1. Joy - The Man in the Long Coat

Okay, so, I don’t know if everything I write just now is going to make sense. I’m half asleep and recording a dream. I need to get this down now.

I was in the room again.

This same bloody room I’ve been dreaming of for the last year or so with its grey, blank walls. Everything in the writing room (or should I say anti-writing room? Hah... miserable...) is grey. I don’t know if I ever really thought that much about it, everything in the room is grey – like a blank canvas.

I was sitting at the desk staring at a keyboard knowing those walls might start filling in with text if I just start typing. But this time it was different.

Something had changed.

I turned around on the cold grey stool I was perched on. The room was cold actually. I never really thought about that before. Anyways, there was a [redacted]. A [REDACTED].

There’s never been a [redacted] before.

Like, where the hell did that come from?

I get the impression it is unlocked, but for some reason it could lock at any second. I grabbed the cold enamel [redacted]knob and turned it, and I stopped.

It wasn’t locked yet, but I felt scared. I just stood there and tried to think of excuses not to open the [redacted] in case there were bad things behind it. Why couldn’t it be good things behind the [redacted]??

I pulled and the [redacted] opened in. I noticed bright particles of dust being sucked into the abyss – it was actually a long dark [redacted].

I don’t know why I took a step forward but there was an urgency now.

I felt like something was behind me and I basically leapt into the [redacted] to try and escape the sensation.

It only intensified. I was afraid of seeing whatever was watching me, so I started running further down the [redacted].

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I felt like I did when I was a child in the basement of our old house.

That time when the lights went out while I was down there, and suddenly I felt naked in the dark. Vulnerable. Like I was about to be stabbed from every direction.

I ran blindly. But I never hit the [redacted] of the [redacted]. I saw a spark of light up ahead and I headed straight for it in the hopes of outrunning the feeling of being watched...

a feeling of being chased.

The [redacted] was darting around, and as I got closer I realized it was a [redacted] and a river of cold ran through my body. Someone was moving the [redacted] around.


There was someone else here.

I saw the silhouette of a man, his back to me.

The Man in the Long Coat.

I was close enough to see that he was examining a long, vertical [redacted] in the [redacted] in front of him.

I remember taking a step forward and my footstep echoed loud on the hard floor. When he turned to me I could see he looked beaten and bruised. His features sunken – he looked feral.

Angry and afraid.

The [redacted] in the [redacted] opened up behind him as he turned to me. It opened up and swallowed him whole.

A mouth of pitch black closed its maw and he was gone.

I keep seeing his face. He looked haunted. I woke up crying and drew this. I don’t know how to make sense of it. I just keep seeing him turn to me, turn away from the [redacted] and be eaten.

I wonder if it is my fault.