...Was it a dream?

I looked around the house a bit after posting.  That trapdoor?  It exists.  I was terrified, but went down anyway.  Stupid move, I know, but I just had to know.  Anyway, I went down into the cellar, and in the back, the poker table was still there.  The cards were all still laid out, with one card in the middle of the table.

The joker card.  More words scrawled on it:

Open your eyes I see
Your eyes are open
Wear no disguise for me
Come into the open

~The Gambler

The words somehow feel familiar.  Linked to the dream somehow.

But it was a dream, wasn’t it?  I mean, I was a unicorn in the dream.  But how would I have known about this place before the dream?

I’m not going to lie, I’m terrified.

Strange dreams

I’m…I’m still alive.  For now.  I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around, though.  I’ve been feeling sick again.  The fear is constant.  I feel like I’m about to snap.  I’m just a lost man clinging to his last few shreds of sanity.  This is completely unnatural.  Insane.  Crazy.  How can I stay sane when surrounded by things like this?

I’ve been having dreams.  But the weirdest one was last night.  It just seemed so…so vivid.  I’m writing it down so that I don’t forget it.

I woke up in the middle of the night.  There was an incredible amount of noise coming from downstairs.  Music.  It sounded like a party.  Now, I was terrified, but I was incredibly curious.  I started searching around downstairs for the source, and finally came across a trapdoor in a closet where the music seemed to be coming from.

I lifted it up and descended down the stairs below into a dimly lit, smoky cellar.  This was definitely where it was.  In the background, that faint music, repeating endlessly.  I warily walked through the smoke and stumbled across the most curious thing I’ve ever encountered…and one of the most disturbing.

There was a poker table, around which sat four unicorns in dapper suits.  As I stepped closer, I noticed that none of them had faces…only blank space where their eyes, noses, and mouths would be.  The dealer gestured to me, then to an empty chair.  Too stunned to do anything else, I sat, and picked up the hand that had been laid in front of me.

I picked it up, stunned at my hand.  Four aces.  I kept a straight face, though.  I’ve played my fair share of poker rounds, and I’m not too bad of a player.  I knew that I had the winning hand.

I looked a bit closer as we sized each other up.  The dealer, on close inspection…didn’t seem to be a unicorn at all.  It looked like something more humanoid, dressed in a unicorn mask and with fake hooves.  Why this man would pretend to be a unicorn is beyond me, though.

“All in,” said one unicorn (somehow).  Everyone pushed in all their chips.  I did as well.

One by one, they went around and revealed their hands.  The first unicorn revealed a hand of all jacks.  Another of all queens.  The third of all aces.  And the dealer revealed his hand: five faceless kings.

“You lose,” he said from where his mouth should have been.

Suddenly, blood started flowing from the tips of the unicorns’ horns, flowing down the horns and splashing onto the floor.  I looked down and saw that it was already an inch high.  I looked back at my hand and saw that I held them in not hands, but hooves.  The dealer held up a mirror for me, revealing that my face was that of a unicorn.

And then I woke up.

I can’t be sure, but I think I might know what that third, unknown figure outside is.

Trapped

I’m trapped.  I’m scared.  This house is…it’s not safe anymore.  But staying is still safer than leaving.  I can’t leave.  They’ll kill me if I do.

At night, I see things sometimes.  I’ve seen three different figures.  The first is the man with the moustache.  I think that’d be Bartholomew.  The second is that tall suited man.  I’m not sure, but he might be that Dapper Fiend that the old man told me about before…well, you know.  I’m really worried.  I hadn’t seen him before that dream.  However, it’s like, as soon as I dreamt about him, he appeared.

Anyway, the third figure is the one that makes the least sense.  I don’t think any of them are human, but this one isn’t even humanoid.  It’s like a horse.  Only not a horse.  I’ve only seen it once, but it looks too big for a horse.  And it looks…too beautiful.  And not beautiful in a good way.  There’s something to its majesty that’s unsettling.  It’s an unnatural beauty that’s terrifying.  It was only glance, and it was dark, and it was far away, so I couldn’t even make out the color, and only barely the shape.  But that one glance I saw made me break down.  I collapsed to the floor and started crying.  Half of it was terror.  But the other half was euphoria.  Terrifying and entrancing at the same time.

