The small village was welcoming when I arrived to study. I found myself in a hut setting my things down to start my research here. Having bought a beautiful one bedroom house to stay in to research things it was peaceful as I set up my laptop keeping everything tracked.
Each night brought a bit of anxiety to me as Halloween approached. There was all sorts of unique things about this place but however something else came to give me a scare. If being in a foreign country on Halloween wasn't enough then this happened to seal the deal.
Every Now and then I would hear the instrument; a gamelan playing. A soft yet solemn tune as if waiting for disaster to hit. Like a traditional idiot I would wonder outside to see who was playing it. Yet no one was ever there when I went to look for the musician.
The music however was a lovely tune and felt beautiful in my ears as I looked around just to see a girl swaying to music. It happened deep in the night around two when the witching hour would rise. She would dance but the moment I caught sight of her she disappeared.
I collected all of this in notes documenting that once the music started ten minutes after she would appear and dance. She was always silent as she spun herself around. However once she caught my eyes on her she would disappear along with the music. This led me to asking about.
I asked everyone possible about the music and a little girl. But no one knew what I was talking about. But I refused to let myself be pushed off. When I asked everyone got nervous in the small village I was researching in which made me know something was up.
I wasn't sure how to pry it out of anyone. I wasn't a violent person. If anything I was a soft person, but something was going on in this village and I planned to find out what it was. But the first thing to do was to get someone to talk and that would take pressure.
And most of all I didn't have time.
***
On my search through the village notebook in hand I came across a young boy sitting down with a wooden spoon as he ate soup his eyes glancing up at me with the same look the children gave.
I was an outsider here to them, while the adults welcomed me to the small village the children were cautious. Here I stood a foreign person in their lands and they had no idea what I wanted. They had yet to learn I was simply here to study this village and it's ways.
But something else ended up keeping me here. Otherwise with the notes I had of the village I'd of returned by now. But the mystery of the girl and her dancing around with the music kept me here. I looked at the boy.
"I need to find out about that girl." I murmured to myself as I looked back at the notes and then at my watch which had set to time here. Night was beginning to fall which would solidify my plan. She always danced at the witching hour.
And she never missed a day which was why I had plans to camp out to see what was going on. She danced near the woods, the music was what signaled her. I moved towards the woods not noticing the little boys eyes on me as I moved forward.
When I arrived at the woods I looked around and took a deep breath in taking in the fresh scent of the woods before I sat down and put the journal in my lap before I took out a protein bar and ripped open the package before taking a bite out of it.
Then my eyes shifted up to the sky where the sun was being buried beneath the horizon casting haunting illuminations of orange and pink. It was beautiful and I knew while waiting I could sketch it out. Because I knew the girl would come. Now came the wait for it.
***
Each stroke of the pencil brought a scene to life as darkness fell around me. Each change of the digital number made my eyes heavier before the pencil joined the ground with the grass and my eyes grew heavy as lead stained my pale hand before I was out like a light.
I could have slept through the night if not for the haunting noise of the gamelan came and my eyes jolted open as the music shifted through the air. Anxiety knotted deep within me as I looked around. The woods were dark the only light being the lanterns in the distance.
Halloween had ended by now as I tapped my watch and it lit up saying 1:59 as the gamelan flowed through the air and I looked up as the hum of girl came along before bare feet came out an a girl of Indonesian descent came twirling out in a native dress.
I watched in awe as the girl began to dance under the moonlight her tiny young body moving with the strum of the music as if she knew it by heart. But since I had come here she seemed to know it by heart. And she moved with it.
Most of the times I had seen her I was up in my house and by the time I got downstairs she had disappeared into the night. But now here she was, and if I had to chase her down I would. Slowly standing up I crept forward as she danced.
And as I arrived she turned around and went still. As did I. Her dress up close was stained in red. . . dried blood and she had a deep cut in her neck as ghostly eyes stared up at me and my breath hitched in my throat and then she looked behind me.
Fear widened. From her eyes I saw the little boy. "Run." She whispered but it wasn't directed at the little boy. No it was directed at me as the dried blood became fresh and I whirled around to see him standing there but with a man next to him.
The little boy held a butcher knife with dried blood and the man; his father held a wood chopping axe. It didn't take me long to piece it together. The fear in the little girl's eyes. They had killed her--- and planned to kill me as well. Sickness formed.
But the words of the girl sent me into reality and when the man ran forward axe ready I took off barely catching my notes in time my foot hitting the pen as it crunched underneath my boot smashing it and ink spilling onto the grass much better than my blood.
And as they gave chase all I could do was run as wind roared in my ears. He gained in on me. I was dead, there was no denying that. He was fast as his son ran behind him. But it was a mere chance that the dead girl appeared as the instrument cut silent as she tripped him.
He went crashing down as I ran as fast as I possibly could my legs pumping fast. And as I entered the village I screamed for help as people came running out. And the men ended up restraining him and the little boy.
As I landed on the wet ground I saw her move through the trees giving me a smile. And as her murderers were carried off I watched silently as she disappeared up in mist as I looked around. And the desire to be in another country faded.
The desire to be here faded and the sickness was strong.
I left the village the next day after discovering the man to have been the girls father and killing her in a fit of rage. And with sickness I vowed to never return here and risk becoming a victim to the sick ways of people. . .
1349. I actually like this one. Isn't the best but I think it came out nice. * * *
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