The Shadow
There is a wilderness called the Skull. No one lives there. No one stays there. There are no detailed maps of it, but the stories say nearly all the trees are bare, with lizards squirming around on the stony ground. The soil is so dry that it can slip through your fingers like sand. The sun struggles through the grey mist. You can hear wolves howling and rats squeaking. The air is dead as if the place exists in a vacuum. There are many legends around this place. Sounds like screams can be heard and some say that the moon appears to be red when these noises are heard. Into this setting walked four enthusiastic college hikers who wanted to see if the stories were true.
The hikers were energetically talking to each other and laughing. They weren’t taking notice of their surroundings. They were arguing light-heartedly about who was going to search for more water. Eventually they agreed to draw straws and Mike pulled out the shortest straw. He wandered off not really knowing where he was going but through the trees he thought he could see the glimmer of water reflecting off the mist. He started to get tired and began to walk heavily. He felt light headed and his vision blurred slightly. He decided to turn back but couldn’t figure out where he was coming from. He started to panic and began to run in circles but finally he started to calm himself. He decided to follow the glimmer that he saw in the far distance.
Time continued to pass but Mike had no sense of whether it was seconds, minutes or hours that had gone by. He was still drawn by the unearthly flicker that failed to appear any closer to him. Suddenly he felt cold. It was not really the type of iciness from the air. It was more like a chill down his spine that radiated from the inside out. It made his limbs feel numb like they were disconnected from his body. A worry crept into his consciousness that he might not ever return to his group. His brain felt hazy from the mystification and the unnatural chill.
The light started to dim as he continued along the ragged, twisty path. He tried to remove the abnormal frost from his body by focusing on finding a way out of the misty, gloomy trail. He looked up into the sky to try to relax and get his bearings and his attention was caught. He realised that the moon was an unusual reddish colour. It was a pale glowing colour that reminded him of a lunar eclipse that he had seen as a child. He dismissed it and assumed it was just his eyes playing tricks on him. He redirected his eyes to the glint that he was following. Suddenly the glint was gone. He was petrified from the abrupt vanish of his last hope of salvation.
He sat down and tried to think of happy times he shared with his friends to keep away the fear and despair that was consuming him. He was being sucked into a black world where joy and hope were devoured by an all powerful being that controlled everything. His pulse was slow and his throat closed up, making it hard for him to breathe. He was starting to black out but he was dragged back to awareness by the sound of rustling in the trees.
The rustling grew in intensity until it gradually turned into a roar that felt like it was inside his head. It seemed as if the sound was hundreds of voices were shrieking inside his brain. As he was being dragged back to reality he realised that the shrieking was coming from a shape that was forming before his eyes. He was frozen in the kind of fear that he had never felt before. He was completely paralysed. As he looked at the shape drifting around him he had a sensation that his soul was being ripped out of his heart. That was the last thought he ever had. He dropped with a forceful thud to the ground.
The other three happy hikers were busy trying to start a fire and clumsily assembling tents when they heard a loud distant screech. They became aware that Mike had been gone for a long time. They stopped what they were doing in terror and ran in the direction Mike had gone. They didn’t know how long they had been running for but they were following a glint that could be seen through the trees. They were calling out for Mike in hope that they would discover where he was. Unexpectedly a chill emanated from their spines.
No bodies were ever recovered.
By Kealan Daly SV2
27/11/09