Then there’s the mystery of who The Gambler is.  Is it one of the three out there, or something else entirely?  It’s quite possible that I’m dealing with four different entities here.

I…I don’t even know.  I’ve only seen them all once or twice.  The Gambler hasn’t done anything past delivering that card.  I hear them, mostly.  Outside.  Clopping hooves.  Laughter and whispers mixed with the wind.  And…I can almost just faintly hear music.  A beautiful, entrancing, high-pitched song.  I can’t listen to it—just hear it.  As soon as I try to make anything out, I can’t hear it anymore.

I don’t know what’s going on.  They don’t do anything!  They just watch the house every night.  I can’t see them.  But I can hear them, and I can feel them.  And I see them in my dreams sometimes.  They’re shadowy, and I can barely make them out, but the Dapper Fiend shows up in my dreams every night.  He does something to me in my dreams…I know he does.  But when I wake up, I can’t ever remember what.

I need help here.  If anyone is reading this, I think I’m starting to go a bit crazy.  If someone, ANYONE, can explain any of this, I’d be so very, very grateful.  Because really, I’m about ready to believe anything by this point.

Findings from the card

So I did some searching.  A quick Google search of the words on the back of the card revealed that it was from a song called “Blow” by an artist called Ke$ha.  I don’t get what that has to do with anything, really.  It doesn’t sound like a particularly good song, and there’s not much to take from the lyrics other than what seems like abstract threats of violence.

I also watched the music video.  It seems like every music video is designed to be as weird as possible.  There was a party with that one guy from Dawson’s Creek, a bunch of unicorns in suits, and who I assume is Ke$ha.  I don’t see why people like her so much.  She can’t sing, and she’s not particularly attractive.  Maybe things have just changed since I was young, though.  But anyway, I’m rambling.  She’s at a party or something with all these suited unicorns and Dawson’s Creek Guy, and then the start…shooting at each other for some reason?  And evidently unicorns bleed rainbows.  But then Ke$ha kills DCG and mounts his head on the wall.  Like I said, it’s weird and makes no sense.

I’ve stayed locked up in the house since I discovered the couple yesterday.  I’m absolutely terrified.  I can’t go out.  It doesn’t feel safe out there.  But anyway, I checked out the house a bit more.  After all, it’s not like the couple really cares anymore.  There’s a cellar and an attic that I can hide in if need be.  They’d maybe buy me a bit of time.

I don’t even know what to do anymore.  This…this isn’t right.  It’s completely unnatural.  Nothing about this makes sense.

I’m so scared.  I’m scared for my life over a myth.  I don’t know what to do anymore.

Very Bad News

Oh…oh god.  Oh god oh god oh god.

They’re dead.  The old man and woman.  They’re both dead.  I came downstairs this morning and there was a weird smell and I walked into the kitchen and they were both laying there dead on the floor.

Oh my…blood.  Blood everywhere.  It was all over.  It looked like they had both been gored in the chest.  I started retching, so I ran upstairs to the bathroom.  I spent a good half hour just throwing up and sobbing.  The blood.  It…it was everywhere.  So brutal.  Why did they…oh god.

But anyway, the bad news doesn’t stop there.  They were dead.  I saw them.  It wasn’t a dream.  You don’t imagine a sight like that.  Or a smell.  But when I finally worked up the nerve to go back downstairs, the bodies were gone.  Everything had been cleaned up.  I looked around, and all I could find was a face-down playing card.  The back had something scrawled on it:

Now what
We're taking control
We get what we want
We do what you don't
Dirt and glitter cover the floor
We're pretty and sick
We're young and we're bored

I turned the card over.  The King of Hearts.  Again, a message scrawled on it:

We are taking over.  Get used to it.

The Gambler

They’re…oh, god, they’re dead.  And now there’s this.  I…does anyone have any idea what that message means?  Most of it’s fairly obvious, but there’s parts that seem…I don’t know, unusual.  Unnatural, maybe.  The last three lines that were on the back, mostly.  Does anyone have any idea what it could mean?  I have a feeling that my life depends on it.

