Scritch
This was a random, spur-of-the-moment kind of short story. It's not quite as bad as I thought it'd be, but not as good as I'd hoped. It may or may not be worth reading.
A sound, too soft to be a scratch, perhaps one might call it a scritch, roused her from her bed one cold, winter night. She hadn't wanted to wake from her dream, but the scritch kept calling her, tormenting her. With a sense of finality, a sudden acceptance of necessity, she threw away her blankets, facing the cold with all the strength she could summon, and left her bedroom, all to find the scritch.
scritch, scritch, scritch
She couldn't resist its call. Curiosity, a need to sleep, or even something beyond the natural kept her searching, almost hypnotically for the scritch.
scritch, scritch, scritch
She went into the bathroom, certain that the sound was coming from it, but as soon as she entered, the sound disapated, only to reappear at a further distance, in another room. Over and over again, she entered different rooms, the sound changing it's direction every time. Too tired to be annoyed, she simply kept following the sound, her tiny feet pacing to and fro through the hallway, lightly scuffing the floor, almost in mimick of the scritch.
scritch, scritch, scritch
Finally, she came to the livingroom, where the moonlight pooled in from the window and lighted the furnishings in an eerie glow. The light was unusually strong, but she noticed very little in her pursuit of the incessant scritch, forgetting almost that anything else existed. Now the scritch was coming from outside.
Forgetting her sweater, nor even noticing its absence in the chill, she left the house and wandered into the yard. The sky appeared even brighter than it did in daylight, lighting the black trees to an almost silver shine and the grass almost to a pale yellow that was for once not the result of too little rain. She soaked in the moonlight glow, appearing almost as sprit-like as her surroundings.
scritch, scritch, scritch
Following the sound into the old barn, she found a circle of cricket corpses scritched, calling her to join them in their celebration of a momentary call back to life. And dancing in circles around the miniature orchestra were disjointed bones of once formed skeletons, nothing left to keep them together in one form. Some were human, some not so human. A jawless canine head grinned up at her through eyeless sockets. She smiled back, she knew that creature. She accepted a disembodied hand and danced through the night, until she began to see more than just the bones of the dead. She began to see laughing, smiling spirits. She began to hear their voices. Soon, she saw them and nothing else. The bones were gone, the corpses forgotten, and soon even the earth faded with the dawn of another day.
A sound, too soft to be a scratch, perhaps one might call it a scritch, roused her from her bed one cold, winter night. She hadn't wanted to wake from her dream, but the scritch kept calling her, tormenting her. With a sense of finality, a sudden acceptance of necessity, she threw away her blankets, facing the cold with all the strength she could summon, and left her bedroom, all to find the scritch.
scritch, scritch, scritch
She couldn't resist its call. Curiosity, a need to sleep, or even something beyond the natural kept her searching, almost hypnotically for the scritch.
scritch, scritch, scritch
She went into the bathroom, certain that the sound was coming from it, but as soon as she entered, the sound disapated, only to reappear at a further distance, in another room. Over and over again, she entered different rooms, the sound changing it's direction every time. Too tired to be annoyed, she simply kept following the sound, her tiny feet pacing to and fro through the hallway, lightly scuffing the floor, almost in mimick of the scritch.
scritch, scritch, scritch
Finally, she came to the livingroom, where the moonlight pooled in from the window and lighted the furnishings in an eerie glow. The light was unusually strong, but she noticed very little in her pursuit of the incessant scritch, forgetting almost that anything else existed. Now the scritch was coming from outside.
Forgetting her sweater, nor even noticing its absence in the chill, she left the house and wandered into the yard. The sky appeared even brighter than it did in daylight, lighting the black trees to an almost silver shine and the grass almost to a pale yellow that was for once not the result of too little rain. She soaked in the moonlight glow, appearing almost as sprit-like as her surroundings.
scritch, scritch, scritch
Following the sound into the old barn, she found a circle of cricket corpses scritched, calling her to join them in their celebration of a momentary call back to life. And dancing in circles around the miniature orchestra were disjointed bones of once formed skeletons, nothing left to keep them together in one form. Some were human, some not so human. A jawless canine head grinned up at her through eyeless sockets. She smiled back, she knew that creature. She accepted a disembodied hand and danced through the night, until she began to see more than just the bones of the dead. She began to see laughing, smiling spirits. She began to hear their voices. Soon, she saw them and nothing else. The bones were gone, the corpses forgotten, and soon even the earth faded with the dawn of another day.