Top > The Puppeteer(2017ver)
[[原文リンク>https://bleedingheartworks.deviantart.com/art/Creepypasta-The-Puppeteer-2017-EDIT-644581259]] #region("【英文】") About a month after my college departure, my parents sent me a white box. The outside of it was decorated with what seemed to be a floral pattern. At first, I didn’t really understand the meaning of the damn thing. My parents had always been more of the home-crafting kind, never enjoyed buying things they knew I’d never use. The box was a complete mystery until they told me what it contained. Notes, small pieces of paper that held simple quotes and sentences; something to keep my spirits up when I needed it. Without really questioning it, I kept it. I knew my parents always meant well—even though they had a strange way of showing it. Like with that white box. The first few months of my first college year, the box sat neatly between the schoolbooks and journals I had started to collect during my studies. The lock on the box was still intact, since I hadn’t even bothered opening it. The concept of the stupid thing still bothered me—I felt as if it was making me long for home. And as time went on, that’s exactly what I did. I longed for home. My flat mate didn’t really strike me as a social person. The first week after I arrived at campus he kept a low profile, not really wanting to socialize in any way, which I was fine with. I had never been a party person, not even when I was with the closest of friends. So I left him alone. College is supposed to be the place for everyone to find themselves. That’s what I had always been told—but there was no denying the fact that I hated it there. As I tried my best to keep up with studying, I could feel myself become more and more passive. Back in the day, there wasn’t a single night where I didn’t stay up until late hours writing away, wishing I’d be something. But as it became more and more apparent that my dream was far away—I just couldn’t hold it up anymore. As time went on, I began pulling myself away from any human contact. The schoolwork quickly started to go over my head, but I couldn’t return home. Not after my parents had paid for the entire trip to get here. Not after spending so many hours trying to get in. The white box reminded me of that. With the loneliness, soon came the paranoia. I quickly accepted it, even while realizing it wasn’t the best choice. But I had become so tired, I lost my focus on what actually mattered. Every day it became harder and harder to even walk out the door. I made excuses to remain in my single room in the shared apartment, waiting out hour after hour. A few weeks later, the teacher’s e-mails about my absence stopped. It was as if I had no one to call, no one to trust. There was no way I was calling up an old friend, or even knocking on my roommate’s door to talk. They hated me. I had no idea why they did, but that’s what I kept telling myself. I was simply good for nothing. That room became my cage. Then it was too late to turn back. During the next few weeks of complete solitude, I had allowed bad habits to creep their way in. Skipping meals only to substitute them with cigarettes quickly became a daily routine, as well as sleeping through most of the days. But then there were nights I couldn’t sleep. I felt too restless, I wasn’t able to fully relax the way I usually could. So instead, I stayed up. Like tonight. It had somehow escaped my mind that the box I had received from my parents had remained locked. With no further ado, I decided to finally break it open. I tossed the lock aside and proceeded to open it. The description my parents had given about the box seemed relatively true. The thing had been filled with pieces of lined paper, neatly folded to make the receiver give the extra effort to turn them up and read them. But as I did so, I slowly came to realize how everything that had led up to this moment had been a complete waste of time. “Don’t be afraid to call us if you need us.” “Never forget where you came from.” “We love you.” Instead of forcing myself to read any more notes, I slammed the lid closed. The notes that I had already read were tossed out, along with the box itself. The stress that had been weighing down on me since I arrived here was suddenly pouring out like a river, forcing my vision to go blurry from the tears. If I told myself it would get better, I would have been lying to myself. Things clearly weren’t going to get better and things weren’t going to look up. In a fit of rage I left the room, grabbing my pack of white Winstons, and set out into the night. The second I reached the outside, I allowed my lungs to inhale the chilling cold air. Despite being a heavy smoker lately, it felt even harder to breathe tonight. But the smoke at least made things a little bit easier. Several minutes passed and nothing seemed to be getting any better. The contents of the box kept going through my head, the words repeating over and over until they didn’t mean anything anymore. If my parents loved me so much, why did they let me leave? They knew what kind of hellhole it was to be alone, so why give me the option to do it? It just seemed stupid. Too stupid to make any sense. As the rain began to fall, I scrapped the remaining stub of the cigarette and decided to head back in. As I stepped back in, I couldn’t deny that I feared going back to the room and locking the door. Maybe if there was someone to just step in and stop me, what if . . . And in that same second, I heard something. In my mind I knew the house was old and could give off many sounds, but this was something new. It was as if someone was breathing down my neck. With each step, I tried my best to ignore it. But the closer I came to the bottom of the stairs, the more obvious it was. Someone was right beside me. When I turned around, I thought that I’d find nothing. But instead, what I found was a man. At first I had trouble making out who he was. Believing it was someone from the same floor as me, I wanted to give him a simple nod as hello. As I continued to look at him it quickly became clear that he wasn’t from around here. The torn black clothing gave me the impression of someone who was homeless. Was he the one who had been breathing down my neck? And if