Catching Up

I’m sorry I haven’t been posting much lately…things have been a little hectic here recently.

After my chat with the old man, I got a bit worried.  He talked about the noise of clopping hooves, and how, if I heard them, there’s no more hope for me.  Well, as you all know, I heard them.  I’ve been afraid to go out at all.  I considered just leaving the area completely.  Understandably, I was a bit stressed.  I think it was the stress that caused me to get sick.  That fever knocked me out for a few days.

I kept having these strange dreams while I was sleeping.  The one I can remember best was something like this: I was outside at night again, just like that one night that I went for a walk, and I looked up at the tree.  There was that man there, up in the tree.  The moon was brighter, though, and I could see a bit more clearly.  He wore what looked like a suit with a top hat, and his moustache extended at least a foot on either side of his face.  I just barely discern the glint of moonlight off of a monocle and an axe.

It was who the old man had described in his story.  Bartholomew.

I turned to run, but in the distance, I saw a shadowy figure.  It was a horse.  At least, I think it was a horse.  It was a bit too far off to make out very well.  I paused, which I shouldn’t have done.  Because some sort of tendril wrapped around my ankle and lifted me into the air.  As I dangled upside down, I saw that whoever (or whatever) was lifting me was wearing a suit.  I assumed it was Bartholomew.  However, the tendril kept lifting me.  Higher than I would have expected.  Eventually, the tendril wrapped around my leg held me so high that my head was level with the man’s.  I opened my eyes cautiously and stared into his face.

He had none.

I’m sure it was the fever.  It had to be.  But that the dream drew so much from the old man’s story?  This place isn’t good for my sanity anymore.  I’m going to leave in the next few days.

Talking with the Old Man

So, the old man came into my room last night.  I’d been honoring their wishes to stay inside when it was dark (just out of respect for them, not any sort of superstitious fear).  Anyway, he comes in and has a sort of haunted look in his eye.

“You need to know the rest of the legend,” he said.

“Look,” I said, “I’ll respect your wishes, but I’m not about to let you scare me with some old myth.”

“Legend,” the old man said.  “Not myth.  Myths aren’t true.”

I shook my head and started to laugh a bit, but then I looked into his eyes.  That burning look in his eyes scared me a bit.  He wasn’t trying to fool me.  He seriously believed it.

“You need to know what happened that night.  The night we all went out to solve the mystery.  After waiting for a while, we heard a horse in the distance.  And then, a good ways off, we saw a man.  We called out to him, asking who he was and what business he had being out.  Then he started approaching us.  As he got closer, we could see that the man was…well, he was no man.”  His eyes got distant again.  “We too thought that the legends were mere myths.  But that hat.  That monacle.  That axe.  That…”  He shivered a bit.  “That moustache….”

At this point, I’ll admit that I was starting to get just a bit creeped out.

“Normally, he’s not so aggressive.  I suppose it was because we threatened him.  Or, at least, attempted to threaten him.  In the stories, he prefers to haunt his victims, slowly driving them crazy before he kills them.  Looking back on all those deaths, I can see that that was probably the case as well.  But no, the Dapper Fiend sent that demon after us right away.  He killed almost all of us.  And now, I’m the only remaining survivor.”

“Who is he?” I asked hesitantly.  I was, admittedly, very on edge by this point.

“Bartholomew,” the man whispered, as if saying it aloud would call something towards him.  “It was Bartholomew.  He’s the one the Dapper Fiend trusts most.”

“The Dapper Fiend?”

The old man fell silent.  “You should leave soon,” he said.  “I’ve told you too much.  But you see why I told you not to go out at night.  The night belongs to Bartholomew.”  He stood, then turned to me before leaving.  “You got lucky last time.  But you might not be so lucky again.  I pray you are, though.  I pray that you never hear those galloping hooves.  Because the moment you do,” he said, giving me a piercing glare, “all hope for you is gone.”

A talk with the couple

So I had a talk with the couple I’m staying with.  A nice little conversation.  We told each other about ourselves, our lives, etc.  I learned quite a lot about them.  I’m not going to go into that here, though, just to protect their privacy.  After all, this is my blog, not theirs.  It’s just a bit rude to leak information about people onto the internet.

Anyway, nothing really stood out too much.  There was just one thing.  I mentioned the walk I took outside to them, and they suddenly got…well, their faces changed some.  They grew quiet.

“You should have told us sooner,” the old man said quietly.  “You shouldn’t have gone out there that late.”

I was a bit confused.  “Why not?” I asked.  “Is there some sort of law?”

The old woman shook her head.  “No…no law.  If there were a law, the police would be the least of your worries.”

“There are dangerous things out there,” the old man said.  “Dangerous things that come out late at night.  Once it grows dark, it’s not safe out anymore.  The events that occur after dark are downright unnatural.”

I chuckled.  “What sort of events?”

The woman shook her head.  “Ghastly stuff.  Boy…do you know the legend of Bartholomew?”  I told her that I hadn’t, so she told me the story.

“Well, this area used to be a bit more populated.  It was still a small community, but we were a tight one.”  Incidentally, this was back in the days before they had electricity out here.  Quite a while ago.  “Things were good.  We all pitched it to help each other out.  But then…well, strange things started happening.”

“People started dying,” the old man cut in.  “We’d find them outside in the cold morning air.  But it wasn’t a natural death.  Oh, no.  It was always some sort of bloody, grizzly murder.  Some we recognized as axe wounds.  Other times, it looked like the victim had been gored by some sharp object.  And still other times, they were brutally mangled, with broken bones and twisted bodies, as if some beast had trampled all over them.”

“It was terrible,” the old woman said as she buried her face in her hands with a sob.

“Anyway,” the man continued, we all decided that we would figure out what was causing this.  So we went to investigate.  We armed ourselves best we could with muskets and farm equipment, and went out to see if we could find this murderer.

“Twenty of us went out there,” he said quietly.  “Only five of us returned.”

“What happened?” I asked.  But the man remained silent, staring off into space.  Whatever it was, he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.  He was lost in the past.  I excused myself after about a minute of just sitting there, and then sat down and wrote this blog entry out.

Crazy story, huh?  It’s insane how a killer can become so immortal in their minds that they still don’t trust the night.

Beautiful night!

I'm staying with an older couple out in the countryside at the moment.  They're such nice people.  But anyway, I decided last night that I'd take advantage of the fact that I'm about a mile from anywhere else right now and go for a walk.  There's some beautiful landscapes around here.  A hike in the brisk mountain air did me a lot of good.

Evidently, someone else was around, because I heard the clopping of hooves somewhere nearby.  Someone must have gone horseback riding.  I couldn't really see who it was, or even tell where they were, just because it was so dark, so I ended up missing them, unfortunately.  Bit of a shame.  I've been looking forward to meeting some of the people out here.

I felt like I could have stayed out there for hours.  It was such a beautiful night!  I guess what finally drove me inside was a sense of uneasiness.  I just felt like someone was watching me.  In fact, I think I may have seen them.  It could just have been an awkward twist of the branches or a trick of the shadows, or both, but in the distance, I saw...I don't know.  It looked like a human figure, standing in a tree.  I know this is going to sound crazy, but it looked like he was wearing a top hat.  Why would he be wearing a top hat?  It also looked like he was holding...something.  Something with a long handle.  But that wasn't the weirdest part.  The weirdest part was that it looked like he had horns.  Wait, no, they were too low for horns.  Tusks?  I don't know.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure it was a trick of the light or something.  Because honestly, why would someone be watching me from a tree?  That's just silly, right?  Anyway, I'm about ready to head to sleep after talking for a while with the couple I'm staying with.  I'll tell you more about them tomorrow.

Hey, everyone!

Jessie Klein here, but you can call me Jess!  And just because my name is so unisex, let me make it clear right now that I'm a male.  But you probably knew that already.

So, hi to everyone back home!  I've only been in Switzerland for two days, but I'm enjoying it so far.  It's a very different place.  Almost unnaturally so, compared to the US.  The people are nice, though.  And the Swiss countryside is absolutely stunning!  I'll let you all know about everything that happens out here.  See you soon!