unheimlich

I fell asleep on the bus today. When I awoke, I found myself in a neighborhood where nothing looked familiar. The driver was not the same man, and even the bus seemed to have changed. I thanked him and got off as quickly as I could, and began to walk the streets.

It was nothing like home. The buildings were tall, dark, and ominous, blocking out the stars, their cold lights illuminating nothing. The people walked as though afraid that the world might close in on them or the buildings attack them--shoulders hunched, swift strides, heads down. As I wandered, I eventually noticed that the streets themselves were very similar in layout to the neighborhood in which I lived. I kept walking, down blind alleys and curved streets, and my suspicions were confirmed. Someone had built some twisted shadow of my neighborhood. I found that my steps were drawn to the place where my house should have been. It was there, dark, perverted, twisted. I knocked on the door.

A girl answered it--if she did not look so obviously evil she might have been beautiful. She leered at me and asked me what I was doing. I could take it no longer. I shrieked, drew the knife from my pocket, murdered her, and entered the darkness of my shadow home.

As I shut the door, I looked down at the body of the girl who had answered me and realised, to my horror, that this was not some evil woman, but the body of my love. I curled up in the corner and wept for a world that could make my home so unlike home.