream, I would like you to tell me what you think about it.”

The doctor began playing with a pen between his rather large fingers and said, “very well, tell me.”

I took a deep breath, exhaled the air out of my lung and began recalling the dream, “Okay so, I found myself lying on the ground inside this grayish yellow field and I was really cold.

There was what seemed like a bright sun in the sky, but it too was in shades of grayish yellow.

Everything had that grayish yellow kind of color to it.

Everything.

At first this dream was pretty much normal, I had gotten up on my feet and I felt great, it felt like I was on a vacation. For a while I was walking aimlessly in this dream, just strolling around this field I was in, some time into my dream I saw there was this person standing in the trees at the edge of the field, it wore black clothing, it was hooded and was simply standing there, doing nothing.

I called out to this person, but no response came.

I started walking towards the person, but once I was close to the woods, it had vanished without a trace.

I looked around and there was nobody…

I called out,

No response came.

I started walking back toward the grayish yellow field and after a few steps, I felt like there was someone behind me, following me.

I turned around, and I was alone.

The sensation of having someone staring at my back did not go away.

I started walking, hastening my pace every couple of steps almost to the point of running eventually.

The feeling of being stared at did not go away, it persisted, it got stronger and I became worried.

Laughter came out of nowhere,

It was unbearable, sickening, frightening.

Full-blown madman’s laughter.

It got stronger with each passing moment to the point that I fell down to my knees as my eardrums started banging painfully.

By that, point I was feeling terrorized by whatever was going on, and once my chest began pounding due to the stress I woke up…

On top of the creepy dream, my room was freezing for some reason.”

The doctor looked at me awe struck, he did not expect something as odd as my dream, he placed both of his hands onto the floor and began speaking, “Okay, from what I see here, you think someone’s following you, maybe threatening your safety. I do think you keep the idea of your mother being murdered instead of dying in a freak accident somewhere deep in your unconscious mind along with all your instincts and primitive cognitive functions. Your dreams, our dreams, they are a gateway to a person’s mind. They represent whatever occupies our mind during the day – in your case the idea that some psychotic maniac has killed your mother as part of his murder spree. Highly unlikely if you ask me.”

“So what should I do to stop thinking this way?” I asked.

The doctor replied coldly, “Get over your surreal ideas that your mother was killed, and just accept the fact she died in an accident, it’s fairly common.” He continued, “You could go to remains of her condo and see for yourself what had happened there, and after you do that I recommend an actual vacations, seems like you might be wanting that too.”

“Alright, I’ll try it. Thanks doctor, I guess that’ll be it”, I told the doctor who had nodded, we shacked hands and I went out of his office.

I was headed home and I felt cold, it was September, but it was actually quite warm that autumn. My best shot at relaxing back then was to call a few friends and have a few beers with them. Therefore, I invited my best friend Jan, and the girl I’m head over heels for, but wouldn’t dare to tell her so, Marina.

Once they showed up, we set down to eat a pizza I had ordered earlier, due to my lack of will to cook something descent that day, we could not go out properly because it was Tuesday, and we all had our jobs to go to the next day so we settled on dreaming a bottle of beer each. Once we were done eating we set down at my living room to watch some movies, I set at the right edge of my couch, next to met set Marina, whose long red hair looked so good on her pale shoulders, and her large green eyes would mesmerize me whenever I looked into them. Jan set next to Marina on the left edge of the couch.

We started watching some movie and suddenly Jan said, “Hey, man, why did you just giggle?”

I looked at him with shocked eyes and said, “I have no idea what you are talking about…”

I slid my back down the couch a bit and Marina rested her head on my shoulder, a few moments later she said, “I think you have ghosts in here, you know?”

I straightened myself up and Jan and I looked at each other confused, “Huh, what are you talking about?” I asked.

Marina straightened up as well and said, “Okay, this might sound weird, and I am not making fun of you here or anything, but I am sure I had just seen a pale kind of transparent figure pass by the mirror…”

What the fuck?! I thought to myself.

