smaller stars, turning the heavens above my head into a

big scary black-hole, painting a similar picture to that of

my life since childhood, a big meaningless smudge
holding the power to engulf my insignificant existence
any moment.

The only source of light guiding me through the sea of

blackness was a single lamppost located at the far end of
the street, casting a dull yellowish glow on my hazy
surroundings, providing enough light for me to pave my
way out of there.

“The scary figures, it wasn’t me. It was the

other creatures trying to obtain my soul out of
you.”

Hysteria’s voice was still ringing inside my head, making

me turn my head side to side, every other moment in
fear of an unknown creature jumping at me out of
nowhere. Every single horror I had faced in my life
seemed to be playing in my mind like a reel making me
wonder what the portentous night had in store for me
this time,

“It’s okay. It’s fine.”

Rubbing my sweaty palms on the rough surface of my
washed jeans, I repeated the same words that my
mother had told me when she had found me hidden
inside the sink cabinet, covered in a mixture of my own
vomit and sweat, screaming at her to get rid of the
crawling doll.

The urge to run towards my old house and snuggle into

her warm arms was too strong, but I knew I couldn’t do
it. Not for the night at least. Not since I saw a creature,
imposing as my mum, slicing its own throat open with a
wicked grin.

A shudder passed through my body as I unknowingly

recalled the awful memory.

‘Mom…’

Heaving an exasperated sigh out, I tried directing my

attention back towards my unusually quiet
surroundings. I had gone through these streets before
yet the place appeared to be unnaturally silent, no
sound could be heard except for the crunching of my
worn out sneakers against the gravel as I tried to get
towards the light source as fast as possible.
‘Just some more steps,’

I was more or less ten steps away from the street lamp,
almost feeling relieved for having left the darkness
behind when a low groan reached my ears, turning me
stiff in my place. It didn’t sound like a pained groan, it
was more of a grunt. Similar to what I had heard two
years ago on the night of my first Halloween party.

“No,”

My heart was hammering against my rib cage as my

brain started playing images from that day before my
eyes, flashing them in front of my vision one by one,
making me recall the whole event when I had made a
fool out of myself in front of the whole college.

It was definitely the same sound which came out of

that decomposing corpse’s half-eaten lips when his
decaying cheek had fallen just above my breasts.

‘Oh, God! Please let it be a dream.’

“Ugh...”
I had heard no footsteps yet the sound seemed to have
come closer,

“Ugh…”

I almost jumped out of my skin as I felt a cold breath

fanning across the back of my neck. Cold sweat beads
forming on my forehead had started trickling down my
temples. My breath was coming out in short erratic
puffs of air, hurting my chest more with its unruly
spasming. My condition had certainly worsened more
than when I had first seen Hysteria.

‘He’s standing right behind me.’

Clenching my clattering teeth, I tried my best to keep

my breathing in check as I slowly lifted my gaze,
rotating it sideways to steal a quick glance without
turning my head completely.

‘Don’t be there. Don’t be there.’

Just as my eyes settled on the heap of my own raven

locks flowing down the tip of my shoulder, a
festering
head appeared out from behind my shoulder, scaring
the daylights out of me.

A loud scream tore out of the back of my throat as the

head gave me a gruesome smile before falling off its
neck, rolling over my shoulder and eventually settling
near my feet.

I hadn’t even been able to recover from the shock when

a set of putrefying arms wrapped around my torso,
trapping me in my place.

“Ah!”

Continuing to let out loud screams, I thrashed around

wildly in the corpse’s arms, trying desperately to break
free. I was jabbing my elbows in its rotting ribs,
scratching the already broken flesh into more shreds
yet the corpse’s hold on me didn’t seem to be getting
any weaker. The new behavior had baffled me. These
things, they tormented me, chased me, ran after me,
but they never touched me, they had never physically
harmed me before.

‘Hysteria was telling the truth, these things didn't attack

me before because of him.’

The mortifying realization was cut short as my frantic

eyes settled on the head lying face first on the gravel
near my feet suddenly started vibrating, producing
weird buzzing sounds whilst jerky movements kept
getting worse and worse with time. It almost looked
like the head would end up exploding any moment,

“H..t. H..t”

A creepy high pitched voice was coming out of the

bobbling head, making my attempts to break free turn
more frantic than before,

“Stop it!”

