Terror

• Yasmine Wright Gittins, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2015

I sit with my back against the wall waiting for them. Waiting for the Terror. As time trickles by my dread builds like a wild raging river held back. A dam. Soon that barrier will be broken through. Cast aside. Insignificant, as my Terror consumes me. My limbs are stiff, sweat gleams on my upper lip and chill fits rack my petrified body. The suffocating odour of unwashed bodies and mildew becomes overwhelming. The bars on my squat window, silhouetted against the full moon, cast eerie shadows upon the walls of my prison. A layer of brick and earth is all that separates me from the stars and their complex dance. There is only one constellation I have absolutely no wish to see. The Hydra. Another gift to mankind this penitentiary has ripped from my treasured memories. The stench always hits me first. The ancient scent of things bred underground growing in evil for centuries without the comfort of light and colour. Then you hear them. The slithering of bloated bodies being dragged across the jail floor. The hiss of cruel intentions and growing malice. Then you see their eyes. Glowing red hypnotic eyes alight with greed and hatred, intent upon their meal. They can’t see. Not yet. For three years they have hunted at night until someone, too cowardly to keep quiet, screams and attract their attention. You can hear the Terror rendering their victims mute and you know then for sure that they’re a goner. Tonight I notice new ones. Their reptilian eyes are yellow and intelligent. They can actually see. I scramble to my feet in desperation. No. NO. NO! I can feel Terror clawing inside my stomach, my hands shake. Fresh Meat, Fresh Meat the yellow eyes say. Sweat pours down my face and the hair stands up on the back of my neck. Fresh Meat, Fresh Meat. Now I understand the other’s cowardice. No one could resist the Terror. It forces open my mouth and tears out my voice with a piercing scream of triumph that shatters the night sky like fragile glass. I accept my fate. I will be murdered in cold blood without even the comfort of my own voice. Unexpectedly there is the clang of metal on metal and gunfire as I raise my head, uncomprehending. There they are slithering forward diamond heads raised to strike. Where the door used to be is a gaping hole ringed by jagged teeth. A threshold into the unknown. Someone grabs my wrist from behind as I try to shrink back against what used to be my only salvation. I attempt to slam my elbow into the holder of my wrist but they block my blow and spin me around to shelter me from the flying shrapnel. It’s a young man, short but stockily built, with warm brown eyes. “Are you okay?” he shouts over the white noise. “I wish,” I want to say. But already I am sinking into the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness.