nothing is helping

Read more Lovecraft. Alien geometries and incomprehensible cities eerily remind me of what I saw through that door. I hope Lovecraft wasn't actually on to anything. That would make things worse.

I saw the shadows again today. Don't know if that's a good thing. If I'm hallucinating, this terrifies me and means I probably committed the murder. If they are real, then either they committed the murder or manipulated me into doing so.

None of these scenarios is soothing to my psyche.

Earlier I took a nap and had a terrible dream.

In this dream, or rather, nightmare, horrible things happened. It was night. In a forest. Someone was running. From what, I didn't know. Then over the hill came a black smoky...thing. But as it came nearer, it was clear that it was a large dog. With red, glowing eyes.

It was chasing the woman, who was exhausted. She turned around, and was holding a sharp branch she must have found lying in the underbrush. As the canine from hell approached, she jabbed the thing as far as she could into its left eye.

After she got up and continued running, I saw it turn its gaze to me. Blood pouring like a faucet from the wound, it took a few steps toward me. When it got near enough, it raised a paw and moved it toward my face; I was frozen with fear.

Then to my utter shock and horror, it began...absorbing my left eye into its paw. I screamed at the unbearable pain. Moments later, I watched, still shaking and screaming, as the branch was pushed from the eye socket and a new eye appeared--my eye.

Blood soaked my face and I began to fall into a catatonic state.

That's when the scene changed. We were in a house, that infernal dog and me. Its eyes looked normal again (well, as normal as glowing red eyes can be), and my pain was gone. I reached up to feel, and my hand came away clean; my eye was back in place!

My joy was not to last, however.

I heard a buzzing motor, and I saw someone wielding a chainsaw. He came at the dog, who was undeterred. It didn't even blink. Then it leapt at the man. The whirring blade sliced through the dog's back right leg like it was butter. It flopped to the ground, unbalanced.

The man made several other cuts to the beast, then got out of there quick as he could. The thing lunged at me again, this time pressing its stump against my left arm.

It took my arm. It was there, where the back leg should have been. A left arm for a back right leg. A human arm on a dog. It used its replacement limb and dashed after the man. Last I saw of it, all its cuts had healed.

I just sat there, bleeding and in pain.

Awhile later, I heard some noises and I was no longer alone.

It was the dog. It came at me, looking rabid, its red eyes staring into my soul. It rushed forward, growling, teeth ready to take a big bite. Before it reached me, however, everything went black.

I woke up on the couch, in intense pain. I was soaked--in sweat and blood. My left eye and left arm were missing, I was bleeding everywhere, visions of that creature kept flashing in my mind. I screamed like I have never screamed in my life.

Then finally, mercifully, I awoke for real.

This dream does not help me feel better either.

I am completely nuts. And I'm dangerous. I should probably check into a mental hospital.

Some Easter this has turned out to be.