I knew there was no point in saying this yet I couldn’t

succumb to their tactics completely. I felt too powerless,
too human.

“Let me go!”

Abruptly, the arms holding me from behind crawled

over my shoulder to reach up and grip my neck in a
vice-like hold before tackling me down to the ground
with a sudden jerk. My spine collided with the rough
asphalt, making stars appear in my vision. The
disgusting creature hadn’t shown any leniency to me.
He had went all out in throwing me off balance and the
proof of it could be felt forming on the tender muscles
of my back.

‘What is happening? What the hell do I do?’

My berserk efforts at freeing myself abruptly came to a

halt as I witnessed the head which had been buzzing
furiously stop its frantic spasm, turning deathly still on
the ground,

‘It doesn’t look so good.’

Slowly, the head came back to life as it rolled over to

the other side, providing me with a clearer look of its
face which I had failed to see before. It had an eye
gauged out of its empty socket, its skin was covered in
a dark black soot appearing gangrenous, patches of it
missing from place to place. Its decomposing lips were
stretched into a crazed triumphant smile which seemed
to get bigger and bigger in size.
'Bigger?'

That’s when I realized that the head wasn’t get big in

literal sense, it had just started rolling closer to me.

“Hell.”

A loud cackle broke out of it lips as the head

increased its speed, rolling over with more speed to
hurriedly lessen the distance between us.

“Get away from me! Get away!”

My throat had turned raw from all the screaming I had

been doing for the past few minutes. Some would think
that while experiencing it for so many years, I should’ve
learned some tricks by now, should’ve been prepared
somehow but no matter what I did, it never seemed to
be enough. These creatures were always a step ahead of
me.

These creatures which I had thought to be Hysteria’s

doing.
‘Hysteria.’

Unexpectedly, his name had appeared to be like the

first ray of sunshine at the end of a darkened night—
dawn of hope.

‘No, I can’t call him. I can’t lose.’

The head had crept past my abdomen by now, its

decaying lips were directly resting above my heaving
breasts,

“He..rrt. Hea..rrrt.”

‘Is it saying heart? Does it want my heart?’

A black colored sticky liquid was dribbling out of its half

parted lips like Saliva. I was anticipating it to stop near
my ribcage yet it continued rolling forward until its
disgusting saliva was trickling down onto the pavement
right beside my head. The rotting smell of death had
filled my olfaction, making it almost impossible to keep
breathing, getting hindered more so when I saw it
nearing my lips,
‘Why is it leaning down towards my mouth?’

I watched with my breath stuck as I saw it opening its

mouth abnormally wide, the upper half of its face was
almost hanging back like the lid of a trash bin, exposing
its pointed charcoal teeth, their tip reflecting the light
coming from the lamppost, glinting like the edge of a
sword ready to sacrifice the goat at the altar,

“HYSTERIA!”

Everything happened in slow motion as I saw a shiny

pair of black leather boots suddenly entering my
peripheral vision, taking their sweet time in trudging
towards me whilst the cackling head, unaware of other
presence who had decided to join us, kept nearing my
face.

Just as its teeth were about to land on my lips, one of

the muscular legs, clad in a pair of black leather pants,
raised up high before kicking the amputated head far
away from face. The kick was so powerful, I could see
specks of dust, previously resting on the dirtied street,
getting displaced all over in air.
“Missed me, darling?”

My watery eyes slid up the leather pants, trailing over a

fitted tailcoat, its collar adorned by a white colored
ascot, resting directly beneath a skull painted face
which was peering down at me with its familiarly
burning amber eyes. A large puff of air that I didn’t
know I had been holding suddenly left my parted
mouth as I closed my eyes for a moment, letting a series
of hiccups wash over my writhing body. The corpse’s
hands were still holding me down, but I had become
uncaring of it. The near death experience had rattled
my senses. The deceptive freak that I used to despise
had turned into my solace at the time of need.

“F-Free me.”

“What did you say, darling?” “…

Free me.”

He was clearly having the time of his life.

“Uh huh, everything comes with a price.”

“What do you want?” I had finally managed to keep my
stammering under check.

“A kiss,”

He must’ve seen the baffled look on my face because of

the way his lips stretched into a full-blown smile as he
tilted his head letting his shoulder length jet black locks
fall to one side before completing the rest of his
sentence,

“… to share the lost part of my soul with me.”

