Home, part 1- they hated me all

Nightmare By The Sea

Nie mam pojęcia, czy dział jest dobry. W gatunkach to ja nigdy nie byłam dobra xD Jak nie to niech ktoś przeniesie, o.
Po angielsku bo pisane na konkurs anglistyczny (jakimś cudem zajęło pierwsze miejsce o.O), nie dlatego, że szpanuję językiem, który prawie wszyscy już znają. Planuję kiedyś to przetłumaczyć na polski z powrotem..kiedyś, bo styl po angielsku mam tragiczny (nie czytam nic w tym języku t.t)
Cześć 1/3, 3 jeszcze nie skończyłam

They hated me. They all hated me. They hated me all and while walking through the city, I could feel their hate, targeted on me. I could feel it spread in the air I breathed, almost physical. They were all looking at me each time I walked to and from work, through cold and dark alleys and the despise in their eyes was so obvious and clear. They hated me all.
I was hated because I wasn't one of them. Because I was short and almost blind without glasses. At the age of thirty two I looked as fifty. They hated me because I had pale skin all covered with slime and membranes between my fingers. Because I wasn't Human and that was enough for them.
Everyday road to work was hell. I looked down, at the concrete sidewalk beneath my feet, for the sake of avoiding eye contact – someone of them might have considered this as lack of respect and I didn't feel strong enough to measure with them. No. I barely could bear this hate filling the air already.
Each time I bumped on one of them, I got out of his way, sometimes coming off the sidewalk on the roadway, and prayed that that person wouldn't bother me then. Sometimes it still wasn't enough. After all, who would deny himself if there was an occasion to torment little broken human being? Maybe someone would stop, but the matter was, I wasn't a human being.
I was born Gobbos. We are native population of this island, but I'm not sure that anyone remembers that. "Race of slaves", they've been saying. "Should've stayed in caves", they've been saying. "Slimy blind-worms, you shouldn't have left. Hit one of them and he will smile in return." Well, my sin was coming out of caves. Stupid little Gobbos, wearing human clothes. Stupid little Gobbos, who went to school. Stupid little Gobbos playing human in the world that despises him. Who didn't know the way back from this world.
They despised me for being lousy imitation of human. For that I had my slime and my membranes between fingers and still I've been walking on their sidewalks, their streets. They knew that I was no one. Counterfeit. Intruder coming into their world.
Somebody pushes me, and I fall in a pool. That's completely normal on my way to work. I've got to remember not to look them in the eye... I go further my way. Don't look at them. I wouldn't want to be seen as arrogant. I don't want troubles.
Oh I felt so sick an tired. I hated my life and they were hating it also. All of them. They hated me all. Whole swarm against one.

