It All Started With Corn

My name is Ryan, I was a 30 something year old failure of a man who was hardly holding himself together a couple of years before I am writing this. I lived in a mess, the shitty little apartment with a bedroom, what you could call a living room, and a bathroom the size of an airplane one I inhabited didn’t have a clear floor in years, I barely worked enough to live, I would regularly spend my free time drunk, and I hadn’t eaten a vegetable in about three years. Which made the next part especially weird.

One morning I woke up and took my weekly shit and saw something strange in my toilet, corn. I thought it was strange, because as previously listed, I hadn’t eaten a vegetable in years let alone corn. I chalked it up as something I did while drunk, maybe I just craved corn for some reason and decided to get some instead of going after my typical junk food. I moved on from that event but I kept having corn in my stool.

The next week there was corn in my stool, then a few days later corn again. It eventually got to a point where every couple of days I was having corn in my stool and I was completely lost as to where it was coming from. After two months of constant corn I eventually noticed something even stranger, I could see the floor of my room for the first time since I had moved in years ago. I must have started cleaning my room when I was drunk, there was still trash everywhere but far less than there used to be.

I guess I didn’t question any of it because it wasn’t a bad thing, I actually liked not having to trudge my way through heaps of fast food wrappers and boxes of old junk food and I wasn’t going to complain if drunk me wanted to renovate a little bit, but after that it got weirder. I would wake up after I went to sleep and my head wouldn’t be burning from a hangover, I would notice myself having more bowel movements than I used to, my clothes were cleaned and folded despite the fact that would have taken hours for drunk me to do, my room was mopped for God’s sake and yet I stilled didn’t question it at that point despite the fact I didn’t own a mop let alone have any intentions of borrowing one. Despite all of that I still didn’t question it until I came home one day and saw that my bed was made.

I couldn’t have done it because I never made my bed, drunk me couldn’t have done it because he wasn’t there, which only meant that somebody else was doing it. My first thought wasn’t that somebody was breaking in but rather that maybe my landlord was doing it, or maybe a concerned neighbor, but then I remembered somebody.

I had an old friend from high school message me online about a month before all of this happened, he wanted to say hi to me and catch up. I wasn’t exactly willing to, but he was probably the best man I ever knew and I would feel bad leaving him on read. He was one of the few people who ever spoke to me and tried to befriend me, I kept to myself mostly but he’d still try to talk to me despite my lack of interesting conversation. I told him that if he wanted to hang out he could come over in front of my apartment and we could talk for a bit, but he actually took it a step further and came inside and talked to my landlord who happened to be there at the time. Of course he told him where my apartment was because he had no sense of people’s safety and the thought that this person might be coming in to murder me or something, so needless to say my old high school “friend” knocked on my front door and saw my horrid apartment.

“Oh,” he said to me, taken aback from the sight and smell of my living conditions “How uh how have you been man?” He managed to stammer through after coming to terms with his shock. “I uh am fine,” I replied in embarrassment and shame “do you want to go outside?” We ended up not going back into my apartment, instead we went to the front of the complex and talked for a while, he asked me what I’ve been up to which I replied with a simple “Not much.” He seemed to accept that answer without prying much further. I asked him how he had been and his life had been great, talking about how he had just gotten married, his job, his house, his lifestyle that was far better than mine.

I don’t want to say I was seething with jealousy but I was definitely made more aware about how terrible my life was compared to his and probably everyone else’s. I always knew that my life was awful and that I needed to change but I just never found the motivation to start. Once the garbage piled I just let it continue to pile because it had been too difficult to clean up. He eventually told me straight up, “Dude, you live in a mess.” I was taken aback by the blatant statement, but he continued, “You can’t keep living like that, it’s going to kill you.” I don’t remember what I said but I think I made a remark about how it’s easier said than done and some other stuff but despite the fact I was probably an asshole about it, he simply offered me some help, “Look man, if you ever need it, I can help you clean up your apartment and maybe the rest of your life, just call me and I’ll be happy to help.” I was shocked at this point, “I have to go now, but if you need help please don’t hesitate to ask.” I never did call him back, but since that has been happening I figured maybe I should.

