The Evil Within

Life is a story.

People think dreams are stories.

They seem like stories, but they're not.

Misguided, no shape, no form.

No reason.

Like rummaging through unmarked boxes

in a long-forgotten storage shed.

You'll think it was a story,

but try telling a friend of yours what happened

in your dream the next day.

Only then will you finally realize, "wait a minute,

that wasn't a story at all."

Not all my dreams were like this.

Some of them really were stories.

Some of them were like this.

Mom takes me to an amusement park.

It's deserted...

dusty...

lifeless.

Even the barkers pitching unwinnable games

for kewpie doll prizes do so with all the joie de vivre of a cancer patient.

But I'm ecstatic.

No crowds means no lines.

And there it is,the snowcapped summit

in the topography of juvenile taste.

The wonderful haunted house ride.

Its façade promised more than papier mâché monsters

wrapped in derelict-resistant chicken wire.

Mom, we gotta go.

We gotta go on the haunted house ride.

Are you sure?

It says right on the marquee,

it's the scariest one in the world.

Of course, I'm sure.

We have to, have to, have to.

Are you sure you wanna go?

The sign ain't lying.

I'm ready.

Are you sure you're ready?

And the car lurched forward clumsily

and crashed through the doors,

which snapped back.

And into the darkness.

Into the darkness.

Whisking along through the darkness,

and, crash, out the other side.

No pneumatic hiss pop ups,

no shrill startle bells, nothing,

not even the faintest attempt.

A con game.

What a rip-off. We should get our money back.

Mom, we got ripped off by the idiots who live here.

You're not gonna do anything about this?

Mom?

We should get our money back.

She turned to me very slowly and said,

"What makes you think the ride's over?

What makes you think it's ever gonna end?"

That was the first of these experiences I had.

I'm still reluctant to call them dreams.

I had that one when I was four.

Let me show you the one I had last night.

I can't sleep.

It's this house.

I hate this house. It won't let me sleep.

Oh, my god, I am asleep,

and dreaming about being right here in my bedroom,

trying to fall asleep.

I had to open my eyes, but I couldn't.

I could only open the little dream eyes inside my head,

because I felt the fear.

I felt the dread, pending, closing, all around me.

Only one kind of dream tries to hide itself.

The door is open.

He's already here.

You can't run in a nightmare,

not with atrophied muscles over tungsten bones,

not through the gelatinous atmosphere,

not from him.

I watched my hand draw a row of faces on my whiteboard,

and despite the childish artwork,

I could instantly recognize each,

Family, friends...

I left the room, then blackness.

The next time my senses returned to me,

I was not before my whiteboard,

I was in a basement, standing before a mirror,

surrounded by the mise-en-scène of nightmares.

I was in his world now, not my own.

And I can't wake up.

I can't wake up.

Oh, my god, I am awake.

Awake in the very location where my nightmare ended.

This was real.

How much nightmare would prove to be real?

Did I sleepwalk here?

How could I have pulled so sadistic a trick on myself?

Especially as I didn't know where "here" was.

I know this place.

This is my home.

I was just in a room that doesn't exist in my own house.

First, relief,

then a sobering realization.

As I had fallen asleep where my dream began

and woke up where it ended, I could never know for sure

what was a dream and what wasn't.

Here I am now, in a much warmer place,

in a much brighter place,

enjoying a picnic with my brother and his girlfriend.

You're gonna have to get used to the way I speak out loud,

my inner voice is considerably more sophisticated.

John, this chicken was good,

but we didn't bring any ice cream.

I'm sorry I didn't bring any ice cream on a picnic, Dennis,

but, uh, well, we have cupcakes.

No, I don't want cupcakes. All I want is ice cream.

We have ice cream at home.

Well, I like the kind at the store.

We have that kind at home.

Well, it's better at the store.

It's exactly the same.

You just wanna see that girl. What is her name?

Susan, I think.

Yeah, she's cute.

I think someone has a crush.

No way, all I want is ice cream.

I don't know any girl. What girl?

- Hey, guys. - Hi.

It's nice to see you.

Of course, it's nice to see me.

I'm outlandishly hot.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough?

You know my flavor.

Of course I do, you're my favorite customer.

I got ya.

- You ready for this? - Uh-huh.

You ready, Dennis?

Surprise, Dennis.

M-m-mirror.

I think it'd look good on the wall there, between the windows.

- Yeah. - W-where am I supposed to put my Habitrails?

Where did you put all of my stuff?

Where's all of it going?

It's mostly still in here, Dennis.

No, no, that smelly old box is where my robots used to be,

and that scary statue is where I kept my comics.

Well, I had to put one or two things down in the storage room, Dennis.

You wanna move my Habitrail into the storage room?

- Well, Dennis... - Anyway, I d-don't like this mirror.

And I don't want it in this room.

Dennis, look at the shape of this frame,

compared to the shape of the window.

It's the same kind of wood stained with the same kind of stain.

It matches the character of the house perfectly.

It even matches the motif of the furniture

that you and I chose ourselves.

Use all the big words you want,

you kn-know I won't be able to argue with all of your big words.

- I've seen this mirror before. - Well, I doubt that.

- No, I have seen it. - It's unlikely, Dennis.

It wasn't just locked up in a vault.

If you surprised us all and proved yourself a safecracker,

you still wouldn't have found it.

- I know that. - Well, there's a vault within a vault.

Did you know that? A prohibition vault.

A place where back in the day of Prohibition,

when booze was illegal, people used to hide their booze.

I don't think anyone has been in that room,

since the original owners, because what I found

in that room is worth enough to pay this mortgage for a year.

Well, I've been down in there and I saw the stuff.

I saw the mirror and I hated it even then.

Really? Really, Dennis, Dennis when was this?

- I hated it when I saw it. - When was this?

Last night.

The mirror wasn't even in the house last night

it was in town getting restored for you.

No, it's not for me. You just want to get rid of my hamsters.

Dennis, your hamsters really smell bad.

Now, the mirror really looks good.

Put the mirror in your room.

It's just one week, that's all I'm asking.

Just... just see if the mirror grows on you.

N-no, it's n-not going to grow on me.

Because I don't like anything you put in here.

This isn't my room anymore, it's your room.

But this is the worst thing,

because the chair, I just don't like it.

But the mirror I hate.

And I'm gonna break the mirror right now.

- Hey, hey. - John!

Dennis, calm down.

I'm sorry, Dennis.

I'm sorry.

All right, Dennis, just look, you know, a couple of days.

Just a couple of days is not too much to ask, all right?

And you can keep your hamsters.

A couple of days, you're going to love the mirror.

You're going to love that mirror.

You can't tell me what I like or don't like.