It came for me last night was a nightmare. It was just out of sight. In my shadow, thriving under my eyelids.

I was out of my mind last night I was thinking about him again. I loved him, you know. He was my everything, which made me my nothing.

Ice in his blue eyes last night I remembered when they last x-rayed my heart. Cold shards stabbing my memories, making them bleed frozen red. The walls were starting to break down, and It was opening the door.

I wandered downstairs last night was when I entered the hallway. The darkness slowly grew from where I stood, touching the far wall and enveloping it in its gently crushing arms. I followed the flowing shadows like a fish down a stream. The current of the past was pulling me towards It.

I opened my eyes last night I was blind again. Red exit signs poured their blood down the walls and splashed onto the ground. I waded through the stagnant flood to the darkest corner. I stopped in front of the door that would never open for me again. The air was soaked with rusty emotions, the floor saturated with forgotten nostalgia. The old bricks in the wall chinked and clinked together, as if the hallway's teeth were chattering. Then...

I felt it last night was cold. Cold cold cold. The gory flood froze solid, holding my calfs and squeezing my thighs. Ice screamed as it crunched under the weight of something else in the hallway of darkness.

Then I saw It. Last night. I saw It. It stole his eyes.

They glowed, blinking thrice. Every time they opened again, they grew in size, consuming my view. Bigger and closer. Bright ice. Broken shards. Coming for me.

Then I felt a finger, a single cold, wet finger, tap on my skull. Then it went farther, sliding past my hair and through my skin. Entering my flesh, passing through bone. As it went deeper still, the coldness, the wetness, the blue blue icy numb radiated from it. Spreading it through my blood, rushing it through my veins, bringing it to my heart. Sharp splinters of frozen memories split from the finger and burrowed deeper, lodging themselves into my cheeks, my lips, my retinas, my tongue, my eardrums. The finger sunk farther, and I could feel it reach my brain, squishing the mushy thoughts and encasing them in anesthesia. The numb spread, connecting the dots made by the shards.

My mouth fell open, as did the flesh on my cheeks and eyelids. No blood poured out, frozen into blocks of solid life. The muscles on my arms swelled and split, curling into strips of human meat. My ears imploded with old sounds that I couldn't hear, the cartilage sliced by the silent soundwaves. My lips broke and my tongue splintered with heavy letters and sharp words. An aching cold spread from my nose passage, down my throat, and out to my ear canals. Numb. Ice.

I swore the eyes were pressed against mine, squelching eye flesh on eye flesh. I couldn't feel them. I couldn't feel anything. No fear. No anger. I knew I should be screaming. But I was Its puppet now, controlled by strings of three-year-old ice.

His laugh was the same last night was a nightmare with his voice rippling through my shredded ears.

-Horsejoy