Genres: Black humor, Psychology.
It was nighttime, I was returning home from work as usual, tired as a hungry guard dog that had been forgotten to be fed by its owners, which is why the starry sky above my head did not delight me but annoyed me terribly, and those stars, like camera flashes, were filming my entire worthless life so that later some fat pig could sit on a luxurious sofa in front of the TV and cheer himself up, mocking my failures or hypocritically empathizing with me.
When I got to my floor, I was greeted, as usual, by my extremely attractive neighbor, the same one with whom I once spent a wonderful night, which resulted in an unexpected gift nine months later, right on my birthday, in the form of the continuation of my family line. Why did I do it? Well, I was an inexperienced fool and succumbed to her feminine charms and her promise that if she got pregnant, she would take full responsibility for raising the child, and I could continue to live my life as if nothing had happened. But of course, luck decided to spit in my face.
“Hello, darling.” She said, standing in a predatory pose with her arms crossed under her ample bosom.
“Y-yeah,” I replied wearily, like a corpse recently returned to life, having escaped from a cheap wooden coffin that his relatives had somehow managed to save up enough money for.
“Would you like to see our baby sleeping? He's so cute, you should see him...”
Not knowing what to say, I smiled and decided to walk past her as if I had seen her for the first time, but luck betrayed me a second time, striking me in the back.
Hugged me from behind with a deadly grip, she said with a hint of irritation, “Did you really think you could just have fun with me like a rooster with a hen and walk away like nothing happened? Have you forgotten the promise you made to me when you were in my arms more than a year ago?”
I'll do anything for you, Jessica... Oh, crap.
“Bad males must be punished...” she whispered in my ear in a sweet voice, then with incredible ease dragged me into her apartment and threw on the floor like a sack of potatoes, after that she locked the door, licked her lips greedily, and pounced on me like a rabid animal.
Next... I'll skip what she did, because it would be difficult to describe these atrocities without spending hundreds of words on it, and move straight on to the moment when I saw my little copy. My son, although it would be better to call him a bastard, had eyes that shone in the moonlight, scarlet red like the moon's bloody sister, just like his mother's. He also had shiny dark hair like a noble aristocrat and a stupid lightning bolt-shaped mark on his eye, which he inherited from me. I got that mark when once decided to fight an old man in a bar for a free mug of beer... I have no idea how this disgrace was passed on to this boy.
“Look, this is our legacy... Isn't him beautiful?”
Using all the strength I had left, I somehow managed to answer, “Yes.” Then, a moment later, my body collapsed to the floor like a mannequin, and I woke up in the real world, lying in a tent under the neon sign of an entertainment store, which flashed mockingly as if threatening to go out forever at any moment, as did all the lights in the area.
Yes, this whole story is just another strange dream that I subconsciously desired. I don't remember exactly when, but these extremely realistic dreams began when I lost my job and ended up on the street, and they appear because of a free drug that is forcibly injected into the unemployed by small, completely silent drones no bigger than a fly or mosquito, black in color if I remember correctly.
I'm not dying of exhaustion, although I can't remember if I've eaten or drunk anything recently. It's quite possible that these little flying creatures are somehow keeping me alive. Oh, how sweet of them... And yet I can't understand why they don't just dispose of me like the rest of the unemployed, as if I were some kind of trash. According to my theory, poor souls like me are disposed of by being transported in vans with the logo of a well-known corporation to an unknown destination, where they are then processed into fertilizer.
And so every time I wake up, the same thoughts arise in my head: why is this happening to me, why am I still alive, what is the meaning of all this, why, why, why do I even exist... And when I start to remember my past, the important moments of my life, tears start to flow from my dirty eyes, I feel a longing for those wonderful times of freedom, when this world was not yet so ugly and rotten to its core, a cyberpunk world where it is almost impossible to distinguish reality from simulation... As a result, I decide to end it all and immerse myself in the eternal black screen, finding true salvation, but every time I am close to achieving my goal, one of these little freaks puts me to sleep again and again.
I hope this horror will end someday.
Note from the author: I don't know if you've read this, but the text may seem strange since I'm not a native English speaker.