Howl's Moving Castle: Tales Of Love

Scary Stories

The unmistakable sun sunk in the sky, the moon replacing its spot. Heavy clouds settled in, blocking out most of the iridescent moonlight. It was a perfect night to tell a story. Perhaps an excitingly strange one, or a story that makes you think 'I certainly didn't need sleep tonight', and makes your skin crawl. Sophie would much rather not be told the latter, but Howl being Howl, he didn't listen, and was too busy thinking of how to proceed with his story to care.

"Okay Sophie, are you ready?" Howl asked, propping his elbows on his thighs, holding his head in his hands. "I guess I'll have to be..." she grumbled, finishing off the last of her tea.

"Not too long ago, there was this girl who lived with her family in an old compact house," Howl paused, drawing in a deep breath, "She lived there with her dog, her parents, her younger brother, and her grandparents. Her parents put her in the room in the back of the house, which was the smallest. One night, a cold winter day, where night had fallen already, she lied on her bed, under her covers trying to get warm." To add to the effect, he used his magic to make one of the windows fly open, letting in the daft wind of the winter night.

"The warmth was getting to her, and she started to fall asleep, her small, brown eyes growing weary. After a few minutes, the small, barely noticeable sounds of the house died down into oblivion. But at one point in the night, she awoke out of a strange dream. She opened her eyes, and looked around, noticing how unusually dark it was in the room." He took in a deep breath, gauging how good his story probably was from Sophie's anxious face.

"A couple minutes later, and her eyes adjusted into the darkness, and she saw something unusual. She couldn't quite make out what it was, but it struck fear into her young heart. It appeared to be looming over her bed, it's entire body shaking and it's breaths short and raspy. She tried to scream, or make some sort of noise, but no nose came out. Seeing she had tried to do this, the dark figure moved closer, then sat right on her bed,"

"The girl tried to squirm away, but her body simply wasn't responding. At this point she was panicking and closed her eyes, nothing else she could really do at this moment. She wondered why this malicious spirit was here. When she decided she didn't really want to know, she felt the bed move around, and the entity drawing closer. Her breath was caught in her throat, and started to pray, trying to make it go away." At this point, Sophie was paler than usual, "But much to her relief, when she opened her eyes, the entity was nowhere to be seen. At least not anymore for this night." Howl finished, with a satisfying smirk, that quickly dissolved seeing how frightened Sophie was. It certainly was not one of his best stories, but it still scared Sophie senseless.

She sat on the chair shaking, her chocolate eyes glistening with heightened fear. "Howl, will that happen to me? What if an 'entity' comes in here at night, and I wake up and the exact thing happens? What if it grabs my neck, or tries to kill me?" Tears were brimming her eyes and she was rocking back and forth in her seat. "Sophie, don't think like that! It wasn't real, I promise. It's just some silly story someone told me a while back."

She looked utterly unconvinced, and looked up at the ceiling, trying to calm down. Next time Howl knew to respect her wishes when she told him not to tell her a scary story. He walked over from his chair with his blanket still around him, and plopped down in the seat next to Sophie, wrapping the blanket around her. "Also, remember Sophie, I'll protect you if that does ever happen alright? Besides, what 'entity' would want to inhabit a messy place like this?" He said, trying to comfort her, with little success.

"I-I suppose you're right. Please don't tell me another scary again though... I'd really appreciate that." She muttered, snuggling into his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her, and said, "I promise I won't Sophie. Sorry for scaring you." She smiled. "It's okay, I forgive you."