Stories of the Week

Here are the two stories that were entered in the Story of the Week competition. Entries can be posted here after the competition has drawn to a close so that everyone can read them. Here are this week's stories by Arata and Drac.


Arata

"I can't see...." I stretched out my hand, groping out across the ground cautiously. My fingers caught the edge of my glasses, but I immediately recoiled. The pair of glasses, as well as the ground around it, was slicked with warm liquid. I swallowed, reaching for them again, and snatching them away as fast as I could. I tried my best to clean the glasses, but for some reason, my shirt was also slicked in the same fluid. I drew in a breath as best as I could, shaking as I put the glasses back on.

Even with my source of vision restored, it was too dark to see anything. The air was heavy with heat, and the darkness seemed to choke me. I rolled over onto my stomach and pushed myself onto my knees. But, my hands didn't touch what I expected to be cool ground, but instead something warm and squishy. My mind was too confused and dazed to try and remember anything.

I moved in an uneven step, body trembling. My head throbbed and my mouth tasted like copper. Had the power gone out? I reached out with my hands until they touched a wall. I slid them across its slick surface until they touched a box labeled "Breakers". I flipped it open and turned on each breaker. Suddenly, a small light flickered to life. A small bulb dangling from the ceiling flickered dimly, barely lighting the room.

I shook my head, now able to get my bearings. But...I wasn't where I thought I was. Wasn't I supposed to be in the school? Locked in for the night with other students and teachers, spending the night to work on our projects. I glanced around the small room in which I was in, which seemed to be coming more and more claustrophobic. The multipurpose room had changed...There was no tiling, and the chairs were strewn about, stained with red. Still slick, nameless blood oozed from the walls. The floors and wallls had become rusted, but also something else....they were dark red and fleshy, pulsing slowly, like a heart beat. The metal sections of the room were almost completely covered by cancerous masses...living, it seemed.

I rubbed my eyes, but froze immediately as I felt them become warm and stinging. My hands were covered in blood! I gasped frantically, wiping my eyes with the one part of my shirt not soaked with the sickly liquid. I don't know why it took so long to get to me, but I finally began to lose it...My eyes stung with tears, tainted by the blood on my eyelids, and I breathed rapidly. I backed away from the center of the room, away from the living flesh of the floor, near being sick. I spun around frantically after backing into the wall, my back freshly covered with blood, coming into contact with the pounding tumors covering the wall. Falling onto my butt, I looked up, staring into the face of a nameless corpse, hanging on the wall, maybe even part of the wall.

I finally screamed. "Where the hell am I?!" I leaned over and vomited, compounding the foul stench of the heavy air. I sobbed quietly for some time, until finally looking up. Everything seemed to be closing in on me. I looked past the rusted grating that the multipurpose room walls had become, seeing a large fan blade rotating behind it. It asked me to looked deeper into the darkness of the grating, and I did. I moved closer to it..Closer...

A soft noise whispered from past the fan. I froze. It grew louder, until I felt the poisonous breath of death on my skin. A mangled, twisted hand slid up against the grating, dripping with blood and flesh. It's fingers pushed through the grating, reaching for me, while its owner's face slowly began to emerge as well. A grotesque head, missing a face, simply possessing a mass of twisted skin around the front of its skull. The creature reach for me, snatching onto my shirt. I screamed, pulling at it to get away, until I finally tore its hand away. I threw myself back away from the grating, the mass of flesh screaming at my escape.

-

I slammed the metal door behind me, leaning against it, soaked to the bone with blood and sweat. The halls, despite the flickering lights, were still choked with darkness. Masses of bloody tissue grew over these walls as well, with faces and bodies of the unknown feeding them. I slowly worked my way down the hall, my entire body shaking with fear and confusion as I struggled to recall what had happened. I couldn't remember past the fog and the snow...snow...Snow, in the middle May..? Everything went to nothing after that..

