Sincerely, Jennifer x

Tyler was ever so slightly drunk. He had decided to get started on the bank holiday session early, despite it still being two days until the Coronation, and as he sped towards home, the world blurred in front of him, as he laughed.

He screeched to a stop by the traffic lights, jolting forward in his seat and feeling his stomach flip as the car rested while the traffic lights up ahead did their usual slow dance from red to green.

There was a girl across the road, her eyes on her phone as Tyler gazed over to pass the time. Tyler was, as previously mentioned, ever so slightly drunk, and also incredibly rude, and so, as the green light swam into his very hazy view, he leaned through his window, and shouted at her.

“Smile, you miserable bitch.”

The moon was full, and magic was in the air. Tyler couldn’t see it though. He could barely see his steering wheel. On he went, speeding through the empty road with a roar of laughter, swerving a little to the left and to the right, amused at the frantic noise of other car’s horns as he caused chaos.

He almost crashed several times, but made it home, far safer than he deserved to be. He was pulling into his parent’s driveway, practising his best sober face for his Mum, when he heard a voice in his ear.

“I was going to make you crash, but I’ve had a better idea.”

Tyler almost crashed again, jumping in shock and turning to look behind him.

There was nobody there. He was alone, but a little unsettled.

He decided, for the sake of his sanity, that it was just the drink. He’d never hallucinated while drinking before, but he’d had a pill or two on his travels that day, so he shrugged and decided that anything was possible.

As he exited the car and headed for the front door, he shrugged again, trying to shake off the deep, dark thought that something strange was going on, and that night, he shrugged again and again, but could not shake the growing weight on his shoulders.

His shoulders began to ache as he said a slurred goodnight to his parents and headed to bed. He fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, his loud snores filling the room and snaking down the hallway, and the moon’s soft light broke through the curtains to play in the darkness.

His dream began in his car. His hands gripped the steering wheel, and as the car swerved and shook, his sudden, stony sobriety shocked him into silence. The car screeched to a stop at the traffic lights, and across the road, there she was.

She looked up from her phone, and as she met his eyes, she smiled.

The sky grew dark, the moon, missing and the clouds miserable. Not a star could be seen, and the world seemed to waste away to nothing, until Tyler was left alone in his idling car, with just the mysterious stranger for company.

She walked towards the car, her smile widening as she leaned down to the window and her dark eyes bore into Tyler’s.

“Do you want to die Tyler?” She asked, leaning casually against the car with a smirk. His shoulders sank and his heart pounded as he shook his head, speechless. “Tough.” She whispered, lazily pointing in his direction with a laugh.

Dark shadows descended on Tyler from each inch of the car, his skin crawled as he was enveloped in her enchantment. The car fell away, and he was trapped in darkness, pain, pulsing through his body as her smile loomed over him in the darkness.

He screamed, but nobody could hear him. He struggled and shouted, terror and trauma in every part of his body, but the pain was unrelenting.

All that he could see, in the darkness that swallowed him, was the smile he had demanded from the window of his car. The smile was endless, and so was the torture. His body was aflame, and his mind raced with memories and regret.

Tyler never shouted at strangers ever again, and he never drove drunk ever again either, but then again, I suppose that’s because Tyler never woke up from that dream, and he never will. He’s having a good time though, or, at least, I’m having a good time tormenting him, and his ugly little soul.