Before I called him I had to even practice what to say, I realized how ridiculous it sounded to ask a friend if he was breaking into my apartment every day to slowly clean up my shit hole of an apartment while I was either drunk, sleeping, or at work, but I figured my land lord would be the type of guy to give him a spare key or something to help him get in, and he also knew I didn’t have anything worth robbing. I finally called him and just asked him if he’d like to come by my apartment someday to which he said he’d come by but that it would be in a couple of months.

I decided to set up some cameras in my house to see if I could catch anyone breaking in when I went to bed. I realized how ridiculous the idea that it could be my friend doing it was and decided to see if maybe there was a squatter in my apartment or something who was taking care of me for some reason. When I checked the cameras the next day I was terrified.

This long, spindly creature came out of a shadow in the corner. It moved around the ceilings like a spider and walked across the floor sideways like a crab. It looked emaciated, with what looked like a five foot tall torso with ribs poking out at the very top, they looked like the could rip through at any second, it had a narrow head, that was a dome, with dents where the eyes should be but simply with smooth skin over them. It reminded me of that squid at the bottom of the ocean with 20 foot long arms, the way they both weren’t meant to be seen by the human eye but were both discovered in darkness. The disproportionately long arms, of which I’m sure there were at least eight but more seemed to appear and disappear at random, started scooping up trash, taking it outside, and then coming back in. It did that for a couple of hours before coming back inside with a container of something and a large glass of what I assume was water making its way to where I was drunkenly sleeping, it slowly reached an arm out to me, which bent at strange angles I barely understood how it could possibly do without snapping, and pulled the covers over my body, leaving only my head exposed. It proceeded to pour the water down my throat and fed me several different types of food from the container, including strawberries, spinach, cucumber, and of course, corn, before it went back to a corner in my room, where it disappeared.

Now I know what you’re thinking now, I should have packed my bags then and there and never looked back. I know logically that was the correct choice, but I want you to look at it from my point of view. I was living a life that was the pinnacle of misery, I went to bed in a small apartment with nobody who cared for me, surrounded by filth, to a completely clean apartment and a decent diet. At this point I had started taking care of myself too, I was bathing more regularly, not drinking as much, and even started cleaning up messes myself too. This was a good thing was truly improving my life even if I didn’t completely understand it, the creature even managed to get me a job interview for a place that paid way more, I have no idea how it sent the email, but it was further proof to me that it wanted to improve my life.

My life was on the up and up. I got the job the creature landed me an interview for, I was more social, I was happier and healthier, I even started talking to a girl. If you were truly where I was at during this time period, you would’ve been happy about all of this too, despite the obvious strangeness of it all. It had become such a state for normalcy for me that at some point I sort of forgot about its existence, I stopped checking the cameras after a while because I knew what I would have seen and honestly, I didn’t care how my life was being improved, I was just happy to not be miserable for a change.

At this point I had completely forgotten about my friend coming over. When I heard a knock at my door, I was taken completely off guard by the sight of my old friend, who had a cleaning caddy with multiple sponges, four different types of cleaning spray for different surfaces, two cleaning brushes, two cans of Febreze, and a few other items. He was in shock at the sight of my apartment, which was completely spotless at this point, and almost dropped the caddy full of supplies before catching himself.

We ended up talking for hours, among the many things we talked about I told him about my new job, the girl I had been seeing, and my complete turn around, in turn he told me about his wife and wha he did for work. He told me he moved around a lot for work and happened to be staying in the city where I lived last time I saw him and happened to see me online and figured he’d pop in to see how I was doing at the time. He explained to me that when saw my living conditions he knew he couldn’t just leave an old friend like that. When we finally finished talking, we hadn’t realized how late it was.