Marina cut my line of thought, “its way too cold in here, could you please bring the heater?”

I was snapped back into reality and it was indeed colder in the room than it should’ve been, it felt like that night…

I said I would get the heater that was in the buildings storage basement and I had warned the couple that they must behave while I’m gone.

I got down to the basement; it was a large dark space so I turned on the lights. Much to my annoyance I found out that my heater was resting beneath a pile of object my neighbors left in the basement. So after a long few minutes I was able to dig out my heater from the pile of items it was buried under, I raised the small heater in victory and then I heard a scream.

It came from above,

The staircase.

I dropped my heater on the floor, I probably broke it, but that did not concern me at that moment, I was worried something had happened to one of my friends and so, I ran up the stairs. Unable to find anything out of the ordinary I ended up reaching my apartment, the door was closed.

Once I opened that door, oh god, I wish I hadn’t…

Once I opened the door to my apartment, I was struck with the most heinous sight imaginable to man, I saw Jan lying in a pool of his own blood. His body broken down, lifeless, riddle with huge cuts all over, his organs lying around him. He had his guts on top of his torso, his liver was spilling out of his side, a chunk of his brain was on the floor, next to a horizontally cut piece of his skull. His limbs were separated from the rest of his body.

Had it not been for Marina’s loud screams, I would’ve fallen on the floor and puked myself to unconsciousness.

Marina was just standing there, in the corner of my living room, crying and violently shaking as new cuts kept appearing out of nowhere around her fragile body, the sight made me regain my sense and shout, “What the fuck is going on here?”

The cutting had stopped, the shaking had stopped, and Marina fell to the floor and kept on sobbing painfully in the corner of the room. I went to reach Marina, but once I met a step in her direction, I was frozen dead in my tracks, I could not move. I felt as if something had passed in front of me, something ice cold. Some sort of a weak yet extremely prominent chilling breeze.

Then the laughter returned.

That sickening sadistic laughter came back to haunt me, and I was frozen in my spot. I was paralyzed with fear and could not move for what seemed like an eternity; eventually I mustered enough power to move my petrified muscles once more. The laughter never stopped. I turned around to see the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen, I felt like my whole body was spasming due to the terror that surged through my body, I felt like I had indescribably painful muscle spasms all the way from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Then and there, I realized how durable the human are is, my heartbeat was probably comparable to a machinegun’s fire rate at the moment.

I tried saying something but all that came out were terrified stuttering sounds, “Y… Y…  Yo… o… o… o… u… u… u… a… a… a… aren’t… aren’t… aren’t… aren’t… re… a… a…. a… a… l… real…”

In front of me stood a large figure, dressed in black clothing from head to toe, every single body part this thing had was covered in some black cloth like thing, only the face and its hands were visible. The skin of this creature had a sickly blue tone to it almost like that of a corpse, it was swollen and stretched, it’s lips were bloated and red, they were revealing rows of yellow jagged teeth. Its eyes a brown misted mess with dilated black holes in their center. It’s sickly blue hands hand feline like claws at their fingertips and they were colored in a dirty brown shade, each of these hands held some object resembling a large knife without a handle.

That thing smiled at me, a smile so wide it seemed like its jaw muscles were going to be ripped apart, it looked like his jaw was going to fall to his feet any moment now, it had said in a raspy high voice, “Oh I am real… As real as it gets!”

That thing kept on saying, “You probably remember I tried telling you my name is that of one of your kinds myths but you twisted into ‘Poozikin’, well I’ve liked this name and I’ve been calling myself so ever since… ha ha ha ha ha”

“Th… th… th… there’s no… ch… ch… ch… chance that you are real, I made you up, you are just an imaginary friend, this is just my slow descent into madness! Yes! I am just imagining all this sitting here in the middle of my living room, probably rocking back and forth like the freak I’ve become!” I said.

