I’m writing this letter as an explanation for what I’m about to do. I’ve made some incredibly stupid decisions, and looking back on it all, I can’t believe how dumb I’ve been. But what’s done is done, I guess.

It started when I was in college, while I was dating Tony. I was so naïve and foolish, and he was so rich and handsome (I know, I’m shallow). He was a boisterous party boy, and I was a shy girl on the dean’s list. I fell for him. Nobody has ever been more infatuated with anyone than I was with him, and nobody has ever been more disillusioned with anyone than I was with him by the time we were finished.

We started dating senior year, and it got really serious way too fast. I was doing everything with him, just trying, hoping, that he would begin to feel the same feelings for me that I felt for him. We were at a party one night, and everyone was high but me. I had always said no in the past, but that night, when they asked me if I wanted to do a row, something was different. I guess I was really drunk, I mean, I don’t really remember that night very well, but I said sure, I’ll take some of that. I mean, it was college. That time is supposedly the time that everyone says it’s ok to try things that are normally considered bad by society, so I did a row of cocaine. It was absolutely exhilarating, and it was all downhill from there.

In high school, some cop came and talked to us about how awful drugs were. He briefly mentioned some illegal recreational drugs, but the one thing he really wouldn’t shut up about was marijuana. He kept saying that marijuana was the gateway drug, and if you just away from it, statistically speaking, you shouldn’t have any problems.

That’s complete bullshit.

I’ve never done marijuana in my life, but I’ve done most of the stuff that doing marijuana supposedly leads to. I met all of Tony’s dealers, and I began to do everything Tony did: cocaine, XTC, acid, and a lot of prescription drugs. After a couple of months of this behavior, things started to get weird.

At first, I just began to notice this weird looking guy who seemed to be following me everywhere. He was short, like a midget, and he was an albino. He always wore the same black suit with one of those old fashioned bowler hats. I never saw him walk, but he was definitely following me. I’d walk down the street for a while, I’d turn around, and he’d still be standing the same distance from me. It was like he could follow me without walking. I think that’s how I knew that I was hallucinating, and that it must be the drugs causing me to see this guy. But knowing that this man was just a hallucination didn’t make it any less creepy.

Everything took a turn for the worse when graduation came. Tony broke it off with me, and he went back home to work for his dad. I was broken and alone, so I began trying different drugs to try to cope with the pain.

The day after Tony left was the day that I tried heroin. I went to one of Tony’s dealers and just asked for the strongest stuff that he had. I gave him money, and he gave me what I needed. I went home and shot up.

The next day I went to work, three hours late. When I got there, they fired me. I don’t know why I expected anything different.

That was when shit really started to get crazy. After I got fired, I was walking home from work, and I saw that damn midget. He was staring at me from across the street, as usual, when something really freaky started happening. He looked at me, smiled, opened his mouth, and a black cloud started forming in front of his mouth. After a few minutes of watching this amorphous cloud form in front of his face, I realized that the black cloud forming was a swam of bugs. There were all kinds: wasps, hornets, bumble bees, flies, just… everything. I didn’t believe my eyes. I figured that I was still coming down off of the heroin, because no one else saw what I was seeing. No one else saw this plague level swarm of bugs coming out of an albino midget’s mouth. There was no way that it was real, right?

That was my thought process, until the midget looked me directly in the eye. His eyes were awful. The parts of his eyes that were supposed to be white were black, and his irises were red. When he looked into my eyes, I felt like I had been marked by him. With his mouth already wide open, he smiled this inhumanly large grin, and then he pointed at me.

By that point, the swarm had reached the size of a city bus. When he pointed at me, they all stopped swarming aimlessly. They all turned towards me, and then they began flying straight for me.

That’s when I ran. I didn’t care if what I saw was real or not. I wasn’t going to take the chance. I must’ve run for an entire mile at a full sprint. The whole time I was running, I kept looking over my shoulder to see if they were following me. They were. They weren’t just following me either; it really seemed like they were pursuing me, as if chasing me down and devouring me was the sole purpose of their existence.

I’ve never ran so hard in my life. I lost my purse and my shoes in the process. I just remember running like hell, and somehow, I reached the inside of my apartment. I locked my door and fell to my knees, but my nightmarish experience wasn’t quite over.