He told me he practically lived across the state and that it would be at least a five hour drive. I invited him to stay the night instead, to which he obliged and said he simply needed to call his wife to tell her he’d be back the next day and would leave first thing in the morning. When he returned I offered him my bed to which he refused, I insisted that he should take the bed and I would sleep on the old futon that I’m pretty sure came with the place. After I insisted I’d be a terrible guest if I didn’t allow him to sleep in a comfortable bed he finally relented.

When I woke up the next morning to my friend gone I didn’t question it, when he didn’t answer my text saying I enjoyed having him over I figured he was a busy man and probably didn’t have time to respond, when the police came to my door I was more concerned.

“Ryan Miller?” The officer asked, with a mixture of concern and accusation in his voice. “Y-yes,” I responded nervously “That’s me.” The man gave the inside of my apartment a look, “May I come in?” He asked, “You’re not in trouble, we just need to speak with you.” After I let the officer in he explained everything, my friend had gone missing after he spent the night at my house. They said they knew I had nothing to do with his disappearance since they found his car hours away from my location, but still wanted to know if I knew anything about it since I was the last person to see him. I asked the officer what happened, to which he responded “We found his car parked on the side of the road about three hours away from here, but he wasn’t inside of it, after his wife reported him missing we figured maybe you knew anything about why he disappeared since you were the last person to see him,” He continued “did he complain about anything? Did he bring up being unhappy about work or something like that?” I thought about it for a hard minute, during the hours we spent talking he never seemed upset with his life, he had annoyances here and there sure but it’s not like he suspected his wife was cheating on him or he thought his job was dead end. He had the same thoughts most people had about life, it was annoying but at the end of day we’re glad we’re here. “No, nothing,” I finally said “He didn’t have any complaints that would’ve warranted him just disappearing.” After a while the officer left and I remained, worried and confused.

It took me three whole hours of worrying about what happened to my friend before I realized the cameras were still recording. I brought the footage back up from the night prior and watched the entire thing until I saw the creature pop out from the shadows, except it ignored me and headed straight for the bedroom. It moved too quickly for a creature of such proportions and fragility. When it made it to the bedroom it simply stared, except it looked almost hungry, there was a strange saliva that seemed to come out of what I can only assume is it’s mouth, and it simply stared there for hours until my friend, as promised, left first thing in the morning. I watched the creature lunge into the shadows right before my friend’s alarm went off and watched as my friend snuck by me out of the door to try not to wake me up. I watched in horror as the creature left outside of the window, which was on the same side of the building as my friend’s car was parked.

I don’t know if the creature killer my friend or ate him or what. But the moment I saw that I realized it was not safe to live there anymore. I realize now I should have known that the moment I saw a demon in my living room picking up trash, but I figured I made the choice right in time. I didn’t just leave the apartment complex, I moved states, I live on the opposite side of the country, I didn’t even fully pack all of my stuff before I left. I took what I picked fit into one briefcase that was either somewhat valuable or would be annoying to replace and left as fast as I could. I never gave the police that information, because I knew it would be insane and nobody would believe me, so I simply got as far away from that thing as possible.

Now it’s years later, I found a good job where I’m at right now, I live in an even nicer apartment too, the girl I was talking to didn’t seem to understand what I was doing, which which was also extremely difficult to explain, so we naturally stopped seeing each other, other than that my life is great. I kept some of the good habits too, I clean up after my messes, I stopped drinking, I make sure no garbage ends up on my floors, I eat better, I even started going for daily walks to help me be healthier.

All was going great, except for one day, where I had slept in and was going to be late for work. I rushed out the door as fast as I could, cutting as many corners in my daily routine as possible, which of course meant I couldn’t have made my bed, but when I came home that day, exhausted after a long day of work, I saw something that made my heart drop to my stomach. My bed was made.