It was the work of something evil.
Their mouths gaped open; cracked and scathed by the frigid air; some scabbing, dripping or oozing. Had it been summer, the ever-salivating earth entombing them and sultry pulse of humidity from the cave's only entrance, or the sticky mesh of flesh and the hot air which its owners omitted with each breath, might have prevented this, comporting a new dilemma entirely. But as it was, this was not the case. It was therefor that their breath puffed forth from behind their teeth, the only sign that any of them were living as, bloodshot eyes staring imploringly at the cave entrance below the steep incline from which the craggy mouth of the cave itself dipped down, they beseeched the very cave itself for light.
They had not felt the warmth of light itself in a surmountable sum of time. They could see it, caught on the roof of the den, like a wall barring their vision of the outside by its blinding brightness, but never reaching past the entrance to where they could touch it. The very essence of the cave would not accept its presence. Light was a source of energy, and so it would grind against the listless stone of which the cave was composed were it ever allowed to linger. The walls were mirthless; heartless; frigid. The walls of the cave smothered all light, warping it with demented, cold affliction; the feeling afflicted upon the very hearts of the dwelling's prisoners, who were kept bound by the cave in much the same way which the light was kept out. It was something they may have once fought, had it been palpable.
They were bent forth so that their heads rested between their elevated knees, their hands supporting some of their weight on the ground in front of them, as apes. The roof of their residence was not tall enough for even the smallest amongst them to stand. Matted tendrils of hair hung forth in this position, dirt-caked and crumbling earth whenever one of them moved. Movement, however, was something of which they currently did little. Sitting so in the dipped entrance where water collected on rainy days, they scarcely moved anything except their mouths. They seemed to be attempting to form words; words which reached their lips and were swallowed up into the darkness, effectively making their mouths move like the mouths of fish.
Then, from the back of the clustered group, a sound. It clawed its way forth, croaked and "cae-lum". One word, it came in two parts, uttered by a little girl, no older than nine or ten. Then the puffs of air in front of her stopped. Her breathing ceased, and she collapsed on the cold stone below, her matted hair bleeding into the earth-dusted cobble. The resulting crack echoed, reverberating into the tunnel's many cadaverous limbs. The others didn't seem to notice; not one turned to look, but kept staring upwards, as the first trickle of white light pooled at the entrance.
They were children.
Let me tell you a story.
It was a small town, solitary and comfortable, fending off the evil of the outer world by means of malignant rebuke from its residents towards anything new, different or unprecedented. In this way it had remained the same for many, many years and hadn't changed much since the 50's, maintaining a moral-based community, stoic in its social nostalgia, even as the world around it evolved. It was quiet and peaceful and home to very little crime; a place where the job of a police officer was generally of less value than that of animal control. During the day the people went to work, the children went to school, and it was the cause of much gossip and percussively shame were anyone to disturb the aforementioned quo.
Ancient evergreens sprouted upwards on all sides of the little town like defenders mirroring each-other in an effect which caused the little town to seem all the more sequestered. "Don't stray too far." parents ominously warned their children, for the fun-house mirrors of the forest were easy to be lost in, and with the defense of the trees came the threat of the the wildlife they attracted. Many a search had been conducted for a missing child over the years; not all of which would prove effective. Despite the warnings from their parents, the outskirts of the forest was a common hangout spot for children and teens alike. Where else were they to go? If they were seen sitting on the sidewalks, then they were trouble makers. If they hung out in local stores, then they were loitering; sure to steal something. If they hung out at one of their houses, then they must do so quietly.
It was a cold winter night, an adolescent girl sat upright in bed, covers tucked comfortably around her and a warm glow radiating from her bedside lamp, garbing the center of the room in a thin orange light while leaving the outskirts and crevices draped in shadows. An elderly woman sat on the bed beside the girl. "Riven" the elderly woman called the girl. She cleared her throat before speaking. "I am going to tell you a story that my grandmother told me. I do think you're old enough that it won't scare you much." She smiled, reaching forward with one bony hand to grasp Riven's hand in hers. Riven looked down, her deep brown gaze examining the veins strung from the elderly woman's fingers to arms as a marionette, and Riven smiled sadly. Her grandmother's age was truly showing. Accepting the smile as a sign of encouragement and coughing again to clear her throat, her grandmother began...
"Long ago, when the town was young, a group of young ones, the youngest a little boy of four years old named Tommy, the oldest his sister, Isabella, only ten years old herself, went outside to play. 'We'll be back before dark!' (here she had tried to imitate the voice of a small child, though her words came as a high-pitched rattle), they said to their parents, and ventured off to meet their friends. Playing in the yard of one of the other children, yielding sticks as swords, one of the boys proposed an idea. 'Let's go into the woods!', he suggested, and the group stopped, seemingly mulling this over.
"My mommy said I'll get eaten by a bear.' said one of the girls, to be glared at by the boy who had proposed the idea.
"Fine then, go back home Sandy-scaredy-cat!', he called the girl, and with a snarky smirk he gave the girl a shove before beginning to walk in the direction of the treeline. The group followed, Sandy trailing wearily at the back with her blue eyes pointed downwards and her lips set in a thin line.
"As they reached the treeline, the boy continued onwards_ radiating a calm surety which made the others confident in following him. He seemed to know where he was going, and so certainly this couldn't be a bad idea. They whispered to each-other in the quiet of the forest, the excitement of adventure painting cheeky gins on each of their little mouths. The trees likewise whispered hushed soliloquies at their foolishness from overhead, though this only Sandy heard, and she scowled, falling back further from the group and trailing them from afar.
"Once they had traveled some way through the trees, the boy stopped in a small clearing. The ground beneath their feet felt soft and hollow; grave-like, and though many of the children looked down in uncertainty, the boy stood with the calmness of a sepulcher, or, likewise, the resident of the grave. In front of them sat an opening in the earth; it was a black gap in the ground, as the den of an animal. Nervous whisperings began amongst the group. 'I want to go home!' said Tommy loudly, his voice echoing in the quiet, rippling in the stillness, as he clutched his sister's dress. In the distance, Sandy stood, watching tensely from behind the trunk of a tree.
"Isabella hugged her brother to her as the boy took a small bottle from his pocket, his mouth widening into a sardonic grin unfit for such a small, cherubic face.
"What are you doing? You're scaring them!' Isabella addressed the boy, as he placed the bottle on the ground in front of the hole, and removed the loosely fitting cap. Suddenly, the mouth of the den entrance yawned, the ground pardoning itself to make way for the gaping mouth, encompassing the hollow area on which the children stood, and the children themselves."
Here, Riven's grandmother stopped, her hand leaving her granddaughter's and lifting a glass of water slowly, and with a shaky grip which made the water ripple, from the nightstand, raising it to her lips for a drink. Riven watched the painstakingly slow process with barely suppressed impatience. She was enjoying the lure, but she wanted it to be finished; she had school in the morning, and she needed sleep. Finally, her grandmother, having quenched her thirst, replaced the glass on the bedside table and continued.
"Sandy screamed, stumbling back a few steps, and with wide eyes she ran back the way which they had come, fear inciting adrenaline. She didn't stop running until it had grown quite dark. The cold air gripped her lungs, effectively immobilizing the now shivering girl at the trunk of a tree. That is how they found her that night, though they never did find the others, or the hole which had supposedly swallowed them.
"Of course no one believed a child, blaming the tale on her imagination; the creativity of youth; the blissful magic of the innocent mind. But the boy's parents believed her, stating that the boy had been acting strangely. Where he had found the bottle which he had been carrying around with him was unknown, and in the town strange and terrible things had been happening lately, things which he had always been near when they happened. Things such as the neighbor's cat having been found strung by a fencepost, an unknown substance oozing from its eyes; and the boy, who the parents called Jesse, had been spending more and more time gazing into the woods as of lately. So intensely, in fact, that it seemed his parents could not break his gaze without physically moving him. Likewise, he would spend hours gazing at the bottle as well, though, it had never seemed to do any harm..." her grandmother trailed off.
Riven could recall stories like this before, though they had been more about the havoc which the bottle had wreaked than the end-result. In some of the stories, entire towns were destroyed, but that was simply an event, not a result. In other stories, the bottle offered eternal youth. Her grandmother was a wishful thinker, it occurred to her, and she barely suppressed a laugh. She smiled at her grandmother. "Thanks for the story, Grams."
Yes, a story...just a story.
