Outside

Think of your daily routine for one moment. You get up in the morning and have a small meal for breakfast. You have a shower and attempt to perfect yourself in more ways. You put on your clothes, gather your belongings and head outside to work or school.

One boy can do all this. That is, except the last vital instruction in the daily routine. He wakes up, eats his morning cereal (with far too much milk), showers himself and moves on to his next task. He cannot walk outside. He simply cannot. It sounds a bit stupid to you and me but what if I were to tell you the truth is much, much more disturbing than a small agoraphobia problem.

It all started ten years ago, in 1996. The boy was having trouble sleeping; he was consistently turning over and sweating quite badly. After four hours of complete unrest, he got up out of his exhaustingly tight bed to get a drink of water to cool him down. All of a sudden, he got an urge, an urge to do what he's never done before. He wanted to sneak downstairs. To do what exactly? No one will ever know. However, his clumsy father had forgotten one thing before he went to rest for more binding work as an insurance salesman. He had forgotten to lock what his son called "The Forbidden Cupboard of Video Mysteries". His mother had complained to his father on many occasions that whatever was in there should be disposed of. Still, he wanted to take his chances as he was already feeling adventurous. He opened up the cupboard to see an enormous amount of old videos, more than he could count bearing a cool-looking red symbol. Unfortunately, he wouldn't stop there. He grabbed the first video he could find, slotted it into his VCR and attempted to switch it on by pressing a random assortment of buttons.

His mother came downstairs hours later to start her regular routine before finding her son shivering on the floor.
"Oh my God! Joe, what's wrong with you?"
Joe stayed silent and shivering.
"Joe! What happened?"
Joe stayed silent and shivering.
"Do you feel ill?" she attempted to ask him, calmly.
"…No" Joe replied.
"What is wrong then?" Joe's mother began to demand.
"The Video Player…turn it off." He replied with a slight bit more strength.

It was at this point that Joe's mother had discovered what exactly had happened. She silently turned off the VCR, ejected the cassette, and helped Joe back into bed. Of course, Joe still couldn't sleep. It was even worse this time; shouting from downstairs impaired his resting ability further.

Joe barely saw his father from that point, or "The Forbidden Cupboard of Video Mysteries." But I still haven't told you why he cannot go outside. Since he watched the film on the tape, Joe was scared and had started developing psychosis at an alarmingly high rate. He was too scared to actually walk outside. Every time he looked through his window, he saw a figure he had seen in the film, just as scary if not more scary looking than before. The figure would stalk him by continually walking round his house and sometimes would beam its maniacal face towards Joe. He had a regular social worker, Dr. Merrin who checked Joe's current mental condition but didn't believe that these hallucinations could have such an effect on Joe alone. Dr. Merrin once surprised by Joe by suddenly lifting the blinds. Joe saw the ghoul was pressing its face up against the glass and was in a fit for four hours.

Joe spent the next ten years of his life staying inside, getting his education from a variety of teachers. In his spare time he played with his toy army soldiers, where Captain Howdy would make another giant onslaught to capture the slipper near the colossal mountain known as "The Bed". At desperate times, these soldiers were his only friends and the only people who'd play with him.

On the advice of Dr. Merrin, Joe finally left the house at the age of 16. When he was about to join his mother in her car, the figure approached him and spoke.
"I want to rip out your fucking organs and use them as bathroom sponges."
"You'd need them." Joe replied, confidently. The ghoul gave a maniacal laugh and disappeared.
"Who were you talking to?" asked his mother from inside the car.
"My best friend." Joe answered.