I Lay There

• Emma Standish, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2016

I lay there. I lay in excruciating pain. I realised I was paralysed. My back muscles were broken and my legs were slack. I lay on the Monsters path, Monsters that had forced us into the few reserves that we had left.
Escape was impossible, for we were imprisoned in the Monsters ways. They streamed around our small reign, screeching and snarling as they stalked. Some flew, their horrible droning cry traveling for miles, slicing through the air, searching for us.
By day they galloped around, paws thundering into a constant hum, one after another. Night was when we moved around, but we were always cautious of the raging Monsters who still preyed on our blood. But alas by dawn, the remains of the innocent lay in protest to the great beasts that had caused such havoc.
They sort us out with their many eyes, ever so often rearing their ugly heads to shriek their high cries.
Legend told of the first of their kind, pulling itself along. We were panic-stricken at first, but it was not much of a threat. Then they started to thrive on our earth and soil, intelligence growing, death-hungry eyes dripping.
Sometimes we hurt the Monsters, denting horrible bruises in their hard, armoured flesh. If we still had life left in us, we would flee. Never stay and fight, but flee.
But the Monsters were always faster.
My mind started to fog over. As my life blood drained to my final resting place, I realised that there was nowhere to flee, nowhere to hide.
Another Monster howled towards me, wrecking chaos in my veins, its heavy paws crunching my life draining body, and then it bellowed away, leaving me to suffer.
I stared up glassy eyed at the sky as a queasy dawn lit it. Finally, in my last shallow breaths it came to me.
Soon I would be just another dead kangaroo on the road.