Their mouths gaped open; cracked and scathed by the frigid air; some scabbing, dripping or oozing. Had it been summer, the ever-salivating earth entombing them and sultry pulse of humidity from the cave's only entrance, or the sticky mesh of flesh and the hot air which its owners omitted with each breath, might have prevented this, comporting a new dilemma entirely. But as it was, this was not the case. It was therefor that their breath puffed forth from behind their teeth, the only sign that any of them were living as, bloodshot eyes staring imploringly at the cave entrance below the steep incline from which the craggy mouth of the cave itself dipped down, they beseeched the very cave itself for light.
They had not felt the warmth of light itself in a surmountable sum of time. They could see it, caught on the roof of the den, like a wall barring their vision of the outside by its blinding brightness, but never reaching past the entrance to where they could touch it. The very essence of the cave would not accept its presence. Light was a source of energy, and so it would grind against the listless stone of which the cave was composed were it ever allowed to linger. The walls were mirthless; heartless; frigid. The walls of the cave smothered all light, warping it with demented, cold affliction; the feeling afflicted upon the very hearts of the dwelling's prisoners, who were kept bound by the cave in much the same way which the light was kept out. It was something they may have once fought, had it been palpable.
They were bent forth so that their heads rested between their elevated knees, their hands supporting some of their weight on the ground in front of them, as apes. The roof of their residence was not tall enough for even the smallest amongst them to stand. Matted tendrils of hair hung forth in this position, dirt-caked and crumbling earth whenever one of them moved. Movement, however, was something of which they currently did little. Sitting so in the dipped entrance where water collected on rainy days, they scarcely moved anything except their mouths. They seemed to be attempting to form words; words which reached their lips and were swallowed up into the darkness, effectively making their mouths move like the mouths of fish.
Then, from the back of the clustered group, a sound. It clawed its way forth, croaked and "cae-lum". One word, it came in two parts, uttered by a little girl, no older than nine or ten. Then the puffs of air in front of her stopped. Her breathing ceased, and she collapsed on the cold stone below, her matted hair bleeding into the earth-dusted cobble. The resulting crack echoed, reverberating into the tunnel's many cadaverous limbs. The others didn't seem to notice; not one turned to look, but kept staring upwards, as the first trickle of white light pooled at the entrance.
They were children.
Let me tell you a story.
It was a small town, solitary and comfortable, fending off the evil of the outer world by means of malignant rebuke from its residents towards anything new, different or unprecedented. In this way it had remained the same for many, many years and hadn't changed much since the 50's, maintaining a moral-based community, stoic in its social nostalgia, even as the world around it evolved. It was quiet and peaceful and home to very little crime; a place where the job of a police officer was generally of less value than that of animal control. During the day the people went to work, the children went to school, and it was the cause of much gossip and percussively shame were anyone to disturb the aforementioned quo.
Ancient evergreens sprouted upwards on all sides of the little town like defenders mirroring each-other in an effect which caused the little town to seem all the more sequestered. "Don't stray too far." parents ominously warned their children, for the fun-house mirrors of the forest were easy to be lost in, and with the defense of the trees came the threat of the the wildlife they attracted. Many a search had been conducted for a missing child over the years; not all of which would prove effective. Despite the warnings from their parents, the outskirts of the forest was a common hangout spot for children and teens alike. Where else were they to go? If they were seen sitting on the sidewalks, then they were trouble makers. If they hung out in local stores, then they were loitering; sure to steal something. If they hung out at one of their houses, then they must do so quietly.
It was a cold winter night, an adolescent girl sat upright in bed, covers tucked comfortably around her and a warm glow radiating from her bedside lamp, garbing the center of the room in a thin orange light while leaving the outskirts and crevices draped in shadows. An elderly woman sat on the bed beside the girl. "Riven" the elderly woman called the girl. She cleared her throat before speaking. "I am going to tell you a story that my grandmother told me. I do think you're old enough that it won't scare you much." She smiled, reaching forward with one bony hand to grasp Riven's hand in hers. Riven looked down, her deep brown gaze examining the veins strung from the elderly woman's fingers to arms as a marionette, and Riven smiled sadly. Her grandmother's age was truly showing. Accepting the smile as a sign of encouragement and coughing again to clear her throat, her grandmother began...
