The Thirteenth Crab

  I closed my eyes and thought about the dream I had few months back. It was so bizarre, but I didn’t understand what the significance of thirteen was. When I woke up there was a faint outline of a crab covering the wall. I was sure it was a trick of light and my groggyness, but after I washed my face and looked at the wall, the outline was replaced with an actual crab staring at me. I tried to kill it, I really did try to get rid of it, but failed. The next day there were two of them.

Since the only thing they were doing was follow me around with their gaze I just let them be. Over the weeks their numbers grew, and for the last three weeks, it has been stuck at twelve. I would often see their mouth move in unison as if they were trying to tell me something important. I just couldn’t hear them. Also, there had been no pattern to make sense of their appearance, but I dreaded every night, what the thirteenth crab would bring.

One evening while I was watching the television, the room suddenly darkened. A cold draft swept through the room, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I felt a presence, an overwhelming sense of dread. Then, I saw it. Not on the wall, but hovering on my right side - in front of the window, a translucent, almost ethereal crab. Unlike the others, it was different, it appeared more menacing. Its shell seemed to shimmer, and its eyes held an intelligence that chilled me to the bone.

As it descended towards me, I felt a paralyzing fear. The twelve on the wall seemed to cheer, their silent mouths moving in unison. I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. The crab was almost upon me, when a blinding light filled the room. I squeezed my eyes shut, expecting the worst. When I dared to open them, the room was empty. No crabs, no darkness. Just the usual, mundane surroundings. But something was different. I felt… changed. Stronger, perhaps. And a strange sense of calm washed over me. I looked at the wall, expecting to see the familiar twelve, but there was nothing. Just a blank, white wall.

Had it all been a hallucination, a fever dream? Or was it the beginning of something more? I didn’t know. But as I stood there, a chill ran down my spine. Days turned into weeks, and the absence of the crabs brought an eerie calm. I did know one thing for sure: the night I experienced the thirteenth crab, the world around me changed, ever so gently.

Strange things began to happen. Objects moved on their own, whispers echoed in empty rooms, and shadows danced in grotesque shapes. The world outside my apartment started to mirror my internal turmoil. News reports of unusual occurrences spiked, and a collective unease gripped the city. Then, one night, I woke to a different kind of silence. The apartment was still, too still. I crept out of bed and slowly approached the wall. It was blank. No crabs, no outlines, nothing. Relief washed over me, but it was short-lived. A cold dread settled in its place. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

A noise from the living room froze me in place. It was a soft clicking, like tiny claws tapping against a hard surface. My heart pounded in my ears as I cautiously made my way towards the sound. The living room was bathed in an unnatural blue light, and in the center of the room, a colossal, shimmering crab form was taking shape. It was as if the twelve had merged into one, a distorted, pulsating entity. Its eyes, a thousand glowing orbs, locked onto me. A cold, inhuman voice echoed in my mind, a cacophony of whispers. “We are the watchers. We are the end.” Terror consumed me as the creature began to move towards me. There was no escape.

This was it.

The end.

The creature was upon me. Its form rippled and shifted, a mangled amalgamation of chitin and shadow. Its eyes, seemed to bore into my soul. I screamed, a sound lost in the cacophony of my own terror. As its claws reached for me, the world seemed to slow down. I saw the grotesque details of its form - spindly legs ending in razor-sharp points, a gaping maw filled with rows of serrated teeth. The blue light intensified, casting monstrous shadows that danced and writhed on the walls.

The last thing I saw were those eyes, cold and indifferent, as the world dissolved into a maelstrom of pain and darkness.

Or perhaps, there was still a sliver of hope?

There was no pain, no sensation. Just a void. A blackness that consumed everything. Then, a whisper, a cold, echoing whisper that was not sound but a sensation. It was a voice of countless voices, a chorus of despair and triumph. “You are ours now,” it said… or perhaps it was a thought, a malignant seed planted in the barren soil of its mind.

There was no me anymore. Only it. A consciousness expanding, consuming, reaching out tendrils into a reality it was reshaping. The world outside my apartment became irrelevant, a pale imitation of the cosmic horror that was blooming within. The city, once a bustling metropolis, was now a canvas for its creation. Buildings twisted and contorted, glass and steel melting like wax under an invisible heat. People screamed, fled, or simply ceased to be. It was a symphony of destruction, a ballet of chaos choreographed by a madness beyond comprehension.

And at the heart of it all, a being was born, a cosmic abomination that was part man, part crab, and something far, far worse. A being that was the end of everything, and the beginning of something infinitely more terrifying.