so, how did he even get in here? With a little bravery in my throat, I uttered a few words. No response. This was creeping me out. I just shook my head at the strange man, figuring I was better off going back to my room upstairs. I turned to go, but the second I took a step, a noise broke out. It was distant and yet close. A hollow sound erupted my thought process, causing me to stop dead in my tracks. The man was crying. At this point, I had no intention of staying. I wanted to just leave, go back to my room, and close myself in. As I tried to move, however, I felt like my feet were frozen to the stairs. Turning slowly, I could see him come into view. And now, he had turned to me. He stood in front of me—and his appearance was the most unnerving thing I had ever seen. His face wasn’t painted with scars or deformed in any way—it was completely gray. His eyes were two orbs of golden hue, glowing faintly in the dark stairway we both stood in. His mouth, which had been a frown before, was turning up into a smirk—taunting me from across the few stairs that remained between us. “You’re alone here. Aren’t you?” And as he spoke, his voice echoed with a static underneath. He sounded like a broken radio, going through several transmitters to push his words through. I was unable to turn my gaze away from him, incapable of ignoring him and turning back. Suddenly, and seemingly without my control, my body ran. My eyes kept still, looking at him before he disappeared from my view. Instincts going wild, my feet had led me back into my room. I slammed the door behind me. A few seconds went by and then it suddenly dawned on me. The man I had seen back in the stairway wasn’t human—nor was he of this world. But the way he had spoken to me . . . It was as if he was pretending to be someone I knew. Did I know him? Or was the state of shock playing tricks on me, leaving my brain fragmented and scrambled? It slowly dawned on me. Up until now, I had played it as if everything had been fine. But it wasn’t, it never had been. And now my insanity, my entire feeling of loneliness, had presented itself outside my door. The weight on my shoulders seemed even heavier now, as if it was pushing me slowly down. My body seemed weak as I felt my limbs going numb, losing hope. My back against the door, I slid down toward the floor with tears in my throat. It took me a few minutes before I was able to even look up again. With tears streaming down my face, it was hard to make out anything in the midst of blur. My heart was pounding in my chest, beating hard. I knew I wasn’t alone in the room anymore. And what scared me the most was that I had allowed him inside. Once again, the breathing returned. But this time, I just didn’t mind. I didn’t care what he was going to do to me. So when I felt him coming close, I merely shivered beneath his touch. He was cold. Almost as if he had died and come back to life. But he wasn’t anything more than a hallucination. That’s what I kept telling myself. When his hand grabbed mine, I followed. My legs standing right up on the floor, my eyes barely able to see anymore. The longer he stood beside me, the darker it became. When he asked me to dance with him, I said yes. His free hand wrapped itself around my waist and the other kept its firm grip on mine. My head slowly began leaning toward his shoulder. Being so close to him, it was impossible to avoid smelling him. He smelled wet—like tea that had been left in the cold forgotten water for too long. His hair, torn and tangled, fell beneath my head as his shoulder supported my weight. Maybe he was the best thing that could ever happen to me. Maybe the worst. But I’d never live long enough to tell. As we kept dancing, he started humming to me. Telling me a story of a man he once knew. A Puppeteer, who could steer his puppets with his broken dreams. Even though no one saw the value of his friendship, he managed to turn them all to like him. But no matter how many friends he claimed, he always still felt lost. Unloved. Broken. Alone. And then he whispered into my ear. “If you let me, I can guide you to him. But you need to let go.” There was nothing more to remember than the sweet story playing in my head when I closed my eyes. His cold firm grasp held my body close to his as he seemed to lower me down, closer to the floor. The lower he allowed me to slip the more I felt like as if I was floating. “Do you feel it?” Maybe. No. Yes. I hated to admit it, but just as he had been plaguing my mind only seconds earlier he suddenly set me free. I felt empowered, but empty. The bittersweet feeling of allowing myself to go this far was tainting my mind. Even when he whispered into my ear softly about my own choices, I couldn’t help but feel selfish. Maybe he knew how I felt, deep inside. Maybe that’s why he came to save me away from this place. I wanted to believe him. I believed him. But the second I had let my entire mind go, that’s when he betrayed me. The man I had first thought was there to protect me was now instead the one who sought out to destroy me. His hands had grabbed my wrists with a massive force, holding them still to keep his precision intact. With two distant cuts, I felt my wrists starting to pulsate, but no blood left me. Within my eyesight, I could see it clearly. My muscles were pulled out in long strings of veins and flesh. The sound caused my mind to go numb, my brain screaming for release. Every joint in my body was aching, trembling beneath his strong grasp. I tried to beg him to stop. Tried to push him off from me. But no matter how hard I tried, he held me down. Gasping for air, the fingers within my vision had started to turn white as they were slowly pulling at his sleeve. I felt heavy. My body no longer floated—no. With my heavy heart, he was the only one who was able to carry me now. Carrying me over the floorboards, hauling my lifeless body with his simple touch. As his hands went for my neck, I drew my last breath. If I had been able to face how lonely I felt, I would have been able to tell my Mom and Dad that I missed them. I wouldn’t have been too shy to tell my flat mate that I needed someone to speak to. I just couldn’t stand facing all of my problems on my own. It took too long. #endregion |
