Honey

by 3am-updates

"Write a story involving a streetlamp, a bear, and a kid with a jar of honey." -English Class Writing Prompt. He's tiptoeing inside, warily glancing at the six dark birds on the crumbling rooftop, listening to their careful caws, staring past the golden glimmer of their eyes. a jar of honey falls to the ground and shatters

The golden streetlight cuts through the night, weakly illuminating day-old snow and broken sidewalks, casting shadows on old wood and shattered glass. The door creaks open, barely scratching at the silence that hangs in this place like suffocating blanket of fog. A boy, barely fourteen, creeps out of the house, feet bare as he dances over shards of glass. His cloak is torn, ripped and worn and needing replacement. In his hand, a jar of golden honey shimmers from the light, the only color in the bleak setting, moving like molasses as the boy bends and scoops snow up, hastily packing snowballs as his fingers turn blue.

He makes a basket with his cloak, pulling it up and putting as many snowballs as he can fit in it. He works silently, quickly, glancing around and stealing glances into the shadows. He's fearful, terrified of an empty street.

Rightfully so. He's tiptoeing inside, warily glancing at the six dark birds on the crumbling rooftop, listening to their careful caws, staring past the golden glimmer of their eyes. He's so close, close to the safety of flashlights and whispered words and honey covered snow, but Fate was never on their side, and he never makes it to the door.

"What do we have here…" He knows the voice too well from past experiences, and he knows the shiver that runs through him even better.

He doesn't know why he struggles, anymore. It wouldn't matter in the end, but still he has to be turned around by too-gentle claws. He's once again staring into the face off fear himself, the face of The Nightmare King.

Not the King in person, of course. The King is too important (and too vulnerable towards shining ropes of golden dreamsand) to show himself. Right now, he's simply operating a puppet, hiding behind the shield of fur and a washed-out bear.

He wouldn't have recognized the bear, despite how he had known how it used to be a friendly protector-now he can barely distinguish the difference, It's fur is rougher, tangled and matted and coated with mud. Still, it could of passed, had it not been for the eyes. The eyes he knows so well, the eyes that he can't get out of his mind. The eyes that cut through the dark now, look him over with disappointment, reading his fear like a book. He knows what's about to happen, but he can't prepare himself for the shadows that swallow him.

Golden eyes shine in the dark, a jar of honey falls to the ground and shatters.