My road to work always seems hundred-times longer than actually is, from mine perspective. 20 minutes of getting into work and twenty minutes of coming back which had become the most stressing moments in my whole daily routine. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and think: "Shit, I'm not gonna go there. I don't have enough strength for this", but despite that after lying the sea of uncontrolled fright for the while, I still pull myself back together and start preparing for leaving. I have to do this. I guess it's because my mother taught me to.
I never know, what's gonna happen to me on my way and that's the worst part. Will I be pushed in the pool or get punched in the face? That's the great mystery of living.
My mother has been always telling me not to give up. "They will always fuck with you", she used to say. "But you have to be there, at least just because you know, how big discomfort it causes them". So I get dressed and walk out of my safety zone into the city, to this furious crowd, sea of unbearable hate. I come out though I don't really want to, but I feel it's the right thing to do. "You've got to be strong", she used to say.
The first time when I was beaten to unconsciousness was when I had 7 years old. Before that I wasn't going out much, but Elisa, I mean my mother, wanted me to go to school. They couldn't forbid me that; apartheid policy was theoretically abolished a lot earlier. Although there wasn't compulsory education for Gobboses' national minority from reservations, they couldn't block the access to school for kid who'd been raised with people, had status of citizen. So I started going to school and on my third week some gang of blasé human whelps had dragged me to the toilet and beat till lose of consciousness. I hadn't gone to that school ever again after that. Elisa, I mean mother had arranged me homeschooling.
The second try was in high-school. It was said then that the times had changed for that eight years and it was safe enough to try at least. I was aware of the risk, but didn't want to think about it much. I wanted to go to school. I wanted a confrontation. I had no intention of living in constant fear, remembering what happened. My mother had taught me not to.
To everyone's surprise, high-school went..painless. Went it comes to the excesses that might have been called 'dangerous' I remember just one. Of course, I've been hearing aggressive things addressed to me every day, but have been ignoring it proudly. I've been learning well, so I was flattered. If I was doing well at high-school, I would do well at the whole human world, I thought. Like my mother. Stupid little gifted Gobbos, main attraction at the Retsalium Academy, always introduced to visitors at any school days and festivals - look, here is a gobbo-student, first one in the school history and he's even doing well. Pet of teachers, who used to play with him, treating him as the clever puppy who learned to give paw though nobody expected him to. I even shook hand of the mayor of Retsalium on my graduation day (and after that, I also had an occasion to watch him as he tries to wipe dry his hand on his pants from the slime). My mother was puffing herself up with pride, that she had such a talented son. I even thought I would go to the university!
Now I operate the machine at a cannery in Noks. I would even like my job if I didn't have to meet my co-workers, looking at me provocatively and sneeringly, waiting for my every mistake. But I like machines; I've always liked. They're more perfect than people and you always know what to expect from them. I wanted to become a Constructor once.
I should be happy that I have any job at all. Not many employers want to hire a Gobbos. I had searched for a long time, it's a miracle that I finally found it after all.
I focus on my work, on the sounds of machines, mechanisms, so strangely soothing, soothing...I try not to see how they look at me, my colleagues. How they all hate me. How they all would kill me with pleasure, if looks could be deadly. Try not to think about it, Martin. Sometimes I just wanted to break the ceasefire and shout: "Go on, I'm here, I'm helpless, I'm a Gobbos! Come here and kill me!", I'm not good at handling this pressure, this silent waiting. But I've never done that. You know, I don't really want to die.
After work I go back home the same way. In this town it's always so cold and gray. I hate Noks. I hate my life since moving out. When I was a boy, we used to live in Retsalium, on the coast. Everything seemed less sick there. We had a big, big house. I loved my house. I didn't want to sell it.
Current flat is too small. My old house was microcosm. Whole world that was enough for me, in which I could hide and never go out. This place is too tiny for being the whole world. I feel in it like in cell. But at least it's cheap enough form me to rent it. I couldn't afford anything else..
The walls are always damp and mouldy, but that's okay. I like the moisture. It calms me down. Gobboses need a lot of moisture, they're originally aquatic creatures actually. One of really few aspects of my nature that I, let's say, understand somehow.
I wasn't from reservation. I've never lived in the cave. Parents of my parents have, but they died. When my parents were just kids. People took care of them after that. There wasn't equality before the law yet then, but my foster grandparents were rich and influential. They could afford bringing home two creatures from caves and provide them security. My parents were raised with humans.
I never even knew my father; he was murdered by some fanatics right after I was born. Mum was activist for the rights of Gobboses. Thanks to her and those other fighting for justice, apartheid was abolished and I could now walk to and from work everyday, surrounded by despise, but completely legally. She fought for us, so we could live worthily. 'Worthily' meant 'like people'. It least I've always understood it that way.
I've never really experienced anything related to my native culture. Unless being despised and repeatedly insulted by humans counts. The world of Gobboses appeared to me as evil, mysterious and dangerous, ready and able to drag me into itself, if I wouldn't try enough to be human. World of dangers, without health service and electricity, The world of passive slaves, who had been kidnapped and killed for the Jir energy. On the other hand, human world was also bad, because it didn't want to let us in. "Humans will always try to mess you up, break you down. But you have to smile. That makes them crazy." - my mother used to say to me. I've been taught to hate humans, because they hated Gobboses, and Gobboses, because they were weaker than humans. I've been just an imitation of human – but mentally, I wasn't exactly a Gobbos either. Didn't feel like one. From my childhood I gained one, basic lesson – world is bad and I should be afraid of it. Fear had been present with me during whole my childhood. Actually it was the only thing I remembered quite vivid from that period. Surrounded on all sides and cornered. Only my house was a safe place, something clear and understandable, my micro-homeland. I didn't have any other. Now there wasn't even this.
From my window I could see it was raining. That was a good thing;sound of it was calming me down. I was lying on unmade bed (I never made up my bed. What for?), staring at the gray walls. Usually after returning from the cannery I hadn't got strength for anything else. I had to sleep. Life is much more bearable, when you're asleep.

I've been oversleeping most of my time at home. I never knew for how long I'd been sleeping this time or what was happening to me before. I had my alarm clock preset on the morning hours, just to wake up for work. The rest of the day....I've been waking and falling asleep, without knowing what time is it and how much time has flown between one awakening and another. I didn't know, why I've been sleeping that much. I've been just..feeling tired for the whole time. That was okay. Sleep was bringing peace.
I didn't like to wake up. Each time that happened to me, I fought with recovering consciousness as long as I could. My first thought after awakening was always: "No, please, I don't want to go back". I didn't want to go back to this room. Even while being semiconscious, I knew that there wasn't anything to come back for. Being awoken was equal of feeling pain in my joints (reminding me that I was a fuckin' Gobbos; most of our population has problems with joints) and cold. And giant anxiety trying to enter my head. Returning of awareness that everybody hates me, and I don't have a home, nor future.
I've been usually awoken by this cold. My body temperature was dropping sharply and that was waking me up. Just after few minutes, I've been falling asleep again, deluding myself that this time I'll get lucky and hibernate completely. Once in a while, when I really had to, I was getting up to go to the bathroom or into the kitchen to get some food.

That was hell of a miracle, that I succeeded to function this way for time that long. I've never remembered how the fridge magically was filling itself with food. I recalled that I used to pay a neighbour of mine to do shopping for me. But later I began to obsessively wonder if she wouldn't poison my products to hurt me and so I had to stop this proceder. Now, apparently I've been going shopping myself, but I didn't remember that. I remembered really little in general. I could recall the moments I realized that the supplies in the fridge were running out and the giant spot of stress at the thought of going to the shop. And that was all. I couldn't remember moments when I was there and anything from my way back. But the food was in fridge again.
Sometimes I had the impression that some things were arranging themselves. That the flat and my house equipment were taking care of me, sleepy and disoriented. Maybe I just wasn't felling able to handle all of this, everyday life, with this hate crushing me slowly. At some degree, I was intrigued by the fact that I was still alive.

