Horror Aficionados discussion

 WITHIN

 Atl woke in that queer hour, which was still considered night by most but morning to some. Drenched in sweat and panting, she grabbed a glass of water from her night table and drank deeply. 
 Nightmarish remains haunted the back of her mind, like the embers of a campfire freshly extinguished. A back room, never-ending and full of torment. Silently, she climbed out of bed and shook the tension from her limbs. 
 Something foreign slipped inside and she was unaware.
 As she staggered groggily to the restroom over discarded clothes, she heard a strange nagging sound. It was coming from outside. From the lonesome night, it hung pregnant, filling the room, and it frightened Atl for a reason wholly unknown. 
Cautiously, she approached her window. 
 Deep in the shadows like a creeping phantasm stood an entity. It looked up at her, as if aware that she was watching.
 Those wretched lips curved into a smile that seemed to carve through the night, and the being winked an eye. The sight caused her pulse to accelerate rapidly, hammering away in her chest. 
 Through the cover of the night, it slid down the street and appeared before the abandoned ramshackle house. The house of no return as it was reverently referred throughout the neighborhood. 
 A strange energy emanated through the air. It compelled her. It pulled at her chest, and her breathing tightened. 
Atl could not look away.
 And, it knew that she was watching. It pulled apart the boards of a window and disappeared into the derelict edifice.
 Back in bed, she laid unable to return to the realm of sleep. It was nowhere near morning, and now she desperately wanted this night to be vanquished by the morning light.
 Another day. 
 It happened again.
 “Nothing is out there,” she whispered, hiding under her covers.
 Another day.
 Yet again. Always at the same time.
 Three in the morning like some cosmic force pulling at the threads of her sanity.
 There it was, always there and always she woke.
 ”Nothing’s there. Nothing is there,” she told herself, ”you are dreaming.”
 Repeating mantras of hope like a minuscule protection against an unknown entity.
 A month had gone by, and she had stopped showing up to work. Virtually stopped eating. Dropped from the outside world. Days slipped into night and fear replaced everything. It manifested a body of its own just under her skin and—outside her window.
 Atl was waiting.
 Atl was looking only—only what? This night at three she woke like every other night before. But.
But.
 There was nothing there, it didn’t come. Her muscles twitched, some pressure was building inside. Something possessing her. Something tugging at the back of her psyche. 
 Everything was becoming unraveled. Like a woman being invaded by an unholy spirit, she felt her body move on its own.
 Standing outside on the cool asphalt. Her bare feet were tingling with a slight pain. The blackness creeping into her lungs made it hard to breathe. A soft drizzle came down from the blackened skies above.
 Step. Step. Step.
 Now, the rain was coming down. The wind tore through the block, howling its siren song.
 Atl was facing the house, she was trembling. The windows were bursting with a preternatural light, beckoning. She was staring up at the window of her house over her shoulder, and she saw herself still in her room. But then—
 She was Inside the house of no return.
 The building was alight with flames burning the brightest blue. An invisible rope was around her neck, and it was pulling her forward. Lactic acid tightened her muscles as her anxiety reached a crescendo of terror. Deep down in the pit of her stomach, something was crawling, wanting.
 The inferno slashed at her skin the exposed organ that covered every inch of her. Melting away like rendered fat off the flesh of boiling meat. Searing deep into the layers of her body. 
A table in the corner untouched. A stack of paper. No not paper, pages. And on the table was a typewriter oozing blood from its keys.
And, on the front page of the stack was her—her name.
 It whispered into her soul something so intimate, Atl Xicoténcatl.
 That was impossible.
 The unbearable pain receded back into her mind. Back into the house. Back into the street. Back into her window. Back into her bed and from her chest rose a shuddering breath.
 The digital alarm clock burned bright the next night.

 -03:00-

 Standing over her on top of her chest, that smiling thing. And she couldn’t breathe. One more time it winked.
 “Nothing is there,” she pleaded to the dark, “let this not be real.”
 The pages fluttered from her corner desk, calling her.
 The skin on her body bubbled loosely from her forearm. The room filled with cold air. Her feet padded across the hardwood floor over to the desk.
 A lonely word was carving itself into her arm under the pustulant skin. It bubbled and burst into a foul ichor. A rotting stench pervaded through the chilling air.
 The word left on her arm was ‘mine’. Atl was a possession, she belonged to this thing inside her.
 A shudder filled her body. Gaze fixed upon the manuscript, tears filled her eyes. The pages must be released into the world. Inside was a virus, a virus that would enter through spiritual surrender. 
This book was an extension of the thing that now lived inside her.
Atl could feel her skin rotting away outward from that antagonistic reminder. That word.
 The next day a knock came at her door. 
 A calling through the fog. Another knock at her door, a literary agent standing there, though she contacted no one.
 The pages with her name imprinted onto them were there in her hand. The intensity of passing off the book was like her soul evacuating, something that was attached to her. The person who was in her home that no one called, who shouldn't be there was taking it away.
 Something that was not meant to be seen.
 Her home was cold and filled with the of the stench of death.
From somewhere far away she watched herself handing over the thing that seemingly came from her. A grin that did not belong on her face. Waving goodbye to the person.
 The tome was sold.
 Now receding through the house like a camera panned from one room to another, like the ending scene of a movie. 
Now Atl was lying in bed. Her covers pulled up. Now she was burning. Now she was smoldering. The rotten skin fell away from her muscles. The sinews unraveled. 
 Nothing’s there.
 Blood-soaked sheets.
 Nothing’s there. 
 Bones of the first night.
 A swarm of buzzing flies.
 Asleep in safety. The book was in the wild, and oh, how it hungered. 
 A howling siren crept through the dark, spreading far. The twisted call of something unnatural. It could be heard by anyone who dared to read.
 The House of No Return.