"Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrtggggggghhhhhhhh!!!!" I screamed at the sight.
Now I was hyperventilating.
Pure honey.
It was pure honey that I touched; pure honey with all its toxins active with no chemicals to dull it.
Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and yanked at the phone, finally separating it from my palm.
... And in the process, blood splashed on my face, and the phone full out of my hand, landing on the floor.
I wasn't bothered about the phone, but I was panicking about my right palm.
I'm right handed for goodness sake!
So I turned to the direction it fell, only to see its light's rays shining on...
A tall dark man, dressed in a torn fur coat with his face half- decayed and his right hand having a rusted hook in place of where his fingers should be.
Bees crawled over his chest and face shining yellowish like jewels and he reeked of honey... and decayed blood.
I gasped, shuddering as I screamed in fear.
He wasn't... he wasn't...
I shuffled backwards on my ass, trying to put some distance away from...
"Candyman??"
At that moment, Serena's body jerked behind me, and a choked gasp rattled in her throat.
I turned to her, suddenly remembering she was here, and was now waking up.
But then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she began to choke on something.
"Serena? Serena," I tried to whisper, keeping my wide horror filled eyes on the man.
But she didn't answer, instead she began choking even louder, her body spasming and as I reached to touch her, thousands of bees began pouring out of her mouth.
Quickly I lay flat on my back and rolled out of the way, heaving that I'd escaped the bees.
But when I looked up, Candyman was walking forward.
Scared, I ran for the front door, but when I yanked it open, the open yard wasn't there anymore.
Instead there was a crumbling thick pile of red brick covered in graffiti scrawled out words:
Cabrini- Green.
Coward as I was, I didn't look back for Serena, I ran bare feet to the toilet and locked myself in.
Leaning on the wall, far away from the toilet door, I braced my left hand on the wall and stared at the door in fear, expecting Candyman to get me any moment soon.
But he didn't.
I didn't hear any noise, but I didn't dare try to open the door.
More than an hour later, I summoned courage to come out and carefully walked to the living room, but then-----
All I could see was her phone with its screen cracked and sticky with honey and my torn flesh, and the broken bits of shattered mirror across the floor.
I was scared out of my mind, so I gropped my way to my room with my left hand stretched out and leading the way.
When I got to my room, I picked my phone up from the top of my drawer and immediately called the cops.
... But they said it was too early, and they couldn't come till dawn fully broke.
Desperate, I agreed and locked myself in the toilet again, staying there till 8 AM.
-------
When they cops finally came, they searched everywhere.
... But they didn't find Serena, or trace of bees, or sign of a struggle, or blood and also no mirror.
I was puzzled; how was that possible?
However the cops looked at me angrily and began scolding me for calling them out as a prank but I insisted that Serena was missing.
"So you say your roommate is missing?"
"Yes," I all but cried.
Finally they were listening, but one of the officers, the female one shook her head at me.
"You live alone."
I shook my head, "I have a roommate she-----"
"Miss," another officer started, cutting me off.
"The bedroom you say your roommate stays in is empty. Only your belongings are here."
I froze.
That wasn't possible.
What were they talking about?
Shaking my head in disbelief, I ran to Serena's room.
... It was empty.
Just then a hand touched my shoulder, and I heard the female officer's voice, "You must've hallucinated it."
I fell into a daze.
... And those words were the last ones I heard after that, and they only one that replayed as the cops put a breath analyser on me and ran short easy drug test to see if I was high or something.
However I was clean as it seemed, and so they left, sparing no words in scolding me some more while the walked out the front door.
"College kids," One muttered in his throat while starting their cop car and driving away.
That was it, one of them believed me or my story of what happened.
... Not even with my bruised swollen right hand.
Hell, when they saw it, they said the hallucination must have been caused by the allergic reaction to the honey.
Even screaming that I didn't keep honey in my possession didn't convince them otherwise.
The only thing they did to 'help' me before they left was to bandage my hand----- which they still scolded me for leaving unattended to for several hours.
Then they called 911 medical dispatch unit since my hand was in a 'very bad shape'.
... Minutes later it was almost mid morning, and I remembered I hadn't taken my eye drug for the day so I went to the kitchen and opened my drug cabinet.
While taking one of my eye trial medications, I was so stressed that I forgot the right dosage to take.
So I opened the come-with leaflet and began running my gaze through it.
However in the process my eyes stopped short on a note of warning I hadn't read before on it.
'... May experience extreme hallucinations.'
Looking up from the leaflet and gazing into thin air, I didn't realise when both the drug bottle and leaflet fell from my hands.
A nerve ticked in my mind.
What if all that I'd experienced was all in my head?
What if... Candyman and even... Serena had all been in my head; a figment of my imagination.
No, I shook my head.
That's not possible; I didn't have the brains to come up with urban legends and teach myself about them with a 'fictional character' as a roommate.
It made no sense.
I bit my lip.
I had to be sure.
Turning on my heel barefoot, I walked over to my room beside my bed, pulled open my drawer with my left hand and dug out my hand mirror.
Then I took a huge breath in, and opened my mouth.
"Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman..."
I paused, looking around for any sign; maybe of bees or something.
But there was nothing, so I tried again.
"... Candyman."
Nothing happened still, and I sighed, dropping the mirror and headed out.
However just before I could fully step out of my room, I heard the sound of something breaking.
So I paused in my tracks, my brows furrowed as I turned to know what broke, and when I did...
... My pinched brows fell, my eyes widened and my lips parted in a frozen look of shock and realisation, so much that I didn't hear the sound of the 911 dispatch medical agents knocking on my front door and calling out to me.
Beside my drawer, right in front of my broken mirror was a bloody hooked arm, stretching out towards me as Candyman stepped out of it.
It was real... It was all REAL.
... And I'd just summoned him.
I screamed.