The next day, it wasn't raining. What a pity – I liked rain, everything seemed nicer if surrounded with it's noise. That day, the streets were all smothered by thick mists of smog that had wrapped the whole city. As usual. Every breath causes scratching in the throat, as I'm waddling again through the sordid streets.

I guess the most upsetting kind of people are whisperers. They don't even have enough courage to say loud what they think about me. So they lower their voices down when I come through, casting aspersions on me with each other. They begin to whisper in act of some hypocritical 'decency', but even then they all think through prism of their own great species. We have a lot better hearing than people. All of this gets to me.
Or the kids. Dangerous. They're always moving in herds. And they're untouchable - everybody is treating them indulgently – all in all, they're just children who want fun, who bothers if they're bullying some old freak who's going to die soon anyway? Maybe it would be even good thing, if they badgered him to death finally. They all just want me gone. Gone.
Kids are little blood-thirsty monsters, completely egoistic in their actions. No one has ever felt like teaching them basic moral rules, huh? And all that stereotypes about people having good nature and learning brutality later are just bullshit. Children are just being atavistic, when they attack the weakest individuals from the other species, for training or gain. Everybody who was unlucky to be born this weakest individual from the other species knows that.
Group of kids was standing on my way. That's kinda funny, but when I saw them, blood in my veins froze. I took a step back. All I wanted to do then was turning myself away and run, I was ready even to take longer way home only to avoid meeting them. For a moment, every other noise had drowned in the sound of my heart pounding, monumental, hollow, as the echo, in my head. "No" - I thought. - "I'm not going there". Suddenly I felt need to sleep. I just wanted to lay down, even on this dirty street and don't move ever again. I was too weak for that. "That's ridiculous" - I said to myself. I could take the other way, but who could know who I would meet there, wandering through little, dark valleys. And these ones were just kids. Gang of boys from primary school. They won't kill you, Martin. You've been through this so many times before. I didn't knew why I reacted like that then, but I was having an impression, that that time something would go terribly wrong.
I had to calm myself down. I gulped, took a deep breath and started to walk in the direction of the little swarm. They looked as if they were waiting for me. Maybe that was even true.
Easy, I've been repeating to myself, again and again. Don't overreact. Everything will be alright, you just can't let them see how nervous you are. I raised my head as high as I could (not like me), I was walking fast, but with every single step I felt like I was getting nearer and nearer the gallows I was supposed to be hanged. Come on, come on. Calm yourself down, please.
I've gotten close to the swarm. They were standing on my way and from that vicious looks on their faces I knew they're not gonna let me pass through just like this. They're gonna block my way, like they always do. They're gonna throw things at me and scream. As always. That's been happening so many times before, so why am I so fuckin' frightened?
They've blocked my way, just like I predicted they would. I started to push through them. Each time I try to pass, someone of them steps on my way out, while all the rest is staring at me sneeringly. I'd to force my way through to walk farther and still they were resisting. It suddenly became whole big scene. It's frustrating and embarrassing like hell, when you see people on the street stopping to watch this circus. I do not want this, I want just get out of this situation, I don't want to be seen by anybody, I, I don't want to be seen at all. I want to be invisible, oh, all I want is to be invisible, why can't Gobboses be like that?! I just want to be home and go to bed. Come on, go on, Martin. Jesus fuck, calm yourself down.
But it was going quite well so far, I said to myself. They weren't screaming, they weren't throwing things at me. They were just standing and blocking way with their eyes glowing with hatred. Nothing unusual there.
I made it to push through on the other side of the wall made from amused 12-year olds. That few minutes of mild struggle seemed like eternity, while the time had forgotten about you, terrified and left at his own in the frozen nightmare, which shouldn't last that long, right? So, the time must have stopped. I'm breathing fast. I can feel the beating of my heart in whole head. I'm pathetic. I just need to get to my flat
They're following me. Damn it. Aren't they bored yet? I close my eyes for a while and open it. I don't quicken my pace. When they're bothering you, never quicken your pace, cause if you did that, you would show them that you are scared – my mother taught me this. I just..go, normally and they are following me. Just easy, no panic, they just want to intimidate me.
I was going my usual way straight to my flat, but the thought that they would know where I live from now on was making me sick. They would stand before my apartment house. Although they still couldn't do anything bad to me. They're just kids. They won't open my six-locks-door. They won't get to me by the window, 'cause I'm living on a third floor.
But they're gonna be there. Waiting. Reminding. About the world outside. Hateful. They will be waiting like vultures . To my death.
My heart is beating like a hammer. Jesus, don't panic, Martin. They wouldn't follow you whole way to the house, for Christ's sake. They all just want to intimidate you. God forbid you quicken your steps. Or change your way. Don't worry about them.
But I couldn't stop becoming more and more anxious. Damn it, why they're still following me? Aren't they tired of it yet? And why they're not speaking? Now they're just giggle between each other. Why can't they just go home already?
I'm almost there. It's here, my sordid, filthy estate, where no one dares to go out after dark. It''s a miracle that I survived that long in a place like that, but on the other hand, it was dangerous for me to live in any human place, not just here. But whatever. It won't be long now. Martin. Damn it, they're still behind me. I'm just gonna go this through this alley, between two blocks and I will be able to see my apartment house...
- Call him - finally, I hear the whisper behind my back breaking the monotony of their laughter.
- Hey you! - screams another one of them. I don't respond. The best way is always not to respond.
- You, Gobbos.
- Are you deaf or what?
- Frog! Frog!
- Hey! You!
Paradoxically, when they started calling me, I calmed down alot. At that moment it got to me that they were just kids, not the adults much more able to do me harm. I was being insulted in that way many times before, they couldn't even come up with anything new or more original. I wasn't afraid of their words. I could ignore them; I was strong enough. At least it was less creepy than that lack of words before. The disturbance of the usual ritual, which made me anxious about the things they could have done instead of it. Just like..calm before the storm.
Shh, Martin. You'll be home soon.
- Get the fuck out of our town, you mutant – they have obviously reached their highest level meanwhile.
- Hey, you, you! - I've been ignoring them, still.
- Hey, when someone is talking to you, you should at least turn yourself to us.
- Hasn't you mother told you that? - said someone else, and the whole swarm burst in laughter.
- She hasn't and now she's got what she deserved!
- Hey, you, Gobbos!
- Stinkard!
- Is it true that the amphibian-people like you are cannibals, just like salamander larvae you resemble?
That last words changed everything. No, I knew where this was going. And I didn't want that, please, no.
- Did it taste good? Your mother's dead body after you'd killed her?
It grew dark before my eyes when he said that. I didn't want to hear it...
- Did you get a hard-on?
ENOUGH.
I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to listen to them, but I've heard everything. I always hear everything. And it was too late, too late for me to stop myself from exploding.
I turned myself to them...