That thing simply started laughing again, it laughed so loudly I fell backwards, it’s mouth widened in an unnatural manner, it seemed like it was going to rip up and fall from the rest of his face. All the while this thing was laughing I murmured to myself that I am just losing my mind and that I had to snap out of it.

This nightmare however would not end like that.

Slowly, it stopped laughing and said, “Do you know why you are still sane? Because I did cut up your mother! I did it because I knew how she was treating you since your father had died, I knew everything, I knew about that last fight you had…I care about my friends, I care about you, I did what was needed to be done for your own good. I was next to you for a few years now”

As he was saying that I grabbed my head between my hands and began shouting, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

It did not stop talking however; it simply ignored my frantic screaming and kept on said, “Do you know why you managed to befriend me? Because you were never afraid of me, you are special. At some point you’ve grown up, your curfew was no longer due at 8 p.m, and then came your peers and the females, and soon enough you forgot I had existed… This saddened me but I was not offended, I’ve been around your kind for a long time, I knew this is how it is with you… Therefore, I decided to get myself a new friend, but I could not, they were all scared.

I came back to you, but you did not even notice me, not that it was of any bother, I just enjoyed the fact that I could watch you, protect you, and simply be around you.”

Around that point, I was almost at the point of a mental breakdown and I just screamed at the top of my lungs that none of it was real, I started to beg for it to stop, but this thing, and it just kept on talking.

He said, “I’ve never planned on hurting your friends, but then, they decided to hurt you.”

Once it had said that everything stopped, it’s like my maddening fear was gone for a moment, I let go of my head and looked this thing, this so called imaginary friend and said, “Bullshit…”

A large smile was formed once more on its face, stretching almost from ear to ear and it said, “This male, he was copulating with her almost on a daily basis.” One of his thin, blue, sickly, sharp fingers was pointing at Marina. “She toyed with you, instead of telling you the truth…”

My eyes widened due to the revelation that was laid in front of them, I looked at the girl who was still sitting in the corner trembling and crying, I asked her, “Is this true? Is true?” “Is it telling the truth?” I shouted at her.

Marina just sat there and kept crying, she started murmuring something to herself but then Poozikin’s maniacal laughter was echoing in my ears once more.

I felt a cold breeze pass through me, and then new cuts began appearing on Marina’s already tortured shell, her cries grew louder and louder once more. I screamed at the top of my lungs, “No!”

It was already too late, the screaming and crying had subsided and I fell down to my knees and began weeping myself.

Poozikin said, “It’s okay, friend, it’s all over now”

I was about to turn around and lash out at him but before I could, I felt something frozen touch my shoulder – it was so cold it felt like I’m being stabbed with a thousand tiny needles, the pain has brought me to the point of break down.

I passed out from exhaustion.

I guess…

I woke up the next day at the local hospital, I was told by the doctors that I am going through an extreme fatigue; they claimed they’ve never seen someone so worn out. Other than being fatigued like no one else, I was informed I had a hand shaped frostbite on my shoulder.

When I asked about my friends, I was told there was no one with me when my neighbor found out I am lying, unconscious in the middle of my living room, apparently he saw that my door was open and decided to check if everything is fine and then he found me, just laying there.

My friend were reported missing, no one had seen them ever since it seems…

Once I got out of the hospital the laughter came back, it’s voice came back and breeze, that freezing breeze, I would feel it occasionally.

Shortly afterward I’ve decided the best thing to do to get people away from the danger I posed was to step out of civilization and ended up settling in a shack not far from Artyk, Yakutia, in central Siberia.

I am living here for six months already.

Now it turns out I was not insane and nor I posed any danger to human beings, I found that out once I realized dismembered corpses of animals would keep appearing next to my door step. I started using these animal corpses for food and fur.

Sometimes there are dismembered human corpses as well.

I make good use of these too.

Anyhow, the only reasonable explanation as to why these corpses keep appearing here that I could come up with is that Poozikin is not an imaginary friend,

Poozikin must be a true friend.