A cackling sound resounded through the empty

streets, filled my vision with chilling scenario that I
had encountered mere moments ago. My eyes
wandered to the side to see the concrete beside my
head laced with sooty saliva dribbling out of that
thing’s mouth. Its pungent odor was still lingering in
the air.

“Tic-Toc, Tic-Toc,”

Hysteria continued looking down at me with his

head tilted while producing ticking sounds of a clock
out of his mouth.
“Less staring, more work, darling. Someone’s
getting impatient,”

“H…t. H…rt.”

Hearing that ominous voice once again ringing through

my ears made my skin crawl with disgust,

“Fuck,”

“I told you it’ll happen after the kiss. Hey! I just

realized a word of your interest that also rhymes with
toc.”

I didn’t know I would ever be thinking this but his

meaningless chattering was still better than the corpse’s
weird noises.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a dark circular

blur rolling towards me with an unnatural speed,
inching closer and closer with every moment I spent
making my decision. I could see it leaving a black trail
after it on the asphalt as its multiple pointed teeth took
turns in glinting under the dull glow coming from the
lamppost. The creature was going to devour me.
“Tic-Toc”

“He..art. Hea..rrt.”

Their unsynchronized voices had managed to produce

an ear shattering cacophony, wreaking havoc inside my
jumbled mind. Hysteria had given me three chances but
the creature, once it gets its hands on me which
ironically were already holding me in an ironclad hold,
was not going to spare me. There were no second
chances with the rotten corpse.

“Heart. Heart.”

The deranged head had come extremely close to me. I

could see it opening its disgusting mouth in advance,
getting ready to pounce on me again.

“Fine!”

“Good choice.”

A sudden whoosh of air accompanied his nonchalant

remark before I saw a katana appearing in his hand out
of thin air, slashing through the corpse’s body before
impaling the bobbling head with the sword’s sharp tip.
Right in front of my eyes, he held the impaled head
close to his face, a sinister glimmer passing through his
amber eyes for a small moment before he smashed it on
the pavement making black gooey mess fly out in every
direction; a lone eye landing right near my foot.

“Ah!”

Unbeknownst to me, a shriek found its way out my wide

hanging jaw, making me rapidly crawl away from the
horrifying scene.

“Eyes on me, darling.”

Big warm hands lightly touched my cheeks, turning my

head away from the oozing eye lying near the place I
was previously sprawled on.

“W-Who a-are y-you?”

My voice had yet again transformed in a stammering

mess of words as I gawked at the man who had slashed
the powerful demon with a mere blow.
'I hadn’t been able to get out of the weak creature’s hold.
How am I to escape the clutches of this insanely powerful
entity?'

Suddenly a warm pad of a thumb rubbed the skin under

my eyes, wiping the patches of transparent liquid
flowing down my cheek, hindering my thought process,
rendering me unable to reason anymore. A low voice
was whispering something in my ear, but before my
mind could comprehend the meaning behind those
words, a pair of soft lips started tracing a path down to
the corner of my trembling lips, covering them swiftly
without any warning.

“Mmph…”

I had expected the paint on his lips to taste like chalk yet
it didn’t. The paint wasn’t smearing my lips either. It
almost felt like a part of his skin. His lips on the other
hand, they felt sweeter than any fruit I had ever
consumed. His thumb and index finger was holding my
chin in its place, guiding my face to suit his lips’ chaste
movements. Contrary to my expectation, his touch was
way more gentle than his colorful personality. He was
kissing my lips as if they were made of glass.

The sweet torture of repeated small hot pecks went on

for some moments before he applied pressure on my
chin, urging me to part my lips and the moment I did,
he slipped his hot tongue inside my drying mouth,
claiming it as his own territory.

Soon, another sensation started taking over my body

as I felt him sucking something more than my tongue;
I could feel him sucking something out of me. My body
was getting weaker by the minute, and by the way he
used his free arm to wrap around my waist, I could tell
he was aware of my deteriorating condition as well.

Just as I was steps away from losing my consciousness,

he separated our perfectly joined lips before bending
forward to carefully lie me down on the hard ground.
Hovering over my face to give me one last look of his
crazed smile, the man whispered the same words in my
ear that he had before he had captured my mouth with
his own,

“You know me, darling. I’m your Hysteria.