Was It There The Night Before?

• Gabrielle Kent, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2018

I could feel the heat of the sun looming above me. It was as if it was warning me to get up for school before I heard the guttural voice of my sister yelling out, “Get up before I’ve got to come in and drag you out of your tattered bed.”

I tossed and turned for a while until it felt like the sun was burning my neck in anger for not waking up.
“Okay, Okay I’ll get up.” I whispered
Nonchalantly I opened my eyes and…
What was it? Had it been here the whole night and was it here when I had gone to bed last night? There right in front of me was, well really I don’t know what it was. Had the sun been trying to tell me something this whole time?

In front of me was a painting with a smooth scaly grey, green, orange, yellow, black, and red outline circling around what looked like one of the most freakiest eyeballs I have ever seen, belonging to none other than a sneaky and sly looking snake. It was as If my worst nightmare had come true, being face to face with a snake. Wait a minute calm down it’s only a painting my sister probably put in my room to scare me, well I’m not going to let her win the satisfaction of terrifying me.

I walk up to the framed painting on the wall and see, If I wasn’t mistaken what looked like bushes, trees and any plant or bit of greenery you could imagine in the eye filling in all the gaps. Right in the centre of the eye was a black wobbly line and a yellow outline. That’s probably where the snake kept all it’s evil stored, I thought. But the snake made an effort to bring out the evilness in the painting when it could. That’s for sure and then I noticed a pale blue background and some tired, ragged looking clouds just squashed in there.

It was like the snake was trying to find a bit of good in him but just couldn’t get there. My hand was trembling as I moved it upwards until it was millimeters away from the eye. I force my hand to touch the painting. At first it felt normal, then everything started to spin. After that everything was a blur.

Did I disappear? Was this the end of me? Surely something so little, so harmless couldn’t have started this sensation that I can’t even explain. I don’t even know the feelings and emotions running through my head right now.

It was like I was becoming nothing, nothing at all just me all alone in the darkness.