This was my entry for the Monster In the Well fanfiction contest. I lost, but you can still read it! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Now, if I were Mr. Neff, would I be entering my own contest?
Echoes of the Past
It would have been better if they hadn't given him children.
It was hunger that propelled him out of the well and into the sheep pen. It was hunger that made him drag the children back down the well, into his lair. But he couldn't quite figure out what it was that upset him when they cried.
They would scream with terror, but it was not until they began to cry that the hunger was pushed back slightly. He would bring them to his lair, and look at them, and watch the tears running down their faces.
Tears. Tears were bad.
A child had cried, a long time ago, a little girl. Sora. Sofa. Sophie. No, that wasn't right. Why were names so hard to remember? The child in the picture on his desk.
This child had cried, and he had played games to make her happy. Crying was bad. Why? He wasn't sure.
When he brought the children to the well and they began to cry, he remembered the little girl he had cheered up. Another feeling shoved the hunger aside. He wanted to make these children happy, too.
He tried. He tried to speak them, showed them his drawings (had he made them? Why?). He took the fish out of the water and showed them to the children. Eventually they would stop crying and curl up, staring. Did that mean they were happy? He wasn't sure. He just wanted to eat them. No! He wanted to take care of them! Children needed to be cared for. But they tasted good. He needed food. Weren't children food? How did you take care of food? It always puzzled him. Like the lioness that raises a baby gazelle as her own, he was torn between predation and protection. How could he eat the children and take care of them as well? Could he keep one to care for, and eat the rest? The children would curl up and stare at nothing, even when he spoke to them. He would eat them eventually. He always would. And then he would arrange their skulls and teeth in the water, so that when the next child came, it wouldn't be lonely. It wouldn't cry.
Would he have eaten the child in the picture? He could never decide.
If only he could remember.
That monster is just really freaking creepy. Thanks for reading! Have a marvelous day! 14 days until the Maelstrom...