That was the longest and the most exhausting course from a work to apartment ever.

My mother had been murdered by anti-gobbo extremists. Some fuckin' fascists, which never got caught after that. Honestly, I doubt if anyone ever tried to find them.
I didn't kill Elisa.
I wasn't home then. That was at the end of my last semester in Academy and I was offered attending some training camp. Outside the Retsalium Island, in the really big city. Oh, little stupid Gobbos was feeling really honoured. Like going there could change anything. I was like twenty years old or something, no joint disease yet, no battery from a long time. I almost believed that I can be this quasi-human. So I went there.
I went, but I don't remember anything from it. All I remember was my returning home.
When I saw my mother for the last time. Lying in the hall.
In the river of her own blood, now dried...Desecrated...
The stench I felt after opening the front door had almost knocked me off my feet. I threw up near her body and fell down. I don't remember how much time I lay like that. I didn't have any reason to get up.
I wasn't ready to live a life without her. I had no one beside her, no friends. I didn't even know how to use a can opener, for God's sake, I can't stand alone. That was strange, but exactly this thought came to me as one of the first after I shook off the first tide of pain, shock and panic that probably took my consciousness away for a while. Who wouldn't hate me now, in the world in which things like this happen? And when would they come back for me?
I was too paralyzed to get up.
If I hadn't had a mental breakdown at that moment, I would have probably called the police. But in that particular moment I hadn't got strength for this. And even if I had some remains of the sanity then, I still would have knew that it was pointless. When it was coming to crimes committed against Gobboses, investigating authorities were 'quite' lazy. Probably about 75% of police officers were either supporting repression against Goboses or afraid themselves. No. I didn't want to go and tell them about what happened, again and again. I hadn't got enough strength. I didn't want to go out anywhere ever again anymore.
At that moment I wanted to just die together with her. No, I wasn't ready to live without her. I wasn't completely realizing what I was doing then, bewildered by the shock, pain and stench. I just crawled to my mother's body and cuddled her, though she was cold and ill-smelling, reminding more of some creature from nightmare than mother. I was feeling incredible pain and I couldn't even estimate whether it was physical or psychical. I couldn't let her go. How could I let her go? All I wanted was just to sleep. Permeate this putrid smell, so there would be no differences, no boundaries between me and Her, just like it was before I was born, so I wouldn't have to feel this separation, insecurity, that I felt each time I was without her, just so we could die together because I wasn't able to live that way. I counted on some bacteria to travel from her body to mine or ptomaine or anything that would finish my life in our little microcosm, now violated and desecrated by the danger. So that's how I lay and slept with her and that's how they found me. They accused me of murdering her. Murdering Elisa.
I was probably really completely mad then, but I hadn't killed Elisa. How anyone could come up with the idea that idiotic? I didn't kill Elisa. I didn't have even any motive to kill Elisa. She was the only person I ever felt safe with... the only one that loved me...they could accuse me of whatever they wanted, they could hate me, because all they were looking for was a pretext, but I didn't kill Elisa. Some fucked-up fascists did it. And I was arrested only to divert their superior's and other people's attention from the real killers. It was logical that I didn't kill Elisa after all. I wanted to die along with her...
I got beaten up seriously by my cell-mates and almost died but I didn't. Unfortunately, they rescued me in the hospital and I woke up there after a few days later, ready to continue my miserable life. Fuck the Gobboses' endless regeneration abilities.
They've been trying to intimidate me to confess but I couldn't give them any details of the crime I didn't commit. They released me after all. They hadn't got enough evidences. Oh, what a surprise. I didn't kill Elisa. We had both bad and goods moments in our relationship, just like every mother and son, but I didn't kill Elisa. Why was everyone in this town thinking that I had killed Elisa?
They couldn't find the evidences so they let me go. I probably wouldn't have that luck if I killed the human. They would even fake some evidences to put me in jail, but, after all, she was a Gobbos, and nobody was really giving a crap about whether I killed her or not. I didn't killed her, but in public opinion I was and am still a murderer. I had to move out because they would lynch me if I didn't . Besides, we were in debts from a long time. I had to sell the house either way. Now I live here, in Noks, still am fully recognizable but think that humans here are a little bit more tolerant than in pretty, rich and representative coast, in spite of everything. I am still alive, doesn't it prove that?
After all that had happened, I understood one thing. We will never be humans. It doesn't have any future. We can pretend and smile as long until someone bursts into your house with the gun and blows your head off.
I didn't have enough strength to handle this fact. It got to me fully for the first time then: I have no future. Now there will be only gray days living in the fumes of hatred and the twisted kids reminding me about the nightmare which happened and still repeats in my dreams, still and still.
I didn't kill Elisa. But they don't care. I am a Gobbos, and a killer for them and that gives them right to torment me for eternity.

