The Haunted Short Stories (Requests Appreciated!)

It Came from the Darkness

I. Was. Supposed. To post this. Y E S T E R D A Y. Why do I always forget so easily? Do I have short-term memory loss or something??? ... Anyway. Onto the story!

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All I ever was to anyone was a stable boy. I rose before the sun and said goodnight to the moon when it was high in the midnight sky, working my back out the whole day without so much as a thank you.

I was sweeping late at night, ready to go home after the same long day I've seen a thousand and one times. I was ready to forget about the world for a second, to sleep away the boredom. I wasn't ready to have a bleeding man crawl up to me from the shadows.

He wheezed as he breathed heavily, groaning like a phantom rising for revenge. His body painted blood over the ground as he crawled, whimpering and mumbling nonsense. For a minute, I figured this man had a bad encounter with a bear and was still in shock. I prepared to smack him to his senses as I grabbed a clean and damp cloth to wash the wounds. I knelt down to his height and took him by the tattered shirt collar. "Are you alright, sir?"

He still mumbled complete utter nonsense. The man didn't look me in the eyes, keeping his gaze to the ground. I tried to lift his chin so he could look at me when he spoke, but the man started screaming bloody murder and flailed around.

People poured out of their homes with lanterns, all drowsy and confused. A crowd gathered around the man and me, and all I could do was sit back and listen as a guard approached, placing a firm hand on the man's shoulder.

While they spoke, I took the time to look out into the darkness of the night, watching the shadows breathe to life as the moon hid and reappeared from behind the clouds. I watched for the animal that would have attacked the man and mauled him within an inch of his life, but all I could find was the blackness of the woodlands. At that moment, I could have turned around and left, but my eyes kept a magnetic stare into the abyss among the pines and oaks. My stomach dropped as my gaze locked onto an icy stare, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. My mind was filled with a thought, but the words could not come forth in my consciousness.

"The days have driven me mad, I swear." I breathed as I reasoned against the two bright eyes that had stared back at me. "All the days are a blur and it's broken my mind. It's nothing unusual."

I ignored the crowd as I returned to my worn home and reluctantly slept. The morning I awoke, my body was being dragged along the ground. The morning air was biting at my flesh and my skin burned with dirt and stone pressed into it. Struggling against the pull, I screamed, "What the bloody hell are you doing?!"

Like the man the night before, the person dragging me, and the few others following, were mumbling the same nonsense, but the words were now much clearer and everything in my body froze for a few moments. The people each warily glanced over their shoulders, shuddering in their leather skin shoes. I begged them to tell me what was happening but I was never given an answer, even when I was shoved into a dark, musty room and the door locked behind me.

Silence comforted the walls but no amount of quietness or assurements could ease my soul of the paranoia. I take a loose piece of paper from a discarded book and here I write my last words, the words I was at a loss to find:

None of us could see it coming. The dark silhouette descended on our lives without a warning, without even a word. It was silent and embraced us with the chill of death. It cradled us at night in arms made of iron and frost, slowly peeling away our peace like the skin from a face. Joy and humanity would no longer be known to us. God and hope were dead and all anyone can do is watch as the white-eyed demon rips our families apart, erase the lines between innocence and guilt, and leave the earth barren of kindness and life.

This is our end.