Fear: a short story

I couldn't take it. It just ate away at me. There was this feeling in my head that wouldn't go away.

All of a sudden, my feeling turned to reality; it was standing right in front of me: I had no clue as to where I was.

"Hello? Is anybody there?"

After a few seconds, I tried again, but no one answered.

At least, that's what I thought.

After what seemed like an eternity, I heard someone's voice. It was small and terrified, like it was in the same situation that I was in.

"Can you help me, mister?"

"Maybe, but I'll need you to step out from the darkness.

At first, I thought he didn't hear me, but after a minute or two, a little child stepped into what light I had, which wasn't very much.

I took a look at the poor child.

He wore a white shirt, with plenty of stains on it, most of which I assumed were blood. He also wore jeans that were ripped at the knee. Like the shirt, there were plenty of bloodstains.

The poor kid. He must have been through hell.

My thought was interrupted when he asked me the same question from before.

"Can you help me mister? My Momma and Poppa are missing and I don't know where I am."

There was something unnerving about this kid. For one thing, his voice wasn't quivering as much as I thought it would.

But I shook it off as nothing and agreed to help him find his parents.

2 hours later…

After a fair amount of walking, I noticed that we were coming across a small town. It was a bit weird, because according to my knowledge of the geography of this region, there wasn't any town in this area.

Then again, considering I was lost, I suppose knowing that was completely useless.

I turned to the boy, and noticed that his head had been looking down at the ground the entire time. Weird thing was, I couldn't see his face at all.

Without warning, he lifted his hand and pointed to a building. From this distance, it appeared to be an inn.

"We can rest there, mister."

"H-how would you know-"

"Mister, please can we rest there? My legs are quite tired, and I'm very hungry."

"I-if you want to, I suppose we can stop for the night."

Later that night…

After a bit of dinner and a cup of tea, I was ready to sleep.

First, I needed to check on the kid to see if he was alright.

What I heard shocked me.

As I reached for the handle to his room, I heard something. I can tell you right now, it was not a very pleasant sound.

I could hear the sound of something snapping, then a whimper of pain. More snapping, and more whimpers of pain.

What I heard next curdled my blood and haunts my dream to this day.

After a few seconds of silence, I attempted to open the door when a bloodcurdling scream was emitted from the room.

I couldn't believe what I had heard. Every cell in my brain told me to run, yet I couldn't move. I needed to know what had happened. In hindsight, I wish that I hadn't.

When I opened the door, what I saw chilled me to the bone; the innkeeper's body was in several different places!

Her right leg was nailed to the wall, and her other leg was burning in the fire. Meanwhile, her head was sitting on the table, her mouth twisted into the same terrified scream that I had heard before.

But what was worse of all is that in the kid's mouth, was her heart!

I couldn't take it. I ran as fast as I could out of the town and never looked back.

When I went back the next day, the entire town had vanished, along with the kid. All I found was a single wall, with the words:

"We know."

As soon as I read those words, an unseen force pulled me into some sort of black abyss, where my mind was assaulted by all sorts of horrible imagery, such as a man being eaten alive by the undead, a small child being sucked in by a wood chipper, and what was worst of all, a group of children being burned alive. And I couldn't do anything about this, as my own flesh was slowly being peeled off by the kid I had saved the previous day.

As I screamed for help, I had found that I couldn't make a sound.

Drifting off into the Abyss, I screamed one last time before being consumed by darkness.

I woke up in my bed with the sun shining in my eyes.

No darkness, nothing. Just me and my empty house.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

As I went to my kitchen to get some breakfast, I noticed a note on my kitchen table with these words;

"Fear us."

As I threw it out, I could swear I heard a scream in the distance.

I cast it off like so much dust, and opened my front door to see the sun greeting me.

It was going to be a good day.

The end.