[Short Story #1] Horror (Patreon)

Dust floated leisurely in the air like ash, clogging my nose and coating my mouth. I sat in a room that I had come to know, but hadn’t seen in a very long time. There had been a moment, many years ago, when I could feel the tattered cloth chair beneath me. That had long since passed. The room was too dark to see beyond my nose, but I still knew it was there.

The doorway. It was so rotted that I had long since expected it to collapse. I had seen through it once, when a solitary strand of moonlight pierced through the ancient windowsill and illuminated my room for the briefest of moments.

That one glance was more than enough. Two rotted eye sockets and the broken grin of an ancient creature leered at me, ripping my psyche to threads and reducing me to a silent, terrified creature for days. If I could have ran, I would have done so immediately. But my bones were stiff and my body was immobile, so I sat in silent horror.

But today was different. A silent creak broke the monotony of my existence, and then silent chattering assaulted my ears.

“It’s not haunted! Those were just rumors.”

“Then go in there alone. You won’t!”

It had been so long since I last heard human voices. I wanted to cry out to them, but my lungs would not work. And so I sat, in silent agony. The footsteps grew louder and a beam of light suddenly ripped its way into my vision.

It pointed into my room and a young boy entered the room from behind me, using a doorway I hadn’t known to exist. He moved his flashlight around, but it never landed on me. I could do nothing as the boy stepped hesitantly in and then directed his light at the gaping doorway before us.

He moved forwards and blocked my view of the dreaded doorway. But he did not scream in shock or fear; the apparition must not have shown itself. The boy grunted in interest and then strode quickly out of my room. Just as he left, I got a glimpse of two dull eye sockets and the toothless grin of a monster staring back at me. Then the boy called out to his friends for one last time.

“There’s nothing here! Just some dumb old mirror.”