And I couldn't even count on dying soon, well, unless they would finally break in and murder me.
Another unpleasant thing in being Gobbos is our long lifespan. We give sickly impression, we almost all have ill joints, but we can't die, isn't that fucked-up? And we have almost endless regeneration abilities. Many humans wouldn't survive being beaten like I've been beaten. I just miss few teeth, that's all. And I limp, but that's joint disease. Our average lifespan is about 120 years. I haven't got even to one third of my way to the grave.
They say that the Gobbos is living as long as it wants to live. We are so-called "magical creatures" for some, our bodies contain the mysterious Jir energy, desired resource in short supply. That's why we've been hunted for a very long time. When we die, the great intensity of the energy is released. And only then it can be collected by humans. The younger we die the greater intensity it is and no one seems to know why is that so. We apparently lose the energy in small doses during the whole life but nobody discovered how and where does it go. There are no physical signs of Jir or increased level of other energy in our environment until the moment of our death.
That's why we've been killed and that's why nobody wants to give us rights equal to human rights. That's why my biological grandparents died.
It's because of Jir our lifespan is so long. It's like a perfect elixir of life. People take it to extend the time of their existence. We give our lives for it.
In native Retsalian beliefs, Jir was related, and sometimes even identified with the term of 'soul'. Why, I don't know, but the legend says that we live as long as we want to live. We can exploit our bodies to extreme, because we're all boosted with Jir. And the usage of Jir is, according to these myths, partly dependent on our mind and will. So, losing desire to live is enough for us to die .All we need to do in that kind of situation is just lie and wait till the Jir energy completely flows away from our bodies.
Of course, that's just legend. A myth. A remain from the old Retsalian religion, the one which was prevailing here before Christianity came along with the European colonists. The Jir energy is just some kind of interaction which isn't completely understood for today's science yet. And we are the biological beings just like every other living organism. We don't die just because we lost the will to survive. If it was true, I would die there then, with Elisa.
I wanted to commit suicide . I was thinking about it from time to time, but never could really decide on how to do this. All in all, it always ended on self-destructive thoughts and nothing more. 'Now I'm tired, afraid, I'll think about it the other day'. Lie down and sleep. Oh, if only it was that easy....
Now I'm lying in the bathtub. I would like to drown; it seems to me the most pleasant way to die. I've always associated water with safety, in my mind. All in all, the Gobboses were living in the water once, we even do have residual external gills – remain after our predecessors. I can hold my breath underwater for an extraordinary long time.
And so I lie like that, submerged and I'm trying to calm myself down before I go to bed. I hadn't killed Elisa, but for them I will always be the murderer. Calm down. Don't think about it.
Slowly, my pulse slows down. I don't want to emerge. I don't want to go back there, on the land. Maybe I would stay there?...Maybe the Jir energy would go away?....
Suicide is so..so like them, Gobboses. Fitting to their oneiric, primitive world in the Saint Caves Reservation. "Humans don't give up. Humans fight. Show them, that you can be stubborn like them, that you are up to this task too. Fight them their own way" - Elisa used to say. But I'm not the Human.
Why can't I just leave this world, why can't I be just a regular gobbo-slave? Because I'm disgusted and frightened by even thinking of it. But on the other hand, I feel like it was right. Like it was my destiny, which I can dislike, from which I can run for my whole life, but sooner or later it will catch me anyway and maybe it would be easier if I simply accepted what's unavoidable – the fact that I am a fuckin' Gobbos, a creature that is usable only for beating it up to death and taking over it's energy.
I'm starting missing oxygen. An irritating feeling, but I can handle it...just for a minute longer...
I am afraid to give up. That would mean I'm weak. I'm afraid to go down into that darkness which constitutes the core of Gobboses' instincts. I don't want to be like that. That's been always disgusting me. I don't want to be usable only for being slaughtered and taking away my Jir.
According to the primitive beliefs, when we die natural and our energy hadn't been robbed before, our souls, created from Jir return back to the Underworld Land just where they originally all come from. Where it's all being eaten up by Demons, the legitimate receivers of the whole Jir energy of the world. We're food for the Demons, that's our basic role in maintaining the balance in the universe. The race of slaves remains the race of slaves, even after death.
I don't believe in this much. I have no idea about what is happening with us after death and don't even try to guess. I've never had any imagination of what is waiting for me, out there. Probably it will just be just a great emptiness and lack of feeling anything, but I can't be sure of it and that's stopping me. My apartment was small, cold and I hated it, and the outside world wanted my blood, but at least I knew what should I expect here. I was familiar with everything here, every object, every day, every danger. It's better not to risk and throw myself into something I don't know at all. Because I might find myself even farther away from home....
I emerge urgently. It's always like this. Even those defective, jir-ed Gobboses have self-preservation instinct stronger than any fantasy about death. In the minute I really start lacking oxygen the first impulse is to emerge as fast as I can. I think I'd have to restrain my ability to move somehow if I really wanted to drown myself. Or draw water in the lungs on the spot. But we all know that I wouldn't do that, right? You know, truth is I don't really want to die. Or I am just a coward.
I think I'll go to sleep now.

