The Screaming Skull.
Title: The Screaming Skull
Characters/Pairings: Chansung
Genre/Rating: Horror, PG-13
Word Count: 1,600~
Summary: A weird and eerie story of a young fisherman.
A/N: Just a short one-shot with a bit of creepy. Inspired by the short story 'The Screaming Skull' by Francis Marion Crawford (1908).
“56 Belmont Road. Well I guess this is it,” Chansung muttered to himself. He walked up to the old, double story house that was perched at the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea. He just stepped on land after a month’s journey out in the ocean but was immediately greeted with the sad news of his cousin’s passing. His cousin was a decade older than him and was the closest family he had for miles around. Being a fisherman does mean you get to sail to a lot of exotic and new places but Chansung always comes back to the same old village by the sea. If a seaman doesn’t have a permanent land anchor then there is no point in going back to land at all. No, Chansung loved the ocean but he also loved land too much. So when he returned and was informed that his cousin and his family had passed away while he was at sea and left everything to him in their will, he was overcome with a bittersweet feeling.
The house was peculiarly placed on top of the cliff that overlooks the rest of the village and the beach but to Chansung it was perfect. When he finally reached the top and made it to the front door, he fished the keys out of his pocket and welcomed himself in. The house was very old and was bound to make a lot of noise -evident by the creaks that greeted him with every step- but there was something odd about the house.
Like a loud silence.
A muted scream.
He couldn’t really put his finger on what it was but just shrugged it off and went about to unpack his few belongings. Always going out to sea meant that he couldn’t carry more than what a knapsack could manage so all he had were the clothes on his back and spare set of clothes along with sentimental items he couldn’t bear to part with.
Now before he entered the house, the council that gave him the house keys also gave him a warning. They felt obliged to tell him that it was in the house where the family died. Not at the same time, no. The son died first from a very heavy fever at the tender age of 8 only hours after his last journey out to sea. This obviously caused some tension between Mr and Mrs Hwang and only God knows the truth of what happened next. Some say that the mother was in so much grief that she died in her sleep from a broken heart only a week after the boy’s passing.
Others say it was much more complicated than that.
The couple were known to argue and some villagers swore they could hear their fights late into the night from their homes below the cliff. That is, until one day it went silent. Mr Hwang was a doctor so there’s 101 ways he could’ve killed his wife without leaving a trace but lead poisoning was the most popular theory. They say that he poured lead into his wife’s ear when she went to sleep after a heavy fight that lasted for hours one particular night. Whatever the villagers say, the doctors that ran the tests on her the next day concluded a death due to heart failure.
At this point, Chansung only scoffed at the rumours and accepted the good word of the doctors over the gossip of bored villagers. However, it was the husband’s story that was the more stranger of the bunch. After his wife’s passing, doctor Hwang started acting a little strange. He would always seclude himself to his house but the times he did resurface from his solitude, he would be spotted walking along the beach with a cardboard box in his hand. This lasted for a week and a half until he too passed away of heart failure on the bed in the master bedroom.
The same place his wife died.
The same time his wife died.
Chansung was still unfazed by the stories but thanked the council all the same and went to his new house. Now that he’s standing in the abandoned house with its eerie atmosphere, the stories don’t sound quite as far-fetched.
His first day at the house was accompanied by a cold, still night. It was one of those nights where the whole world seemed to stand still.
The wind was still.
The grass was still.
The moon hiding behind the clouds and leaving the villagers to fend for themselves with their lamps. After a hearty dinner, he made himself comfortable in the master bedroom and began to read by candlelight. He was a good halfway into the book before something prickled at the back of his neck. It wasn’t a physical thing but more like a sound. It might sound strange that you can feel a sound but like how any botanist will tell you that plants can feel and a sailor would tell you that the ocean was living, Chansung could feel this sound. But it didn’t make sense to him, how can he feel this sound? How can he know its presence? But he just knew. He couldn’t hear it. But he felt it. So he just blew off the candle and settled himself for bed. But he couldn’t sleep. Being a sailor meant that you can turn the ocean’s mightiest roars into soft lullabies so sound was no problem but now he couldn’t. It was because he wasn’t hearing this sound. It was because he could feel it. Deep into his bones, where it rattled against his skull and travelled to his arteries, only to make its way to his heart to give it a tight grip.
He sat upright and tried to catch his breath again. It took him until around 3 in the morning until his heart started beating normally again and he drifted off to a fitful slumber.
This continued on for weeks. Every time he would try to sleep, the sound would creep its way into his body, almost crushing his soul with its tight grip, only to release him around the same time every night to let him sleep. 3:17AM to be exact. The same time every night. If he were to tell that to any of the other villagers, they would tell him that this was the exact time the wife (and the husband) died in their bedroom but Chansung would have none of that. He was never one to believe in banshees and the mermaid stories the other sailors would pass around and being on land won’t change his resolve.