After I’d been in the apartment for a few seconds, I could hear them buzzing relentlessly outside my door. I could hear their little bodies pounding against my door, angrily trying to reach me, but after a few minutes, to my relief, they gave up.

I went to my bedroom, locked the door, and I didn’t come out again until that night, when I decided that I needed some more heroin.

I didn’t leave my apartment for three days. I was way too scared to go anywhere, so I just slept and shot up. During those three days, I had the worst, most vivid dreams that I’ve ever had.

In those days, I’d dream it was just a normal day in my ideal world. I still had a job, and my life wasn’t a complete disaster. In those dreams, the days were always beautiful, and I was always completely satisfied with myself and my life. But whenever I’d come to that realization, that feeling of contentment, that’s when everything would really turn to complete shit.

I’d be walking to work, completely happy, and then I’d see that fucking albino midget. He’d be standing on a manhole in the middle of the street, and, as usual, he’d be staring at me with that damn grin of his.

Underneath him, the manhole cover would begin to shake. I’d always think: please, don’t move, but of course, he always would. As soon as he moved, creatures would explode out of the manhole. The creatures were all like rabid dogs, but they were all people. They were naked male and female human beings. Their forearms and lower legs were hacked off, and their eyes were all gouged out. They were scouring the streets on all fours, attacking people, jumping on them like rabid attack dogs, biting and gnawing at them until the people were maimed or dead. It was as if the midget was a lion tamer, and he had just ordered his blood thirsty lions to devour the whole city.

I would just stand there, watching these hideous, unnatural creatures devour everything that stood before them, and I was helpless to stop them. They never touched me. They left me alone. As they were doing this, the midget would slowly walk towards me. As he would get close, a cloud of bugs would steadily grow larger around him. When he reached me, the bugs would begin to form a sort of stool for him to stand on. He would stand on the stool-his face less than a foot away from mine-look me directly in the eyes, and then he would touch my forehead.

That is when I would wake up.

I hated sleeping. After a few days of having the same dream, I decided that I didn’t want to sleep anymore, so I got my hands on some meth.

It worked. I got what I wanted. I didn’t get any sleep for four days. I didn’t leave my apartment, either. I didn’t leave until I decided that I needed to eat again. When I left my apartment building, I saw the midget standing across the street, as still as a statue. It startled me a little, but I ignored him. The last thing that I wanted to do was make eye contact with him again.

I walked to the end of the street, and then I turned to see if he was still there. He wasn’t. I turned back around and stepped off of the curb, and that was when I saw him, again. He was right across the street from me, and he was staring straight at me, grinning.

I wasn’t going to play that game again. I turned left and was just about to run down the street, but when I turned, he was standing right in front of me.

I froze. He’d never been that close to me before, at least never when I was awake. He locked eyes with me, and his eyes mesmerized me. I couldn’t move. Even when I noticed his skin start to crawl, I wouldn’t move. Even when I saw his body begin to turn into thousands of insects, I wouldn’t move. When those insects began to swarm around me, I still wouldn’t move. When those insects began to invade every orifice of my body, crawling around under my skin, I still didn’t move.

I forgot all about food and stumbled home. I was in serious pain. It really felt like I had hundreds of bugs crawling around underneath my skin, and they were chewing on all of my muscles, tendons, and ligaments. I couldn’t do anything without scratching. I would just sit and pick at my skin for hours.

At some point, I finally thought enough was enough. I was sick of not being able to sleep. I was sick of having all these vivid, life like hallucinations. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get help.

There was a really huge church just a few blocks from my apartment. I figured churches help people, so they’d probably be able to help me, right? One day, when I finally mustered up enough courage, I opened the door to my apartment, and I made a mad dash towards the church. I didn’t look around; I just kept my head in the direction that I was going. I didn’t want to know if the midget was there or not.

When I made it to the church, I threw open the door and ran straight inside. It was on a Thursday, so the only people that were there were full-time workers. I found the pastor’s office and asked him for help. His name was Rev. Paul Summerland, and I think he was possibly the kindest man that I’ve ever met. I told him what was happening to me, and he never looked at me like I was crazy or stupid. He looked at me with eyes full of compassion, and I could really tell that he wanted to help.