My footsteps stopped at the janitor's door, which was marred by blood and...strange marks. Suddenly, the bulbs went out.

"Shit.." I muttered...not daring to make a sound louder. I risked opening the janitor door, opening it to find....

Nothing. I sighed heavily, reaching around until I felt a cylindrical object. A flashlight!

I clicked on the small spotlight, probing the halls with it. The sound of crawling and sloshing blood seemed to follow me, but I didn't dare look back. As I made my way towards the foyer leading to the court yard, I began to hear faint noises, blaring in the distance. "S-sirens..? Does that mean...?" Did that mean help had arrived? I doubted it...

Where was everyone? All those I had seen looked nothing like my classmates... or my teachers. Yet, I was sure I was in the school. All of the rooms were here...that person I had seen....both it and the school itself had been warped...into something far more gruesome..

Suddenly, I began to hear crying...I turned around for the first time. Nothing. I moved my flashlight, letting it land on a corner by the staircase that led to the second floor. A little kid, with their back to me, was sobbing quietly into the wall. I moved forward cautiously, whispering. "Hey..hey, are you okay?"

No response. They must not have heard me...I crept closer, spoke a little louder this time..."Hey, it's alright...do you know where..where we are?"

No answer. Why was a child like this in a highschool...in this place? I looked around. Nothing following...I moved forward, placing a hand on the child's shoulder. "Hey-"

The child turned to me rapidly, screeching with nothing but a mouth on its little face. It's face was lumps of flesh, like that of the person in the grating. I yelped and stumbled back, falling as the child bit into my hand. I kicked the demonic child away, leaping through the open door of the boys' bathroom and slamming it shut. The child battered against the door, crying madly, until finally the noise died away.

I couldn't even sigh, as someone moaned softly as soon as the shrieks faded. I turned, shaking severely, unable to even focus the light of my flashlight onto the moaner. A man lay on his stomach in the stall, his white shirt and his tie covered in blood. He looked up at me..."Help me..." It was Mr. Fread, my history teacher...

"Mr. Fread..? A-are you okay...?" I moved closer, relieved to see someone I knew. I crouched down beside him. "W-what's happening? Where is everyone?! Where are we?!" I was struggling not to cry again.

"I'm not sure..." His breathing sounded labored. "But...we aren't the...the first..." He point a bloody finger at the mirror. I shone a light on it. Written in still dripping blood was "No Way Out"... I glanced at the wall next to it, with similar writing, spelling out "Nightmare.."

I looked back to my teacher, my eyes wide. A large jagged spike was protruding from his stomach, dripping with blood. "H-here....let me help you.." I said numbly.

"No...you need to leave...get help...I'll be okay..." His voice was raspy.

I nodded hesitantly and got up, going for the door.

Suddenly, I heard Mr. Fread whimper. I turned to look at him, my light on him. But...he seemed different.

"Wait, Casey...please don't leave me...I-I don't want to die.." His eyes were filled with murky red tears.

I swallowed, moving back to him, though my brain told me to go. "It's okay, I'm going to find help..." I went for the door again, but Mr. Fread grabbed onto my shirt.

"Please don't leave!" I looked at him, terrified. His arm and hand were mangled and bloody, and the flesh of his face was beginning to twist and fall.

"It'll-"

"I don't want to die!" Mr. Fread latched onto my leg with his other hand as well, beginning to sob hysterically. "Don't leave me! Don't let me die!" Black, putrid saliva was leaking out of his mouth, and his eyes became dark. He pulled me right in front of his face, more of the dark saliva sliding from his lips. I pulled away, but his grip only became tighter, his cries more insane.

I shut my eyes and slammed the butt of the flashlight into his face, releasing me from his mangled grip. I ran to the door.

"Don't leave!" He wailed.

"I'm sorry!" I shouted and ran out.

