Home Is Where The Soul Is

• Olivia Easton, Grade 8, Our Lady of Mercy College
• Short Story
• 2019

Excellence Award in the 'Just Keep Writing 2019' competition

The house is still. I stiffly walk along the rickety floor, my heartbeat pounding like an out-of-beat drum solo...boom, boom. My fatigued shoulders cave in as I shake my drooped face and give my body the heads up to stay awake. I can feel the presence of another, who is it? I don't know. Ice-cold shivers shoot through my back, I am frightened for I am not alone. The swish and swoosh of the chilled air swiftly slaps my knees but so does a hand, my body is still… SLAM! Abandoned packaging boxes topple down without a movement to send them crashing.
Night falls. Twinkling stars compliment the gleaming moon which harshly reflects on the still, murky lake, it sits lonely behind the house wishing for attention. I stir in my cold, empty bed when all of a sudden noises lurk in underneath the rickety front door. Shhhh, the cold breeze whispers to the ripped curtains as it makes its way into the room… Something is standing in the doorway. A dark, hunched shadow glides along the stained carpet to the rim of my bed, it stays there for what seems an eternity until it finally travels back into the long crooked hallway.
Croak. The ugly frogs call out to others making it known that morning is coming, the sun slowly lifts to meet with the horizon, the two hand in hand. Birds chirp aggressively and realise that as we are waking, ‘others’ are too. Even though the sun is out it struggles to contend with dark, rumbling clouds rolling over what once was blue skies. Rain pelts down to the ground like bullets falling from the sky, I watch quietly from the grey-tinted windows which are cracked slightly from hail and wind. Trees come down with force and shadows are slipping in through the windows cracks. I am terrified now as the shadows become almost life-like and move from side to side in horror. SNAP! All windows shatter and thousands of shadows are creeping in, one after the other constantly. I shield my vulnerable body as they shoot through every inch of this house, AHHH I can hear myself screaming but I am out of my body… I am watching it scream in shock and anxiety.
Black blurs swirl across the room beating down on me and attacking me with their chilling appearance and horrifying presence. HELP! I scream I pound my shaking legs against the hard floor trying for these ‘things’ to get away from me… SWOOSH! A bright white light enters the lifeless house and here I am back in my body but still frightened from these living nightmares. “Help!” I screech weakly, darkness closes in and I can faintly see a bulky and tall figure coming my way it reaches its arm out. “Come with me” it answers with a raspy tone, I know it is not safe but I go…leaving behind this wreck of a place and the old souls that are attached to it.