Inner Monsters

• Sibi Packirisamy, Grade 10, North Sydney Boys High School
• Short Story
• 2015

Excellence Award in the 'The Write Track 2015' competition

It was hot enough to fry a small insect and we had driven in this heat for two hours only to find that we had punctured a tyre and that the gas was leaking. I was thinking that it couldn't get any worse and instead it was is an opportunity to get out and stretch. Thinking along the same lines, my friends do the same. As we try to shake the discomfort out of our sweaty, sticky clothes, we notice where we had stopped; a remote place somewhere on the coast of Australia and the only noticeable landmark was a small cliff. We walk over to it and find that it’s relatively small only at around fifteen to twenty metres with a safe looking body of water at the bottom. Excitedly, one of my friends quickly scamper off and return immediately holding five sticks of roughly the same thickness. He quickly explains that we were doing short straws and we would all jump in order of the shortest to longest. I figure that anything would be better than hours of ‘A Thousand Bottles of Bear on the Wall’ so it doesn't take long for me to agree. Luckily I draw the longest stick, so we form a line shouting encouragement at the unlucky guy who has to go first. Taking of their shoes and socks, one by one my four friends jump from the cliff edge each exclaiming a unique whoop, and at last I stand alone.
Shaking, I take a few paces back, close my eyes and try to calm myself. Soon it feels as though my shaking subsides and so I open my eyes to find myself facing an obscure, shadowy figure. It’s constantly subtly changing shape so it appears as though it has no definite form, but it gives off relentless waves of emotions that are so dark and gloomy, it is physically debilitating. I feel as though it's slowly approaching me, and as it does I can feel the sensation of fear and giddiness spiking with each step. My palms are now getting sweaty with anticipation and I find myself paralysed, not even being able to shift where I am looking. The creature stops suddenly and instead forces me to look down the cliff-face at my friends who were obliviously frolicking in the waves below. It seems to be altering my vision too, highlighting all the sharp edges and corners of the cliff and making me get a faint sensation of vertigo. As it does this, I can now hear its voice in my head; soft, refined and intelligent telling me of the things that could go wrong and in a repetitive fashion so it slowly became less of a thought and more of a heartbeat. I force myself to look at the creature in the eye and push out the horrid thoughts it was planting in my mind.
Swallowing my fear, I jump.