But I turned out I couldn't sleep . It was weird and I didn't know how to react. That had never happened before; the sleep was always with me, always there, like some good fairy ready to take reality away in every moment each time I needed it. But now I couldn't sleep. I couldn't stop feeling excited in a strange, sickly way. I got up of the bed and went to kitchen to prepare something to eat.
The kitchen is small and stinks. Smell in here always makes me sick, but I have to eat something.
The fridge filled itself up again, I noticed en passant, while taking out sandwiches from it. That so strange that I had already prepared sandwiches in the fridge. I can't remember preparing them, not to mention putting them into the fridge. But, since I didn't remember even shopping....maybe someone else would be worried about his sanity if put in my position, but I was glad that I'm not remembering that.
I go out of the kitchen with the plate full of sandwiches. The light switches off itself. WAIT.
I turn around instantly. That whole fridge-replenishment thing and food already prepared weren't bothering me until now. I treated it as something known and obvious, a landscape element, an effect of my memory holes. That was easy because I've never actually witnessed this happening without me doing anything, right before my eyes. Or at least I've never been conscious enough to register that before. The light incident was different. In association with the fridge, the sandwiches and my insomnia it made me feel extremely insecure. Again this strange feeling that the whole apartment lives on it's own and I can't control it, alone, defenseless, helpless, left on the mercy of self-operating household equipment. Parasite of this little, mouldy ecosystem, not being in charge even in his own flat. I took the step forward into the kitchen, in darkness. I tried to recall when was the last time I remembered switching the light on or off consciously. I couldn't. I didn't remember. It seemed that the answer was 'never'. Cold shiver ran through my back. Was this happening the whole time and only now I just have noticed that, because I 've never been conscious enough before tonight? I suddenly felt like there was someone else in the kitchen, in my apartment. Like someone with the gun, ready and able to shot me down here. My heart was beating like a hammer. There's no one there Martin, don't get paranoid, I've been repeating to myself, again and again. Calm yourself down. Calm down. You've just been there few minutes ago with the light turned on and you could see that no one was there. Or I just simply haven't noticed that someone...
I thought that maybe I should switch the light on (which haven't done it itself this time) and make sure, but I couldn't gather the courage to go this. What if something will turn out to be wrong after that? What is someone is there?
- Hello..Who's there? - I called nervously in the darkness and blinked. All I heard back was silence. Suddenly I felt strange breath of air on my face. Warm breath. Not necessarily unpleasant, but it crept me out then.
- Alright, that enough of this – I yelled just to hear my own voice. I had to hear it to make sure that I was still there. That this whole situation is real. That I haven't drowned in this sea of chaos and insecurity yet. I brace myself up and switch on the light. My disgusting kitchen still looks the same as it looked before. There's no one there, no humans nor other..persons . This time I look carefully in every corner. I don't know how could possibly someone else appear suddenly in my kitchen, but I've got to get rid of this impression that I am not alone. I can't see anyone here. No one is here. Alright. Calm down. Take this bloody sandwiches and go to the room.
When I walk by the bathroom door, I notice the sound of the washing machine working. I don't recall turning on the washing machine today. I become feeling more and more insecure. I've got to fall asleep as soon as possible, I'll get mad if I don't.

Sleep isn't coming to me. I ate those bloody sandwiches and now I'm lying in the bed, trying to get some sleep, but it isn't coming. What's wrong with tonight? I think I got too roused by the things that happened in kitchen.
The washing machine just ended its work .The clock was ticking rhythmically. The apartment seemed so horribly morbid when you've been awaken. Oh, how much I wanted to be asleep now. But I couldn't sleep. Something was wrong here. Terribly wrong. Where had I my eyes that I haven't seen that earlier? Oh, yeah, right. Gobosses don't have good eyesight, not even close to good. Stupid little Gobbos.
I'm starting to talk without sense. I'm slowly going mad. Every little murmur in the flat is causing me to jump on my bed. I feel that my whole apartment is one, big, powerful organism. Able to crush me any time. If only it wishes... No matter how stubbornly I keep telling myself that's irrational, strange impression isn't weakening.
On the outside it started to rain. I am listening to it, intently – this sound so familiar, so soothing...For the first time in my life I thought that I would feel much safer now if I were on the outside, not in apartment. But that was irrational. I had to calm myself down.
I'm still gazing into the darkness of my apartment, staring at the walls of my room covered with mould, the TV, wardrobe, the table, one chair. Everything seems to be the same as before and yet different. I am looking out for a potential danger. Realizing that the apartment lives on its own and I wasn't aware of that for hell-knows-how-long time has taken away what was left of my sense of security and hell yes, I don't know what can happen next anymore.
The TV squeaked in this weird way.
- JESUSCHRIST! - I yelled at the top of my lungs. I wasn't expecting that. It surprised me. I can't take this pressure any longer.
Suddenly I felt it again. Weird, warm, breeze of air. Hot, odorless airflow. Like someone else's breath. I felt in on my face. And in the same time, I felt someone's presence in the room, over my bed.
Panic was everything I remember. Wave of uncontrolled fear that swallowed everything else, my whole ability to think rationally. Here it is, someone is standing over me and I'm helpless, someone will take my glasses away and kill me, I instantly move back, I can feel the wall behind.
- PLEASE, LEAVE ME, DON'T KILL ME! NO! - I hear myself screaming with voice that doesn't sound like mine, it's too screamy, too reedy. And it that moment, it ended. That thing was gone. Again I was alone in the bedroom.
I hid my face in the hands and started to cry. Oh my God. There's something wrong happening there and I can't control it. That place is haunted. That place will kill me. Either that, either I'm losing my sanity....It was bad, very bad and I couldn't calm down.
I didn't get to sleep that night.

