A Nightmare

• Chanithu Wickramasinghe, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2018

Annie shot out of bed in fear and curled up in the corner of her dark room. She felt a chill go up her spine as she listened to the moans coming from the corridor. She lit a candle, clutched her torn teddy and cautiously peered into the seemingly endless corridor. She couldn’t see anything. The candle flame flickered as a draught came through the half open window. She slowly crept through the corridor her eyes frantically looking around for anything abnormal. All she could hear was the creaking floorboards.
Suddenly her candle went out and everything was pitch black. She was petrified. She didn’t dare move a muscle. She could feel that danger was imminent. She could hear footsteps coming towards her. She tried screaming but her screams were drowned out by the roaring thunder. She held her teddy tight. She knew something was coming. The next ten seconds were the slowest ten seconds of her life. Her heart was racing. She could she some sort of an opaque figure but it was hard to make out what it actually was.

She could she the figure slowly approaching her. Her muscles were tense and stiff. Suddenly the figure disappeared. The figure’s strange disappearance was followed by screams coming from Annie’s room. The house swayed viciously as Annie cautiously headed back to her room. She looked inside to find that her room was wrecked. The windows smashed and sheets torn. She saw something lying in front of her, it was her mother. Annie fell to her knees and shook her mother’s shoulder in the hope that she would react but there was no reaction. A tear rolled down Annie’s cheeks as she stared at her mother’s blood soaked dress. She hid under her torn blanket and wept.

Annie felt nothing, only anger and sadness. She laid in bed that night, her eyes wide open as she clenched her fists. She knew it was that thing’s fault. Her whole body was filling with anger. She got out of bed and stormed into the corridor. ‘Come at me!’ She yelled, but there was no response. She pace up and down the corridor but there was still no response. It was all useless she thought. She banged her fists on the wall and began sobbing.

She woke up at the crack of dawn and began to dig her mother grave. She did her best to to make look nice. She placed a note she had wrote for her in her mother’s hand. It went like this, ‘Dear mother, you have been the best mother I have ever had. You have done so much for me. Thank you .’
She piled on the last of the dirt and placed a bunch of her mother’s most favourite roses on top. Tears began welling up as she stood there in silence. The sun began to set and Annie went back inside. She rested her head on the window ledge as she stared aimlessly into the orange sky.