Was about to sleep 30 minutes ago, when bad thoughts and visions from a too recent past came knockin' at my head again. The damn London, with her cold, grey streets, the malevolent red buses swallowing people and carrying them around like prisoners, closed tube stations staring like empty eyes from the sidewalks. My old home in Peckham Park Road, the creaky stairway, spiders everywhere, squirrels on the terrace under a cloudy sky as black as ink. And that door. Last door I closed when I went away, hard as a coffin lid, sealed with grudge and regrets and too many things left unsaid. Someone was crying behind it with a woman's voice, but I know nobody was in that room, only the ghosts of days gone by. The person that used to live with me in there moved to another house, a friend of mine told me. A burning pain exploded on my left arm, where her name is tattooed. "Go back" a whisper said "You don't belong this place anymore."
I pushed the vision away, got out of bed, put headphones on my ears, turned on the mp3 player and found the wrong song. Then Mr. Alcohol stepped in. Same medicine for the same old sickness. I use to say that in my life I drank more than all the men of my whole family tree. Sometimes I still find the joke funny.

Medicine number two: Stunty. Turn laptop on, home page, gamefinder, looking for any game. You can't think about the past when you have to move your pixels, a chat with a nice coach helps you to spend half an hour or maybe more with peace of mind. Found the game, clicked green button, waited for the guy to accept...

And then they were around me, in my room, surrounding me from every side. They were on the writing desk and on the floor, on the bed and on the top of empty bottles, jumping on my books and using my cigarettes like spears in fake fights. They were hundreds, maybe thousands, and I recognized each one of them. Chief Sommelier Vlad, Bleedo, Fiddler's Geen Phil and all the others. The dead and the alive, the retired and the crippled, even my first long gone legend Davy Socket. I lost my mind, there was no other explanation, but I felt calm. Going insane is not so bad, after all.
"Go back into my computer" I said "I wanna play. Everyone go back, you hear me?"
A pixie flied over my shoulder, graceful and soundless. When she spoke against my ear her voice was a symphony of bells and flutes, a song of joy and hope I never dreamed to hear in my life:
"No time to play, Crook. Not here, not now. Stunty won't help you through this moment of your life, nor will the booze. You must be a man and face what consumes you, you must rip all that from your mind and go on, or you'll turn yourself into an old grouch playing FUMBBL only to escape reality. Fight back, Crook. We are with you, we love you because we know you love us. People calls us pixels, but you gave to every single one of us a portrait, you made us alive and we are going to help you."
I spoke in a sad burp: "Helping me? How is that supposed to happen? You are from an online game. You don't even exist."
"Everything exists somewhere, Crook. Trust me. We will give you the skills you need to face your demon, but it will be up to you in the end. You can surrender or fight, we can't decide for you. Now go, boy. Remember: we do care about you."

A flash, and they disappeared along with my room. I was in London again, in that dark house in Peckham Park Road, just in front of that door I couldn't open. The woman's voice was still crying behind it, louder and sadder, a desperate sequence of sobs that stabbed my heart like the blades of a thousand Stikkas. I knew what I had to do, and I did it. I reached for the door handle and pushed it, the door opened slowly, slowly, slowly until I saw it... and I screamed.

It wasn't her. It had her voice, but the body was the one of a giant, horrible chaos spawn with brown fangs and red eyes, acid tears leaking like piss through a face impossible to stare. One arm was a tentacle, the other one a dreadful claw stained with blood, ready to kill me in that very room where I already lost so much. It charged, screaming with all the voices and the pain of hell. I dodged, sidestepped, leaped over it and landed on my feet at its back.
"My god, the skills!" I said, thinking about my little friends from Stunty "It's working!"
The thing charged again, this time it hit me and knocked me out. My head slammed on the wardrobe, I tasted blood into my mouth but I was alive.
"Thick skull" I grinned, getting back on my feet. "Come on, you bastard. Show me your best."
Furious, the abomination charged a third time. It pushed me, blocked me, but I wrestled it and we were on the floor together, my fists smashing its face, its fangs biting my flesh. I managed to wriggle free from its tentacles and suddenly I saw it: a chainsaw on my old bed, a gift from Stunty Gods, a team I seldom play. Sprint, sure feet, grabbed it with sure hands, the beast was getting on her hoofs. I turned on the chainsaw and cut the demon's claw, another slash opened its belly and its guts spilled on the floor in a deadly stench. Last hit ripped apart one of its legs and it fell over. I threw the chainsaw away and piled on it six times, 'til its face became a puddle of flesh and blood.
"You had enough?" I asked. I was covered in red, pain all over my body, the tattoo glowing like uranium in the dark room. And then the thing started to change, and in few seconds it wasn't a chaos spawn anymore, but the person with which I shared that room in the good ol' days.
"I'm happy you found the courage to do this" she said, smiling with broken lips "You know how much you mean to me, just like you know things got too bad here to hope to fix them. We tried, we failed. How many people fail without trying? I don't have regrets and so you must. Live. Go far. Try your best to be happy. Maybe one day we'll meet again, if it's meant to be. But until then, try to be happy. Everyone deserves it. Work, play, listen to that crappy music you like,drink, go out with friends, go running. And smile, Crook. Smile as much as you can, even when you'll be thinking of me."
After saying this she disappeared. I found myself alone in my room in Italy again, a piece of paper in my hand. It was a flight ticket, date said 25th January 2014. Town was not London, but another one I always wanted to see and in which maybe I'll find a better life after this bad year. I put it on the writing desk and checked my laptop: guy on gamefinder was gone, and so were my little friends from Stunty. I lighted a cigarette and went in the garden, cold starry night and a moon as big as a troll's head. Something passed flying not far from me, a bright little thing singing something in a voice made of bells and flutes. I raised a hand, waved it and threw the cigarette butt away in the grass.
I was smiling.

[FIRST ATTEMPT TO WRITE A SHORT STORY IN ENGLISH, AND FIRST SHORT STORY I WROTE IN ALMOST TWO YEARS. AS USUAL, SORRY FOR MY ENGLISH. HOPE YOU LIKED IT.]