This time I felt like I had even less strength to go out that I usually have, but pulled myself out of the bed in my everyday ritual. Just like usually, the clothes that I was supposed to change into were already pulled out from the closet and lying on the armchair, ready to be put on right away. I've been always assuming that it was me pulling it out from the closet the day before. Oh, sometimes it's better not to know the truth. But I knew the truth already. I wasn't controlling my life and that's started to be terrifying.
At work I thought it all over and decided on ignoring policy. Everything what happened yesterday seemed so absurd when you were thinking about it outside the apartment. What the hell, whatever it was, I still had no idea about how could I fight this thing, so, as long as it didn't hurt me, the best way to deal with it was ignoring it. It's a cowardly tactic, but fuck it, what else to expect from the Gobbos? I've never been a Human. I don't have a nerve for anything else, and I have right for this, considering the fact that yesterday I haven't slept at all.
Sleeping. Exactly. I couldn't be truly sure if the things that had happened yesterday wasn't just a hallucination caused by the lack of sleep. I couldn't be even sure whether I really hadn't been sleeping or everything I had seen was just some weird nightmare. Someone whose line between the dream and the reality is that thin, can never be sure. That's why it will be for the best if I ignore this all. Today I'll have a good sleep and we'll see how it's gonna be later.
Yeess...I'll get a decent sleep..and we'll see...I'll get a decent sleep...

I can't fall asleep. STILL. I am becoming furious. Why isn't that damn unconsciousness coming?
I've never had problems with this before. Yesterday was a first time when I stayed awake all night. Now it seems that it's going to be the second.
I am mad, disoriented, terrified. What the hell is going on? What is wrong with me?!
Something is wrong, really wrong. I can't be awoken for time that long, I can't stay conscious...I won't endure it....please, let me sleep...God, am I sick or something...why can't I sleep?! I WANT TO SLEEP. Sleep...
Tonight, it isn't raining, and I don't have even that pleasant, monotonous sound which I could listen intently to in order to calm myself down. There's nothing I could safely focus my attention on. I don't know how to help myself with falling asleep. I've never had this problem before. I'm tossing from side to side on my bed, lying among bed-clothes all sweaty and dirty from the slime (I really should change it more often). I can't calm myself down. I am so fuckin' tired, so tired that I feel nauseous, but I still can't sleep or stop my thoughts running trough my head with the speed of sound. I can't slow neither calm it down. I always could...The brakes went out. My eyes are burning, my whole body shivers. I am so tired I want to cry. I've never stayed awake for two nights in a row. I WANT TO SLEEP.
That's because of my sense of security was violated, I know. I can't sleep when already aware that my apartment is one great living organism. How could I take my glasses off, close my eyes and drift away, when I know, that this thing...isn't sleeping right now? I can't do that. I wish I could live still in unawareness, but I'm not able to. And I'm not able to pretend that nothing ever happened, not after what I saw.
Water. I could use a drink, but I am too afraid to get up from the bed and walk to the kitchen through the darkness. I 'm afraid that again I would see something I later couldn't discard from my mind, oh, why can't I discard this whole situation from my mind, I've never had problems with it before.
I'm afraid that I'll feel that breeze of warm air again, just like someone else's breath on my skin. I can't force myself to get up from my bed. Instead of it I press my back to the wall and curl, pulling up my knees to the chin. I won't stand that lack of security much longer.
This night I hadn't slept at all, too.

