As a last resort, he plunged the spoon into his eye, screaming in pain. He couldn’t kill himself with this, but he needed his sight gone, he needed these monsters gone that he saw, wherever he was, wherever he looked. He was surrounded by them, chased, and he feared he would be swallowed whole.

Whimpering from pain, tears gathered in his eyes, he shoved the spoon around his eyeball, gasping and choking on his breath. The pain was excruciating, and his vision was already flickering. Blurry from tears, and blood was streaming down the right side of his face.

With a cry of pain, he wiggled the spoon as far back as possible, and pushed the spoon down, screaming as he pushed his eyeball out of his skull, gasping and choking on sobs as blood and tears streamed down his face, dripping from his face. He had to do this, he had to do this.

The spoon clattered to the ground, getting covered in blood. His hands were shaking badly, as his hands searched for the scissors he had laid down. Finding them, he whimpered, raising them and setting them on the nerve. He weakly began cutting, gasping and sobbing as he worked on cutting it through. 

Finally, finally he was able to cut his eye off, and it dropped to the ground. He set the scissors down, fingers getting bloody as he grabbed the spoon again.
One more to go. One more, and he’d be free.

He took shaking breaths, and he almost decided against this. He almost threw the spoon away from him.
But he didn’t.
He shoved the spoon into his socket, into the side of his eye, and cried out in pain. Like before, he pushed and pulled the spoon, sobbing from the pain, as more and more blood poured over his face, sticky and warm.
He shoveled the eye out of its socket with a scream, and he nearly collapsed.

Finally.

Finally there was darkness.

No more monsters, no more terrifying visions of shadows and creatures he didn’t know were real or not.
Finally he was safe.

Author hummed as he read over the last sentence he had written. It was good, and he liked it. He thought about putting more spacing in it, for a bigger impact, but he felt that only having the last bits like it were the most important. Though maybe he’d re-write it later, make it better. More painful.

He stood up, stretching. He could barely keep himself awake, though his nightmares had been getting worse. As did his headache. Pretty much everything had gotten worse, making writing a lot harder. But he had had a surge of inspiration, and had managed to write something pretty good. At least, not terrible.

He left the study to walk to his bedroom, deciding sleeping for once would be good. It was already dark out after all, as he walked through the dark halls.

His eyes snapped to movement. He looked for a moment, but then shook his head. Just his imagination, or maybe something flew past a window.
Or something.

He continued to his bedroom, stripping of his shirt and his jeans, grabbing some shirt and pulling it on, he let himself fall into bed, sighing in content. Pulling the blankets over himself, he fell asleep after a good while, though his sleep wasn’t easy.

He was troubled by nightmares, shadow monsters chasing him through the forest, hands grabbing at him and pulling, falling endlessly, being eaten alive.
He woke up with a gasp, cold sweat covering him and making his shirt stick to him. He groaned, laying an arm over his eyes.

Creaking.
Why did he hear creaking? He knew the floorboards in his cabin tended to creak sometimes. He knew the whole damn cabin tended to creak sometimes, whenever there was strong winds, or storms. But it was quiet outside. There was no rain, no wind.
But there was creaking, and it sounded like it was getting closer to his room.

And then it fell silent. Author must have imagined it, from being so tired. Or because of his nightmares. Surely.
But then, there was scratching on his door.

Not like from a cat. A cat’s scratching was quick and short, low on the door.
No, this was different.
The scratching was slow, and long, A claw dug into the wood of his door, dragging it down slowly, along the entire length.

Again.
And again.
And again.
Until it stopped.

The door handle rattled. Author’s eyes were fixed on the door, trying to see something in the darkness he couldn’t make out. Just waiting for the handle to be pushed down, for the door to open.

His head snapped to the window when there was a dull thump against it, and he could see something moving. It was weird, it didn’t look like an animal, it didn’t look like a human. It looked like some sort of abomination, and it was righting itself, it was getting taller, casting a dark shadow into the room thanks to the moonlight.

And then he heard breathing. Heavy, dragging breaths. Right beneath his bed.
Author’s heart was beating rapidly, thundering against his chest, and he tried to quiet his quickened breathing. He was scared, he couldn’t deny it. Something was happening, and he was sure he was awake.
He could move, he didn’t suffer from sleep paralysis. But he never had hallucinated anything before either, and he shouldn’t be from lack of sleep either.

He cried out when he was suddenly grabbed, ice cold hands holding his arms, his legs, pulling him in every direction, and he struggled. He struggled, pulling against the hands holding him, grunting and gasping.
He was terrified.

They let go as Author heard a door slam shut. There shouldn’t be a door slamming shut. He didn’t know what was happening, everything was happening at once and then vanishing.

And it didn’t stop.

Even once the sun finally rose, Author still heard them. He still heard things, breathing just behind him, scratching on doors. He saw the shadows move, and obscure figures twist outside the windows.

He didn’t know what to do. Sometimes, when he didn’t move for too long, he could feel those hands again. Feel them pulling at him, tugging on him. And he always saved himself, somehow, managed to break free from their grasps. 

He needed to save himself from this, he needed to find a way to stop them. But nothing he did helped. It all just got so much worse.

There were voices. Voices he didn’t know, voices that were familiar. They all sounded vaguely like his own, but also not. He heard them talking about things he didn’t know, things he didn’t understand. 
They started to overlap. 
Author didn’t know what was real and what not anymore, it was too much. Especially once he saw himself.

Images of himself, around the whole cabin. They started out standing still, frozen in time. But then they started moving. Doing things. Things he remembered doing, and things he hadn’t done. 

It scared him more than the monsters he could see, the monsters haunting his every step.

He didn’t know how to stop all of this, it all was so much. All these voices, all these visions. He needed them to stop, he couldn’t bear seeing them any longer. He was constantly in fear, paranoid in his own home. He didn’t leave the cabin anymore.

He broke one night. He couldn’t bear it anymore, another nightmare after barely managing to fall asleep.
Stumbling into the kitchen, rummaging through the drawers, breathing harsh and frantic. Too many sounds, too many visions, too many monsters.

Spoon and scissors in hand, he dropped to his knees. His hand balled in a fist around the spoon, the scissors on the ground in front of him somewhere.

As a last resort, he plunged the spoon into his eyesocket, screaming in pain. He couldn’t die just yet, his work wasn’t done. But he needed his sight gone, he needed these monsters gone, these visions. Wherever he was, wherever he looked, they were there. He couldn’t take it anymore.