So one night he tried to pin-point the source of the sound. It must come from somewhere and maybe if he found it, he can stop it. He sat on the edge of the bed and listened very carefully. He concentrated and soon he found himself being pulled towards the cupboard opposite the large bed. He followed his instincts and walked over to the cupboard. He held up the candle to level with his face so that he can see clearly and yanked open the door. Inside were only a few coats and jackets left behind by his cousin and a few folded linen sheets on the shelf above. Moving the sheets aside, he found a cardboard box tucked away into the far corner. Open opening the door, the sound got stronger. Hesitantly, he reached out for the box and touched it with his fingers. A pulse went through his body and he retracted his hand in fright. This is it. This is the source of the sound. He reached for the box again and pulled it off the shelf. He set down the candle on the bedside table and just stared at the box. Pushing away all thoughts, he opened the box.
A skull.
A human skull, not that much smaller than his. Chansung only stared and after a few minutes he closed the box again. The sound was muffled by a miniscule of a fraction so he knew this was the sound. The screaming skull was the source of all his troubles. His cousin was a doctor and doctors are known for carrying around strange things so he brushed of the skull as being an artefact from his trainee days. And that the rattling sound coming from said skull when it is shaken is just a lose bone. The female size of the skull has nothing to do with anything. And the small clumps of solidified lead that fell out of the skull when shaken are just debris from an old experiment.
He shook the skull some more to try and get rid of all the lead inside but he couldn’t quite get it all out. Unhinging the jaw, he immediately felt a sense of dread wash over him. Like the skull knew what it was doing. And the skull wasn’t happy. Swallowing saliva to try and get rid of the lump lodged in his throat, he took a deep breath and opened the jaw a little more.
The skull started screaming louder.
And louder.
With every movement the noise went up a notch until Chansung’s ears buzzed like he was being thrown overboard and drowning at sea. But he had to do it.
When he thought the opening was big enough to fit his hand inside, he peered inside to see if he can spot where the lead is. Not finding anything, he brought his hand closer and closer to the mouth.
Closer and closer his fingers got to the jaw.
Closer and closer his fingers got to the teeth.
Closer and closer-
Snap.
Crunch.
Drop.
Drip, drip went the blood along with the clunk, clunk of the lead.
Characters/Pairings: Chansung
Genre/Rating: Horror, PG-13
Word Count: 1,600~
Summary: A weird and eerie story of a young fisherman.
A/N: Just a short one-shot with a bit of creepy. Inspired by the short story 'The Screaming Skull' by Francis Marion Crawford (1908).
“56 Belmont Road. Well I guess this is it,” Chansung muttered to himself. He walked up to the old, double story house that was perched at the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea. He just stepped on land after a month’s journey out in the ocean but was immediately greeted with the sad news of his cousin’s passing. His cousin was a decade older than him and was the closest family he had for miles around. Being a fisherman does mean you get to sail to a lot of exotic and new places but Chansung always comes back to the same old village by the sea. If a seaman doesn’t have a permanent land anchor then there is no point in going back to land at all. No, Chansung loved the ocean but he also loved land too much. So when he returned and was informed that his cousin and his family had passed away while he was at sea and left everything to him in their will, he was overcome with a bittersweet feeling.
The house was peculiarly placed on top of the cliff that overlooks the rest of the village and the beach but to Chansung it was perfect. When he finally reached the top and made it to the front door, he fished the keys out of his pocket and welcomed himself in. The house was very old and was bound to make a lot of noise -evident by the creaks that greeted him with every step- but there was something odd about the house.
Like a loud silence.
A muted scream.
He couldn’t really put his finger on what it was but just shrugged it off and went about to unpack his few belongings. Always going out to sea meant that he couldn’t carry more than what a knapsack could manage so all he had were the clothes on his back and spare set of clothes along with sentimental items he couldn’t bear to part with.
Now before he entered the house, the council that gave him the house keys also gave him a warning. They felt obliged to tell him that it was in the house where the family died. Not at the same time, no. The son died first from a very heavy fever at the tender age of 8 only hours after his last journey out to sea. This obviously caused some tension between Mr and Mrs Hwang and only God knows the truth of what happened next. Some say that the mother was in so much grief that she died in her sleep from a broken heart only a week after the boy’s passing.
Others say it was much more complicated than that.
The couple were known to argue and some villagers swore they could hear their fights late into the night from their homes below the cliff. That is, until one day it went silent. Mr Hwang was a doctor so there’s 101 ways he could’ve killed his wife without leaving a trace but lead poisoning was the most popular theory. They say that he poured lead into his wife’s ear when she went to sleep after a heavy fight that lasted for hours one particular night. Whatever the villagers say, the doctors that ran the tests on her the next day concluded a death due to heart failure.
