Beyond the veil

It’s been 3 months since my cousin died.

He lived a normal life, he was a grocer, he had a girlfriend, a dog, his own flat; everything every 21 year old aspires to. He never drank, or took drugs… He had a clean record. But for some reason, out of nowhere… He killed someone.

We were cleaning out his flat, all his belongings, everything. The police had been through to find anything that could link to just why he went so insane as he did, but they never did find anything…

But I found something. I had been going through the belongings under this bed when I found an old, brown tattered journal. The leather binding resembled that of a man who had been in the sun far, far too long, and its pages were just starting to yellow.

I had seen him with this before… Back when we stayed at our grandmothers around the time we were six or seven… He would take it everywhere with him. I started to wonder if he still wrote in it, whether there were things in there that might explain just why he caused all this trouble for himself.

I flicked ravenously through the pages, hungry for an answer. Then, my eyes fell upon a certain paragraph…

“October 2^nd, 2014:

This is the first night I’m spending away from home. It’s a little strange without Mum and Dad, but at least I have my flat-mates, right?

 I keep hearing whispering, and I swear I see things moving in the dark. Then again, I might be seeing things. It’ll probably go away, I hope.”

I bit the inside of my cheek and frowned. He was always such a nervous person… I felt a pang of guilt slap me in the face; I should have called him that night. I shook my head and continued to read…

“October 5^th, 2014:

It’s been three days… The whispering I’ve been hearing? Yeah, they’re not full blown voices. They keep repeating ‘Beyond the Veil’ ‘Come Beyond the Veil’ and ‘Please’… I’m going to see a psychiatrist in the morning.”

This was starting to get strange; the police did say he mentioned something about ‘The Veil’ when they interviewed him, just before he got sent into Bedlam; an insane asylum, in which he committed suicide a week later after being admitted.

The next date was a jumbled mess, and everything was written in some sort of strange language, like a mix between English and Arabic… I suddenly got a feeling of dread, like the floor was going to collapse. I put the book down and caught my breath before reading again.

The next few paragraphs were like the last, but a few words were visible.

 ‘Help me’, ‘Please’ and ‘Please save me.’ It was unsettling, but things started to thin out on the next page, with an entry saying this…

“October 8^th, 2014:

It’s done. I displayed how to transcend beyond The Veil… The public aren’t happy. They’re coming for me… The Veil will protect me. The voices said it would.”

I put the book down and shuddered, tears clawing at my dry eyes. I looked out the window and realised it was now dusk which seemed to have been dropped upon the city landscape outside like a 10 tonne weight.

I sat on his bed and rubbed my eyes, I figured I should go and see how Mum and my Aunt were getting on with clearing out the lounge. I was about to get up from the bed when a hand fell upon my shoulder…

I froze. I felt a wet hot breath behind my ear… I smelt something familiar; A smell similar to that of soap and almonds… I only knew one person that smelt like that- and that was my dead cousin.

A cold hard object was pressed upon my neck… A blade, just barely cutting through my fragile skin, like a man holding a hammer and nail to fine china…

“Hello… Cousin” A male voice mused. I started to scream and thrash my weight around, the blade was now pressing even harder against my neck, just breaking the skin, causing small droplets of salty, hot blood to dribble down my cold neck. I writhed against him, using all the energy in my tired body to try and get away.

“I’m lonely… Why don’t you come visit me? ... In fact, why not come live with me? Come with me… Beyond The Veil.”