Delusional, Taylor Quinn [the dot read aloud txt] 📗

canine creature, and behind its body, a long, black tail with a white stripe down the top middle, like a skunk. It had claws, of course, and I watched it walk around me. I sat up, and ended up looking straight into the piercing dark blue eyes of the creature. A wolf, technically. This wolf was special, though. It had many different colors. The wolf appeared to be a female. She was black, with a green underbelly, toes, and ear insides. She had floppy ears, and a white mane that didn't follow through on the back. What really got me though, were the wings. She had wings. Suddenly, she flapped her wings and started hovering in front of me. I backed away into the corner. She landed once more, and walked calmly over. She howled, in a very high, but also mysterious and distorted tone. Another wolf, just like her, stepped out of the living room. I closed my eyes tight as they closed in, I snapped my fingers again, trying to stay alive! They were going to kill me! Eat me! Everyone would wonder where I'd gone. I had my eyes closed, but when I opened them again, I was lying in the corner, Pitch standing by my face, looking at me curiously.

"Hi Pit", I said, smiling at her. I reached up and patted her head, getting to my feet. Okay, so don't snap. Is that all I had to do? Not snap? I think I can do that. Maybe. I went upstairs and went back to bed. My mom told me I can't stay home from school again.

I woke up the next morning to my mother. She scolded me for not waking up and she told me that I’m going to be late. I didn’t care about being late, honestly. The part I cared about was the fact that I was waking up late, which means I dreamt more last night. I didn’t want to dream more. Getting dressed was rather difficult. I was still extrmely tired after the encounter of those creatures last night.

Wait. It just hit me! I know where I was! I was in Distort. That’s where I had been when those creatures had appeared and had tried to murder me in cold blood. But what were those? I remember the Delusion story freshly in my mind. It mentioned something called… Delupuse? I think that was it. Delupuse. But the story didn’t give much of an explanation about these “Delupuse”, so I’m not sure if those were the creatures, or not. Oh well, it probably was, anyways. I pulled on a pair of jeans and slipped a T-shirt on over my head. Only to realize, that it was both inside out, and backwards. Before I put on my socks and shoes, I fixed it. My mom was heard from downstairs.

 

The Graceful Delupuse

"Ruby! Hurry up! You're gonna miss the bus!" she shouted. She was getting on my nerves. I'm freaking out, I'm hallucinating, and she doesn't give a fucking shit. She gives more shits about David's soccer games than my mental health. I'm done. I'm just done. The lights went out, suddenly. I looked up at the bulb. After a couple of seconds, it started to flicker. They popped and went back to their full power. Okay? That was... weird.

I went back to pulling on my high tops and quickly tied the laces. Why was this happening to me!? I didn't mean to find that paper! I was just cleaning and happened to find it! I didn't mean for this to happen to me!

I just didn't understand. Sitting up, I looked over at my window. A vulture outside on a tree branch. I blinked, and it was gone. Naturally, I expected this. I then stood, and picked up my backpack. As I walked to the door, my mother yelled for me again. Oh my God! I'm coming, bitch! Why the fuck do you care?!

Running down the staircase, I went out the door without a second glance at my mom. I ran to the bus stop, and sat cross-legged in the grass. I probably looked like a hippie, but I really didn't give a shit. While I was sitting there, I hallucinated about many things. I hallucinated about one of those Delupuse. It had been in the forest across the street. I'd seen those bright, piercing blue eyes. And slowly, almost slow enough to make it suspensful, it stepped forward. One green paw at a time. Claws shining in the morning... sun... light? The sun was green. Okay. Yeah. That makes a lot of fucking sense. The sun is fucking green! I sighed, watching the Delupuse stalk forward. It stepped into the street and a car turned onto our street. Yes! Please, hit it! I want to see if its blood is a normal fucking color!

But the car drove right through the Delupuse. The dark figure becoming transparent as the car went through. As soon as the car was gone, the Delupuse became opaque again. Not once ending its stalk. I would guess it was a she. It's fringe was long, hanging down past its chest fur. Her odd alien-like eyelashes were long and high set. She just looked feminine, and seemed feminine by how limber she was. She reached me rather quickly, for how fast she appeared to be going. Suddenly, she disappeared. But I hadn't stopped hallucinating. The sun was still green. Suddenly, her tail wrapped around my head, beginning to suffocate me slowly. I struggled to pull it off, but her tail was heavy. How did she manage to hold it up? It had to have been at least thirty-five pounds. That or more.

Suddenly, she pulled it off. Quickly, gracefully, it slid right off my face and into the air. She stepped around me several times, tightening the circle she walked in, until she stopped right in front of my face. She shoved her dark muzzle against my nose, and glared at me, before disappearing once more in a cloud of smoke, and not coming back.

I heard crying. Babies? Just a cat's meow? I wasn't sure. It was just a high pitched sound. It was the cry of something, though. That's for sure. I looked around me, but I didn’t see anything at all. Quickly going inside, before the attack of more hallucinations and Delupuse, I saw my family huddled in a circle on the floor. David saw me coming, and quickly, everyone tried to hide what they were looking at. I saw fur. Black fur. Delupuse? No. It was definitely not a Delupuse. The green, white, and orange were not there. There were no wings… no flowing, beautiful tail or mane.

It was Pitch.

Smoky Hearts

I rushed quickly over and shoved my family aside, dropping to my knees right next to Pitch. My beautiful, beautiful German shepherd. I loved her so much. She was so healthy. Why did she die? Nothing was wrong. She was fed daily. Sometimes even hourly, if she was really hungry after a long trip, or the like. So why?

Her mouth was slightly open, and faintly, I saw a black cloud slowly billow out. But no one else seemed to see this. Or at least, they didn’t notice it. I checked Pitch’s pulse, just to make sure she wasn’t out cold. She wasn’t. She was dead for sure. And I know who did it. The Delupuse. Suddenly, I snapped. I wanted to hear the sound that usually called Pitch to my side. I wanted to imagine it one last time, before she was buried and I’d lose her soft fur forever.

When I snapped, I was thrown into the darkness of Distort. I figured that would happen. After all, it happened the last few times as well. But it was different this time. I hadn’t been in the room with beings that weren’t from Distort, the other times. Where their bodies were, there were deep purple flames, each with different, smoky images inside of them. Were those… my family members’ souls? Where Pitch lay dead, a small, transparent, white flame floated. Inside it was a faint image of a heart. It was in two pieces, bound together tightly by a ribbon. Did this mean she had two parts? Like, an other half? Was that other half… me? I went and looked in a mirror. I saw my flame, too. But unlike the others, mine was a somewhat happy sky blue. Not a somber, spooky purple. And inside my flame, there was, just like Pitch, a smoky image of a heart, in two pieces, bound with ribbon. My new ability was far too amazing for me to handle all at once. Suddenly, I heard a familiar bark, and freezing cold fur against my leg. A pale white version of Pitch. Her spirit. I looked down at her.

“My little Pitch…” I smiled,”You can stay here as long as you want. Don’t you leave this house. Stay where you always have. I’ll come visit you in the Distort every single day. I promise.”

And that promise was what binded Pitch and I together from then on. When I said the word “promise” a faint wind whistled around us, and I looked to the mirror. The heart was bound even tighter than before. Only this time, I human hand and a spirit dog paw linked together in the center. I’d made and established permanent contact with my dead dog. My God, this is like some weird episode of a show about psychics and mediums, or some shit. It wasn’t freaky or anything though.

It almost felt natural. Like I’d been connecting with ghosts my whole life. Or at least, with things that aren’t quite what they seem. And that, was the first step to my new job. 

The Note And The Cemetery