Fuck it, I thought while returning home from work the next day. I could barely keep on my feet, I just needed to get some sleep. The things I had to deal in my apartment drew my attention from this horrible fear from Humans that I usually felt on the streets. I decided to drop in the local drugstore in order to buy some damned medicine to help me fall asleep.
I never stop anywhere on my way home. I'm scared too much. The longer I stay outside my apartment, the bigger probability that I'll get myself into trouble is. I don't really want to have my face smashed again. But now, the fear of insomnia was bigger than anything else. Fuck it, I thought. I needed to by something to help me sleep.
In the drugstore wasn't a line-up, thank God. Everything went fast. I asked about any sort of sleeping pills that can be sold without a prescription, paid for it, went out. Took out the rubber gloves I had to wear at work and when paying for anything anywhere – to avoid fouling everything I touch with the slime my body produces. I sometimes got the skin irritation from it, but that's okay, I got used to this.
I've been already on my estate, when I heard someone calling me.
- Hey, you!
I turned around instantly to see a well-built, young human male. He didn't look friendly. I knew what this meant. Troubles. In that second whole time had stopped. I somehow knew what he wanted. Yes, that was happening again. And I couldn't help it. I wanted to run and scream, but I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, everything became fuzzy before my eyes. In that moment there was nothing except fear. That man was going to kill me, I thought.
That had lasted maybe few seconds, before jest started to go in my direction and something exploded in me. Some energy unlocked and panic became everything and all that was in my head then was the signal to run away, run as fast as possible, screaming. As far as possible, run away from him.
He caught and knocked me down within few minutes. Dull pain in my skull after my head hit the concrete. I heard the sound of vial with my medicine rumbling through the sidewalk. It must have fallen out of my pocket. That was really happening again. I closed my eyes, frightened, trying to protect my face. Please, no. I was scared, I knew what was about to happen next. You can get used to many things, but, no, you can't get rid of this horrible mix of panic and helplessness at the very thought of pain and being violated like that when such thing had ever happened to you.
- Don't touch my kid ever again! - I heard his voice and also my own voice, yelling, weeping, I heard myself as I begged for mercy and tried to explain everything in a torrent of chaotic words. Everything was like in slow motion. I lay flattened on the sidewalk, he sat on top of me, I was still yelling, struggling and begging, but I knew it wouldn't work. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled my head up with his left hand and with his right one he punched me in the face. Pain. My scream seemed to come from somewhere far away. Nausea. Whirl. He hit me again, please no, he tried to do this again, but then...
I felt this warm wind around me again and an unpleasant shiver going through my body like electricity and in that very moment he screamed and jumped out of me. It all happened too soon for me to understand, but I felt relief I wasn't hit again. He stood up over me but didn't dare to touch me again.
- Touch someone else and I'll kill you, you fucking freak – he said and spat near me before running away.
I was still lying on the fuckin' sidewalk with my eyes shut and weeping long after he was gone. I didn't know how much I lay there, in the dirt, bleeding from my nose, not being able to get up. I felt pain, giant, dull, pain. My glasses cracked. I felt like I was going to die. I had to get up. I didn't want to die on the cold sidewalk, I thought. At least I had to crawl to my apartment somehow. Finally I managed to gather up what's left of my strengths to get up and go home.
Stumbling along the way, I made it to get to the tenement-house. Come on, just a few steps and you'll be home. With my hand clenched tightly on a barrier I overcome the stairs. I check if I haven't lost the keys, but, thankfully, no. For a moment I struggle with opening the doors. Fuck, can't it go any faster? I made it. I walked inside my apartment and I don't have strength for anything else left. I sat by the wall to wait till I calm down. I'm fuckin' shaking and can't stop. I feel nauseous, and pain. I think I'm gonna vomit.
Still shaking, I crawled through the hall, to my room, to the bed, hid entirely under the quilt. Closed my eyes, but didn't took glasses out. I felt too insecure for it. I had to know that if something here concerned me, I could always open my eyes and be able to see what's going on. But for now my eyes were shut. The darkness was good, safe, soothing....
I still can't sleep. I am too terrified and lost my sleeping pills on the street. Finally I drift into some chaotic, sickly nightmare, but not entirely, I can still feel the sensations in my foul, aching body. Every noise from the apartment causes me to sit on my bed with my heart beating like mad.
Again I feel that..thing wandering through my apartment and that's driving me crazy. I have an impression that the walls are moving like they breathed and it's their breath I feel on my skin. That thing is playing cat and mouse with me. It likes to scare me with its presence in my flat, likes to watch me going mad, but it hasn't attacked me yet. Waits. For what? Why isn't attacking yet? I'm so hopeless and weakened now after all. I'm handed on a plate for it. What is this fucking thing waiting for?...It likes to see me suffering....
My head explodes with excruciating pain tearing me apart again and again, I feel sick and cold. I can feel it coming, today the game will be over, it'll smash me up. I feel it standing over my bed and I can't move, my body refuses to obey me, is it death? I am helpless I can't do anything and they're standing over me, they're grabbing my arms and tugging me, please, no, I want to beg them to leave me, I'm already beaten up and aching I'll probably die anyway, but I can't make any sound out of me, I can't do anything, Jesus, no, I am afraid because I know what's gonna happen next, they're gonna beat me just like they've beaten me the first time, every memory from that day now's standing before my eyes so vivid like it was happening again now, I remember how they've pushed me to the rest-room, whole swarm of them, like the ones who followed me recently, how they took my glasses away so I couldn't see almost anything, how my knees buckled, one of them pushed me and I hit my head over washstand. Why I haven't died yet? Why am I not dying? It would be better If I were already dead and didn't have to live through this again and again. Please, let me die. Somebody pushes me, I lose the balance and scream....
I wake and sit on my bed. No. I won't be putting up with this any longer. I can't live in constant fear, unable to feel safe both in my own apartment and outside of it. I can't take this any longer. I just can't. I prefer to die this night than be still a toy for this thing and scapegoat of every person from the outside.
I get out from the bed and run to the middle of the room.
- Go on! - I yell – Come here and dispatch me! I'm here, I'm defenseless! I can't take it any longer! Kill me already, please, just please, don't toy with me anymore!!! Just give me peace! Give me...
I felt this breeze again, this time stronger than usually. My knees buckled and I fell on the floor. All I wanted then was just the end of pain, end of torment, end of fear, end of it all.
And then I heard His voice for the first time.
"I DON'T WANT TO HARM YOU"
And then I passed out.