-

Now I was running down the halls, throwing away my previous caution. I had a feeling I was running out of time. The sirens were getting louder and louder, and so were the sounds of nameless horrors at my heels. I burst through the court yard, stopping in the center of the stone walkway. A large triangle was carved into the stone, filled with strange markings and covered in blood. The sirens continued to blare. Sickly warm rain fell, like the stagnant tears of a demon. I looked behind me. I could see nothing, but knew of what followed. I made my way to the far corner of the courtyard, where I dropped on my knees, and then onto my bottom, backing into the corner. I was out of energy and out of time...

The sounds closed in. "Wake up..." I muttered. It's a dream... They drew closer... "Wake up..." ...A nightmare... "Wake up!" I hardly dared to raise my light, to see the face of horror. It fell to the ground and flickered, only for a second illuminating the forms of twisted children, the bodies of mangled nightmares.

I screamed. "WAKE UP!!!!" The flashlight died.

The sirens wailed.


Draconor

Life. The one thing which you give nothing for but will use whatever you can to guard it. Most people live their whole lives without the threat of anything but time taking away their most precious belonging. But others, those that live in fear, compete for every single second that they can find. When they speak of the terror which they live with the ignorant few choose to disregard their murmurs as 'crazy talk'. The truth is far more sinister as I found out when I began this cycle of despair.

I was 12 and sceptical. I was one of those children who had never dreamt of evil and had laughed at the notion that dark powers could be at work in the world. I was brought up in a strong atheist household and nothing I had picked up in fiction could sway my mind.
It happened to be summer and I was staying with my uncle in his house in the country, a nice old house with nothing but nature surrounding it, well hidden from the prying eyes of the neighbours.
My uncle had told me stories of the house, tales of spirits and magic but I had scoffed at his attempt to nurture my imagination. I should of paid more attention, I should of learned how the stories ended but now it is too late and nobody will listen to me now.

I remember waking in the darkness of the night for a drink, the moon was nowhere to be seen and the curtains blocked out any light from the stars. I pulled a gown over me and as I reached for the door handle to exit my room a faint light peered from underneath the door. I had thought that it was odd that my uncle was also up this late but opened the door anyway. The light had gone again as quickly as it had appeared and I walked out into the corridor, blind to the surroundings. The floor creaked slightly and I took a step onto the stairs where a sense of dread I had never felt before came over me. The feeling seemed irrational and although I was stunned I couldn't tell why I felt that way. Instinctively I looked behind me, nothing was there as expected, but as I turned to carry on towards the kitchen a shadowy figure that resembled a person was at the bottom of the stairs. It must have been a dream, I had thought, but no amount of wishing could banish it from existence.

The humanoid figure took a step towards me, it's body seemed so dark that it seemed to absorb the darkness in the area. I couldn't make out a face but that only added to the terror as I couldn't figure out it's behaviour. Another step and it had raised one of it's limbs, what seemed to be an arm, towards me. I felt the tendrils of shadow brush across my face as I shrieked. Every fiber of my being wanted to leave that house and find sanctuary but I was frozen in place. It seemed to grow as my body weakened, seeming to feed off of my emotions. I was enclosed now in absolute darkness and nothing was going to save me. I had fainted and resigned myself to fate, but the creature had other plans and I awoke the next morning.

My uncle had called my parents and reported that I had fallen down the stairs and had suffered some memory issues. My parents took me to hospital but they had not found any problems with me. At the time I had tried to pass off the event as a nightmare of my imagination but since then it has occurred a multitude of times. At first it was once a month but over time it has happened to me while I sleep or when I am walking down a dark alley at night. Why it has never finished my life off is beyond me, perhaps it feeds from me? I do not know, I can only hope that once I am gone this thing will die with me. It has stalked me for 20 years to this day and since then my life has been a living hell. The rare nights where I do encounter it are the nights where I have nightmares about it. My family recommended seeing a doctor but they do not understand.

Death seems like an escape now and life seems like a joke created by the evil for I have not truly lived for 20 years. The Stalker of Shadows.