Being Human - S. Liongate
566 Words
Creeping, like the endless march of winter, a crippling fear claimed each hair one by one. They rose; quivering needles, screaming danger. How irrational. How child-like.
The world had me surrounded. Blind. We fear the darkness. We fear the danger it brings.
The vulnerability.
Monsters lurk in the night. Horrors unseen, as we lie helpless babes, eyes closed, prowl like the jungle cat slinking through the undergrowth. No one is immune.
But this was not the night.
No…
This was another blindness. A blindness from mother nature herself.
I thought I could do this - bend my instincts against the grain. The goosebumps gave away my lack of self-control. Either side of me the edge of the path was barely visible, like looking at the world through rice paper. Damp bled through the layers I wore, forcing shivers up my spine.
I was half way, breath adding to the thick fog, when it happened. Fear struck hard; a terror so demanding it invaded my body and mind. As my knees jellified and my feet became numb to the floor, my mind turned to icy slush. Undefined thoughts wedged against a glacier of innate human nature.
It bobbed. Rising, falling, weaving through the icy fog. What was it? What could this silent light, muted by the grey of water droplets crowding the air, be? It moved so strangely. One moment the eerie ball of red sped towards me, the next it slid slowly off to the left before floating up.
There had to be an explanation. Something rational. Something sane. Nothing came to mind. Nothing sensible came to mind. Each panting breath balanced in the air; fear crystalised. Along the back of my legs the urge to run bit at my muscles, nipped at my heels.
Oh god.
This waking nightmare rushed me. Zooming, unearthly, toward my panicked body. My rising heart blocked the frightened scream from being released. The thing turned away, zipping in the opposite direction. This was my chance.
One rapid step in front of the other, I moved away. I couldn’t have prayed harder for my footsteps to be devoid of sound. The distance was growing. I was on the cusp of running when it turned.
Save me! Lord above, don’t let it get me, don’t let the aliens take me. The spaceship, deathly quiet (unlike my pounding heart), blew through the fog. My almost run had me hit a fork in the path. In the brutal grip of fear I couldn’t remember which way to the park exit. Within the fog, a fog so dense my own hand became a shadow of itself when raised, I couldn’t see to decide.
Left or right?
Left or right!?
Too late they were here. The aliens, oh god, the aliens were upon me. They were going to steal me away in their spaceship, experiment on me and make me wear… a collar.
A collar?
The red light was attached to a dark band - a collar on a dog.
Oh god I was so dumb! There were no aliens. It was a dog in a light-up collar. Relief poured over me. The feeling of having been so ridiculous snuggled in tightly, closer than the fog. The grey veil lost its edge.
Fear quelled, I stepped on.
Pen name: S. Liongate
Dreame Books:
The Wrong Hope
Convenience Nights: A Collection of Short Stories
Claiming The Remnant
- Writer