"Long ago, when the town was young, a group of young ones, the youngest a little boy of four years old named Tommy, the oldest his sister, Isabella, only ten years old herself, went outside to play. 'We'll be back before dark!' (here she had tried to imitate the voice of a small child, though her words came as a high-pitched rattle), they said to their parents, and ventured off to meet their friends. Playing in the yard of one of the other children, yielding sticks as swords, one of the boys proposed an idea. 'Let's go into the woods!', he suggested, and the group stopped, seemingly mulling this over.
"My mommy said I'll get eaten by a bear.' said one of the girls, to be glared at by the boy who had proposed the idea.
"Fine then, go back home Sandy-scaredy-cat!', he called the girl, and with a snarky smirk he gave the girl a shove before beginning to walk in the direction of the treeline. The group followed, Sandy trailing wearily at the back with her blue eyes pointed downwards and her lips set in a thin line.
"As they reached the treeline, the boy continued onwards_ radiating a calm surety which made the others confident in following him. He seemed to know where he was going, and so certainly this couldn't be a bad idea. They whispered to each-other in the quiet of the forest, the excitement of adventure painting cheeky gins on each of their little mouths. The trees likewise whispered hushed soliloquies at their foolishness from overhead, though this only Sandy heard, and she scowled, falling back further from the group and trailing them from afar.
"Once they had traveled some way through the trees, the boy stopped in a small clearing. The ground beneath their feet felt soft and hollow; grave-like, and though many of the children looked down in uncertainty, the boy stood with the calmness of a sepulcher, or, likewise, the resident of the grave. In front of them sat an opening in the earth; it was a black gap in the ground, as the den of an animal. Nervous whisperings began amongst the group. 'I want to go home!' said Tommy loudly, his voice echoing in the quiet, rippling in the stillness, as he clutched his sister's dress. In the distance, Sandy stood, watching tensely from behind the trunk of a tree.
"Isabella hugged her brother to her as the boy took a small bottle from his pocket, his mouth widening into a sardonic grin unfit for such a small, cherubic face.
"What are you doing? You're scaring them!' Isabella addressed the boy, as he placed the bottle on the ground in front of the hole, and removed the loosely fitting cap. Suddenly, the mouth of the den entrance yawned, the ground pardoning itself to make way for the gaping mouth, encompassing the hollow area on which the children stood, and the children themselves."
Here, Riven's grandmother stopped, her hand leaving her granddaughter's and lifting a glass of water slowly, and with a shaky grip which made the water ripple, from the nightstand, raising it to her lips for a drink. Riven watched the painstakingly slow process with barely suppressed impatience. She was enjoying the lure, but she wanted it to be finished; she had school in the morning, and she needed sleep. Finally, her grandmother, having quenched her thirst, replaced the glass on the bedside table and continued.
"Sandy screamed, stumbling back a few steps, and with wide eyes she ran back the way which they had come, fear inciting adrenaline. She didn't stop running until it had grown quite dark. The cold air gripped her lungs, effectively immobilizing the now shivering girl at the trunk of a tree. That is how they found her that night, though they never did find the others, or the hole which had supposedly swallowed them.
"Of course no one believed a child, blaming the tale on her imagination; the creativity of youth; the blissful magic of the innocent mind. But the boy's parents believed her, stating that the boy had been acting strangely. Where he had found the bottle which he had been carrying around with him was unknown, and in the town strange and terrible things had been happening lately, things which he had always been near when they happened. Things such as the neighbor's cat having been found strung by a fencepost, an unknown substance oozing from its eyes; and the boy, who the parents called Jesse, had been spending more and more time gazing into the woods as of lately. So intensely, in fact, that it seemed his parents could not break his gaze without physically moving him. Likewise, he would spend hours gazing at the bottle as well, though, it had never seemed to do any harm..." her grandmother trailed off.
Riven could recall stories like this before, though they had been more about the havoc which the bottle had wreaked than the end-result. In some of the stories, entire towns were destroyed, but that was simply an event, not a result. In other stories, the bottle offered eternal youth. Her grandmother was a wishful thinker, it occurred to her, and she barely suppressed a laugh. She smiled at her grandmother. "Thanks for the story, Grams."
Yes, a story...just a story.
Post a Comment
Be the first to comment on this article!