Dark Days

• Shae Pegrum, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2017

I saw it shaking in a corner … Hi I’m Grace, I’m 13 and this is the story of how I messed up and I mean really messed up, I live in an Insane Asylum because apparently I’m crazy but it’s normal to have voices in your head, right? Anyway…
I was sitting on my bed one day looking at the ceiling, watching the shadows from the outside world dance upon the cracked, dirty roof. Until I heard a voice, but not just any voice, it’s a voice I hadn’t heard before it told me to look in the box in the closet, the CHAINED box. I know I couldn’t but it was worth a shot. I opened the closet and grabbed the box, but the chains weren’t there. I opened it to see a little bottle with black dust inside, I took it, opened it and a black shadow jumped out and flew out of the room. I yelled for the guard and he came running in, I asked if anyone had lived here before me that could have left it there. He took his hat off slowly and said with a crackling voice, “A girl named Amelia was in here for hurting people without actually touching them.”
“Why did she hurt them?” I asked.
“She was abused at home and when she found out her about her ‘power’ she thought everyone should suffer, she later committed suicide because she couldn’t handle it anymore.”
“Handle what?” I asked, he looked at me, stood up and walked off.
I sat there all night wondering what I had let go. Finally I fell asleep but woke up to screams. I ran out still half asleep to see what was wrong and turned the corner to see everyone from rooms 36-54 lying there… not moving. It was a small asylum so I knew everyone, I stared at everyone until I heard crashing down the hall, and I followed the racket only to find the creature. It was trashing everything, I yelled and it looked at me. It got cold and I was caught in the gaze of it, as it was making its way over to me. I crawled in the corner and it bent down, its cold skin touched mine and then it quickly hurried away.
I grabbed the bottle and ran out to see everyone I knew bleeding. I followed the blood down the hallways, I saw the figure shaking in a corner, and I went over to it. I’m finally standing right in front of it, scared for my life, I tried to open the bottle but felt something pushing it down and I heard the voice for the last time which said, “I’m sorry”. I opened the bottle and the shadow got sucked in. I closed the bottle and threw it as hard as I could to the ground, destroying it… it was done, it was all over. I walked to the bodies, dropped to my knees and cried.