Ector Zangresh looked out his window at the setting sun. It wasn't an unusual sight, but it was one he'd grown to fear of late. It scared him because it meant night was coming. Ector was always scared of the dark, but it had never bothered him before as much as it had since last week. Ironically, it was his efforts to conquer this fear that led to his new nightmares. A couple weeks ago, an eloquent, well dressed man had come to him with a strange book. He had claimed that the book contained secrets for controlling his fear, and when Ector had looked inside, he became even more frightened. The book contained drawings of various monsters and descriptions of rituals of summoning, control, and dismissal.
Eventually Ector had decided to use the book. After all, that man had promised that it would help him control his fear. Surely he meant that the monsters inside the book would protect him. It had taken a full day to prepare. He bought several bars of soap and a great deal of string first. Then he spent hours carefully carving various runes, one apiece, into the soap. The book made it very clear that it was the runes themselves that mattered, and not the material they where carved into. Soap was a lot easier to work with than wood or stone. The string served a similar purpose. As long as it was taped down so as not to move, it would work as well as a chalk or blood for the pentagram. He had picked out a relatively small(and from the included description, harmless) monster to start with. After speaking a few words with barely adequate pronunciation, he watched to see what would happen.
A small rip appeared in the middle of his work, in the very air itself. A claw stuck through it, and began to pull it open. As it stretched out, more claws came through, opening it even wider. Eventually the monster had the hole opened wide enough to step out completely. Once it was out, it continued to hold the portal open. A second one came out, and then a third. Although they where only the size of small dogs, they where terrifying. Far more so than the picture had made them appear. They had ratlike heads, and vaguely humanoid bodies, covered in fur. The first of them continued to hold the portal open while the others looked around. One of them spotted Ector and laughed before speaking something in whatever language he'd used to summon them.
He'd woken up the next day in bed, and since the design he'd made on the floor was gone completely, he decided to believe it was all just a dream. He stayed home that day, which he had a tendency to do. It was just the night that scared him, and he dreaded the human interaction that going outside would have forced upon him. He would have wanted to talk about his dream anyway, and then everybody would think he was crazy.
He remembered those events as he watched the sun getting lower and lower. As he thought about it, he wished it had been a dream, or that maybe he was crazy. Being crazy was probably better than the fate that he believed awaited him. Every night, the monsters had come back. At first, it had just been the smaller ones, but over time, larger and larger monsters had appeared. Some where as big as a full grown man, and last night he'd seen one that had to have been at least 8 feet tall. That one had spoken to him for awhile. Spoken of pain and terror. He'd also shown him visions. Ector had spent last night cowering in his bed as the demon pounded on the outside of his house, trying to get in. His head was filled with images of his family being tortured. His mother was flayed alive and reassembled, his father had to endure searing irons, and even his brother, who had died years ago in a traffic accident was there, being gnawed at by the rat-monsters. He knew that these weren't real. There were just his imagination, but each image was burned into his memory as if he'd actually witnessed it, and they pulled at his heart as though they where happening in front of him.
Then the sun was down.
What came next was completely unexpected. No monsters appeared to surround the house. Instead, there was a polite knock at the door. Looking out the peephole, saw the man who'd given him the book. "I know you're there Mister Zangresh. Why don't you invite me in?" Ector looked around, and believing the coast was clear, he felt decided to ask the stranger in. He had the book before, maybe he would know how to help.
"So Mister Zangresh, it's been awhile hasn't it. I trust that the book worked?"
"Well actually, there was a problem Mr...?"
"Oh, don't worry about it, you'll remember my name soon. So, what was wrong?"
"Uh, well, you see... I tried to use the book to control some of the monsters so they could protect me through the, um, night, but they... well they just ran off. Then they started attacking me. I don't know what's going on!"
"I still don't see what the problem is. Surely being afraid for your life has eliminated any other fears, hasn't it? And if not, it sounds like your life will be over soon anyway, and then you'll fear nothing, just as I promised. Did you really think that I would let one such as you get off so easily? You've spent your whole life avoiding helping others, avoiding others in general. You live here alone by the kindness of others without ever doing anything. You're nothing but a shade in this world Mister Zangresh. Why would you think that the world owed you an easy out to your fear?"
"Who... WHO ARE YOU?!"
"Oh Mister Zangresh, I would have hoped you'd have guessed my name by now. Oh well."
Ector watched, shaking in fear about what he'd just heard, as the stranger walked out of the house. Too late he realized the door had been left open, and his fear heightened to pure, unbridled terror as he saw the demon from last night walk into his home. The rat-monsters swarmed everywhere, ripping everything to pieces as the demon came closer to him. If Ector's world and the true human world had still been the same, his screams would have been heard for miles throughout the night, ceasing only when the sun rose. But his world was separate now, and the sun would never rise for him again.
(WOO! This story is unrelated to anything else that I've worked on, except that Echtor is the name of my Warlock, and Zang'kresh is his voidwalker. I actually just wanted to throw a quick horror story together, even if it isn't all that scary or suspenseful. I didn't think of anything in it until I started writing, and while I don't consider it that good, I am proud that I finished it. Also, I think the Rolling Stones reference is funny, but I wrote it so of course I would.)
