An Angelic Intervention

A Hallucination part 1

“An… an angel?” Kay managed to let out, his back still firmly pressed against the door as his instinct to run away was taking over. He would have already disappeared from the room, if he weren’t so scared.

“Ha! See? I knew you could see me and hear me!” the man joyfully exclaimed as he bounced onto the bed. “Thanks for pretending I didn’t exist, by the way. That honestly hurt my feelings quite a bit.”

“An angel?” Kay repeated; the word was starting to sound ridiculous as it rolled off his tongue. He wasn’t, by any means, a religious or a spiritual guy. In fact, it was barely an hour ago when he thought he was starting to believe in the existence of ghosts; then here comes the ghost in question, suddenly claiming that he was an angel. An angel. With those wings from Heaven and God and everything.

It was either Kay was going out of his mind, or this man— ghost or whatever —was the one going out of his mind. Either way, something clearly wasn’t right.

Kay slowly inched towards the table where the bag of salt was. His hands were trembling and he was having a difficult time trying to control his breathing, but with the man preoccupied with looking curiously at the stars in the ceiling, Kay took his chance. He grabbed a fistful of salt, and quickly threw it towards the bed.

The man sat up and picked up a pinch of the salt thrown his way, looking offended as he looked up at Kay. “D-did… did you just throw… salt at me?” he asked, as if he couldn’t believe it. “I told you, I’m not a ghost! And even if I were, that wouldn’t work. This is all just child's play. I told you, I’m an angel.” He spelled out the word and repeated with more emphasis, “An angel.”

Kay stared at the man who was now sitting by the edge of his bed. “An angel?” he asked, sounding like it came out as half a nervous chuckle and half a scoff. He began to shake his head. “N-no. No. No way. This is it. I’m going crazy,” he muttered to himself, placing his hands on the sides of his head. “This is it. I knew this was going to happen. I’m starting to hallucinate things. People. I’m too… I’m too frustrated, that’s what this is, and you,” he looked at the man and laughed, “you are not real. You’re just some messed up, extremely realistic figment of my crazy, crazy brain!”

The man stood up, looking a bit worried as he raised his hands and slowly said in a soft voice, “Hey, I don’t think you can call people crazy, even if you’re referring to yourself.”

Kay stared at him in amazement. “Oh, wow,” he muttered and scoffed. “I really have gone completely nuts. My imagination is trying to comfort me.”

“Hey, now, don’t say that! You’re making me have an existential crisis myse—” Kay threw more salt at him without warning, making the man look at him with a deadpan stare. “Hey! I told you, I’m not a ghost!”

Kay took a step back and guiltily placed his hands behind him. “I’m sorry, I— no, wait, why am I saying sorry to something that’s not real?” he asked himself, then as an idea entered his head, he quickly pulled out the chair for his desk — toppling over a few candles in the process — sat down, and turned on his laptop. “Google. I need to Google,” he muttered.

“Oh, come on. Seriously?” the man groaned, letting his back fall onto the bed.

Kay began to furiously type into his laptop, not minding him. After a while, the man sat up and leaned forward to see what Kay was searching for.

“Can you get hallucinations from stress,” he read out loud then rolled his eyes. “I am telling you, I’m not a product of your imagination. I’m an angel! I’m real! You’re not having a—”

“Stress can indirectly cause hallucinations,” Kay read to himself as he opened up another untrustworthy website. “I was right. I was right.”

“No, you are wrong,” the man groaned lying down on the bed again.

“Okay,” Kay said, continuing to ignore him as he closed his laptop and took a deep breath. “So, all I need to do is alleviate the stress.” An idea came to him— one that wasn’t his smartest, but then again, was the only one he had. Kay glanced at the man still on his bed. What he was about to do wasn’t really the most enticing thing to do at that moment, especially if someone — even if he wasn’t real — was in the same room. So, without a word, he grabbed his laptop and locked himself into the bathroom. He carefully placed it on the sink and reluctantly unzipped his pants.

Due to a lack of better options, Kay made up his mind to get himself off. After all, the stress of starting the trimester and meeting new people all added up to him not being able to do so for a week. Maybe he was just pent-up. He had never heard of another guy getting hallucinations because of it, but then again, he was probably the only twenty-year old who had yet to encounter anything remotely s****l— and that time he had his first and only kiss in grade school with a girl did not count.

Rushing to get this over and done with, Kay accessed a folder in his files, entitled “Research” — mainly named as such to ward off anyone’s suspicions, but in all honesty, the videos and pictures inside were some form of research in a looser sense. He played his go-to film by instinct, but since he didn’t have his Bluetooth headphones connected, the sound came loud from the speakers, causing him to panic as he turned it down.

“Hey, are you alright in there?” the man's voice came from outside the bathroom, startling Kay. He didn’t answer and continued to watch the pornographic film with a very low volume. He tried to focus on the video while massaging himself, but the fact that there was someone behind the door made him feel a tinge of guilt, which only kept himself from getting aroused.

There was a soft knock on the bathroom door, followed by a whisper, “Are you— are you jerking off in there? You know I can recognize the sound of that porno you’re watching. I have very good hearing!”

Kay tightly closed his eyes in annoyance, but kept going.

“You know, this is totally rude. An angel of the lord is literally outside and you’re… doing that,” the man continued. “Are you seriously going to keep on— ugh, fine.” He loudly groaned and finally stopped knocking on the door.

“Concentrate,” Kay muttered to himself, trying to zone the man out— which proved more difficult since he could heard him moving things around outside. Kay tried to pay him no mind, splattered some lotion onto his palm, pulled down his briefs, and intensely focused on the video as if his life depended on it. It was one of the weirdest things he had done in his short years — trying to jerk off in a hurry to get rid of a hallucination. It was definitely going to be a secret that he would take to his grave.

Just as his arm was beginning to get tired and the video was more than halfway done, he was able to somewhat be comfortable enough to give himself a hard-on. After an infuriatingly long time, he was finally able to come into the toilet bowl.

Panting and feeling like he had just had the most difficult self-pleasuring of all time, he cleaned himself up, shut off his laptop, and flushed the toilet. “That should do it,” he thought triumphantly as he washed his hands. After turning off the faucet, he leaned against the door and tried to listen in.

It was finally quiet outside. Nothing was moving around anymore. No one was talking. Complete silence. He was finally alone. About time, too, since his stomach just made a sound that signified hunger. Slowly, he turned the knob and opened the door. He peeked his head out to take a look, and true enough, all that was left were the candles and salt on the floor. The man in white was finally gone.

Kay let out a breath of pure relief as he stepped out of the bathroom. He placed his laptop back on the desk, and began to pack away all of the candles. He dusted off the salt from his bed, then swept the floors. Once his room was back to normal, he closed the window and the curtains, then comfortably removed his pants — enjoying the privacy of his room. Then, he switched off the lights and crawled under the covers. He was feeling hungry, but more than that, he was tired.

“I'll take a quick nap, get some dinner, finish my papers and play a game,” he thought to himself, smiling as he settled his head onto his pillow and closed his eyes. He was finally alone, and all it took was to jerk off to release his s****l frustrations. He lightly chuckled at the thought. He couldn’t believe that he even performed an exorcism with Gina in his paranoia.

Ghosts. Angels. He knew better than to think those were real.