At this point, Chansung only scoffed at the rumours and accepted the good word of the doctors over the gossip of bored villagers. However, it was the husband’s story that was the more stranger of the bunch. After his wife’s passing, doctor Hwang started acting a little strange. He would always seclude himself to his house but the times he did resurface from his solitude, he would be spotted walking along the beach with a cardboard box in his hand. This lasted for a week and a half until he too passed away of heart failure on the bed in the master bedroom.
The same place his wife died.
The same time his wife died.
Chansung was still unfazed by the stories but thanked the council all the same and went to his new house. Now that he’s standing in the abandoned house with its eerie atmosphere, the stories don’t sound quite as far-fetched.
His first day at the house was accompanied by a cold, still night. It was one of those nights where the whole world seemed to stand still.
The wind was still.
The grass was still.
The moon hiding behind the clouds and leaving the villagers to fend for themselves with their lamps. After a hearty dinner, he made himself comfortable in the master bedroom and began to read by candlelight. He was a good halfway into the book before something prickled at the back of his neck. It wasn’t a physical thing but more like a sound. It might sound strange that you can feel a sound but like how any botanist will tell you that plants can feel and a sailor would tell you that the ocean was living, Chansung could feel this sound. But it didn’t make sense to him, how can he feel this sound? How can he know its presence? But he just knew. He couldn’t hear it. But he felt it. So he just blew off the candle and settled himself for bed. But he couldn’t sleep. Being a sailor meant that you can turn the ocean’s mightiest roars into soft lullabies so sound was no problem but now he couldn’t. It was because he wasn’t hearing this sound. It was because he could feel it. Deep into his bones, where it rattled against his skull and travelled to his arteries, only to make its way to his heart to give it a tight grip.
He sat upright and tried to catch his breath again. It took him until around 3 in the morning until his heart started beating normally again and he drifted off to a fitful slumber.
This continued on for weeks. Every time he would try to sleep, the sound would creep its way into his body, almost crushing his soul with its tight grip, only to release him around the same time every night to let him sleep. 3:17AM to be exact. The same time every night. If he were to tell that to any of the other villagers, they would tell him that this was the exact time the wife (and the husband) died in their bedroom but Chansung would have none of that. He was never one to believe in banshees and the mermaid stories the other sailors would pass around and being on land won’t change his resolve.
So one night he tried to pin-point the source of the sound. It must come from somewhere and maybe if he found it, he can stop it. He sat on the edge of the bed and listened very carefully. He concentrated and soon he found himself being pulled towards the cupboard opposite the large bed. He followed his instincts and walked over to the cupboard. He held up the candle to level with his face so that he can see clearly and yanked open the door. Inside were only a few coats and jackets left behind by his cousin and a few folded linen sheets on the shelf above. Moving the sheets aside, he found a cardboard box tucked away into the far corner. Open opening the door, the sound got stronger. Hesitantly, he reached out for the box and touched it with his fingers. A pulse went through his body and he retracted his hand in fright. This is it. This is the source of the sound. He reached for the box again and pulled it off the shelf. He set down the candle on the bedside table and just stared at the box. Pushing away all thoughts, he opened the box.
A skull.
A human skull, not that much smaller than his. Chansung only stared and after a few minutes he closed the box again. The sound was muffled by a miniscule of a fraction so he knew this was the sound. The screaming skull was the source of all his troubles. His cousin was a doctor and doctors are known for carrying around strange things so he brushed of the skull as being an artefact from his trainee days. And that the rattling sound coming from said skull when it is shaken is just a lose bone. The female size of the skull has nothing to do with anything. And the small clumps of solidified lead that fell out of the skull when shaken are just debris from an old experiment.
He shook the skull some more to try and get rid of all the lead inside but he couldn’t quite get it all out. Unhinging the jaw, he immediately felt a sense of dread wash over him. Like the skull knew what it was doing. And the skull wasn’t happy. Swallowing saliva to try and get rid of the lump lodged in his throat, he took a deep breath and opened the jaw a little more.
The skull started screaming louder.
And louder.
With every movement the noise went up a notch until Chansung’s ears buzzed like he was being thrown overboard and drowning at sea. But he had to do it.
When he thought the opening was big enough to fit his hand inside, he peered inside to see if he can spot where the lead is. Not finding anything, he brought his hand closer and closer to the mouth.
Closer and closer his fingers got to the jaw.
Closer and closer his fingers got to the teeth.
Closer and closer-
Snap.
Crunch.
Drop.
Drip, drip went the blood along with the clunk, clunk of the lead.