He talked to me about rehab. He said I should go immediately. I mean, at this point, I’d really only been doing all that shit for like six months. He said that it would already be really hard to quit, and I needed to go before it got any harder. I knew he was right. He told me that his church was partners with the rehab clinic at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital downtown, and that he was willing to take me there right then. I said yes.

This was a golden opportunity, and I wasn’t about to pass it up. I just knew that if I got off all of that shit, everything wrong in my life could change for the better. We got in his car, and he drove me to the rehab center. The entire way there, I looked around to see if I could find the midget. I didn’t see him at all. Things were finally looking up.

I spent 60 days in rehab at the hospital. I stayed there the whole time. It wasn’t easy, but I figured that it was definitely better than the alternative. Rev. Summerland came to see me every week. He was so encouraging. I always looked forward to his visits. Towards the end, I was worried that I might slip back into my old habits. He told me that any time I felt like I might be struggling I could call the church. He told me to pray every day and ask for God’s help. “In Hebrews 13:5, the Bible tells us that God said ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee’. “

I left the rehab clinic feeling encouraged and motivated to start over. I walked all the way home; I didn’t take the bus or a taxi. It felt good being able to walk down the street and not be scared. It felt good not feeling hundreds of bugs tearing my insides apart. I was so happy when I reached my apartment.

Then it all fell apart. I opened my door, and there he was. The little bastard was standing in the middle of the room, grinning. He seemed as if he’d been waiting for me patiently the entire time. Why was this happening? I’d been clean for 60 days! How was he still there? That was when I heard him speak for the first time. His voice was awful, shocking, and it really wasn’t what I was expecting it to be. It was just a whisper, but it was as if ten different people were speaking from the same person in unison. ”Believe on me.” He said. “As it is written, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.”

I turned to run, but when I did he was standing there again, grinning. I felt helpless, but after a couple of seconds, he disappeared. I blinked, and he was gone. Relief flooded me. I calmed down after a few minutes, and I walked into my apartment. I decided that the next day, I would go see if I could get my old job back. My old boss was a reasonable man. I thought that if I explained everything to him, he might take me back.

I was right. I explained my situation to my old boss and he gave me my old job back. It really was looking like everything would be ok, until I was almost back at my old apartment.

I saw him across the street, and this time he wasn’t grinning. He was pissed, and somehow, I knew why he was pissed. He didn’t want me getting my life back together. He didn’t say anything, but I knew that’s what he thought. He pointed to a nearby drain, and one of those awful, rabid, humanoid dog creatures passed through the drainage holes. It was female, and when it materialized next to him, he started petting it on the head in an “easy, girl” kind of way. It was like he was holding it back. It was like he was wanted me to do something, or else he was going to let his attack dog loose. Well I wasn’t going to give in. I was 60 days sober, I had a job, and a give ‘em hell attitude. I wasn’t about to bow to the wishes of some left over hallucination from my drug days.

Or so I thought.

I guess he realized that I wasn’t going to do what he said, so he decided to show off a little bit. He pointed at a man standing on the curb, texting. The creature charged the man, ran into him, and knocked him into traffic. A city bus slammed into the man and ran him over. Everything seemed to stop. This wasn’t a hallucination. This was really happening. This creature had just killed a man. The midget was laughing hysterically, but he wasn’t making any noise. The creature was wagging it’s ass like a dog after it’s done something that it knows was pleasing to its master. This is when I really started to lose all sense of hope.

Eventually I made it back to my apartment. I started having the dreams again. I called Rev. Summerland, but all the advice he could give me was pray. I prayed until my mouth got sore. The dreams still haven’t stopped. For the past month, I’ve seen him, but things are getting worse. I see him every day when I go to work, and every day he has more of those creatures with him. Their numbers are steadily increasing. I’m scared that my dreams are about to come true. I’m writing this not only as an explanation-so maybe you can understand why I’m going to do what I’m about to do, but I’m also writing this as an apology to my family. If I don’t end my life now, it’ll just keep getting worse and worse, and if my dreams are about to come true, I don’t want to be around when it happens. There’s no other way to make it stop. I just want peace. God forgive me.