by Mizti Danielson-Kaslik,
Black Forest hot chocolate
As night drew closer over the moors, it came to me that I would either need to find an
adventure in the next few minutes or
return to my room at The Raven Inn back in Ravenoak Village for the night. I had to find the cabin soon.
All the maps the villagers had presented me with suggested that the it was
around here, but it’d be very hard to see once the darkness of the autumn
night had completed corrupted this place. A harsh cry of a bird emanated all around, ricocheting
against the hard stone of the rocky surrounding mountainsides. Darkness was
drawing in closer as the wind began to die down and the copper leaves on the
trees grew still with no breeze to move them. From what I had been told, I didn’t want to be on the
moors after darkness as I may become one of the death statistics of Ravenoak and
indeed there was something unsettling about the moors as a strange cry seemed to hang on in the air, though
there was no sound other than that of the bird. Perhaps it was that the silence
was uncomfortable. By now, the sun disappeared completely behind the hills and the clouds vanished, though no
stars corrupted the darkness of the sky. The call of the bird sounded again, splitting the air as a mirror shattering upon the floor. Perhaps I should turn back, come back in the
daylight. I didn’t like this place. Nothing good could come of my being here and
I could barely see anything. But all the murders had happened in the hours of
darkness, if there was going to be any movement from the cabin, it would be as
midnight approached. A final call sounded
as the white moon emerged from behind the mountainside and held itself proudly
in the inky blackness of the sky. The call seemed to die away before it was
complete. And then there was nothing. Simple silence. Undisrupted and
pure. It was as if the sound had
shattered against the lake ahead of
me and become the tiniest ripple upon the
dark opaque surface of the large body of water below. The lake seemed to stop in
motion, as if caught in time, as the pure light of the full noon shone upon the
facet. The water appeared endlessly deep with a thick black swirling mist
swimming a few meters down. The mist seemed to move as smoke in the inky
darkness until it diffused throughout the lake. The blackness of the lake could easy swallow any
unfortunate swimmer deep into its unfeeling depths.
Preceding the
lake, the plane of land which I was standing upon seemed to almost rock as
force came upon it. Sickly sticklike brownish grass grew in little tufts from
the cracked dry earth underfoot, small weeds seemed to sprout from between the
tufts with darkened discoloured petals. Nothing good could grow
here. A long wooden planked deck
stretched out from the small island over the waters to the centre of the lake.
The wood was dark in colour and seemed almostcompletely untouched, other than one
small footprint deeply intrenched in the pine. The wood had
not rotted, though it was obviously used. I stepped on it gingerly, well
aware it could collapse at any
moment. The deck stretched to another tiny island in the
lake; no more than a few square meters in size. A small wooden structure stood proudly in its centre
with a ramshackle roof, topped with protruding nails and small circular windows, partly obscured with
little red drapes within the cabin’s walls. A faint light filtered through from behind the
red door of the cabin. This was the cabin
on the map. A soft sound of whispering
emanated. I stopped. Tiptoeing now,
I slowly came closer to the door. This was a stupid thing to do. Why hadn’t I
just accepted Mrs. Meredith’s offer of hot chocolate and read my
book for the night? It was cold. I wanted a blanket. I reached into my pocket and took
out my silver flask. Damn. It was empty. Even a drop would have made this
situation more pleasant. Slipping it
back into my pocket, I noticed the door was open slightly. I reached to
knock. Reaching. Reaching. I
knocked once and immediately wished I hadn’t. A deafening scream came from
within. Without thought, I shoved the heavy door ajar
with both hands. There was silence inside
the cabin.
“Hello…” I gulped “is anyone here?”
There was no answer. The cabin
was completely silent. Until an
old sound of thick liquid in motion sounded very softly beneath
my feet. I looked down with a start. The sight shocked me. A body. The throat
slit. Convulsing its last on the red carpet. I gasped and dropped
to my knees. The body spoke with a thick
stammer as the blood gushed out onto the floor; “Tell them it’s…
it’s…”. The body’s cold pale hand clutched my
forearm harshly as it attempted to speak.
I was lost for what to say. The hand
relinquished its hold on me. The person had died. Murdered upon the moors.
A fountain a hot tears camee from the corner of my eye. I looked down at the body’s eyes, intending to close
them. They shocked me. They
were totally black. Soulless. Lifeless. I gasped again, believing
my own eyes were deceiving me. The tear fell upon my left hand, which it came to my attention
was covered in blood. Then I realised. If that had just happened, the murderer
must be here. I stood up and ran from the cabin, my heart beating as a
drum. But there was nothing. No murderer.
There was total silence. The call of the raven sounded once more, and
I ran back towards the village to tell
the villagers of what I had seen and about the eyes. The lifeless
black eyes. I swore never to return to
that place again in
darkness.
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