Fate

• Lee Sheen Pong, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2022

Man's greatest fear is not the pain or suffering others can cause, but the fate that befalls all afterward. The fate all living beings face is one of uncertainty; of unknown. Man has learnt to fear the unknown. But people can be divided into two separate, differing mindsets: human and animal. Those who are animals give into feral instinct that is derived from many millennia of survival in what we call the primal and primitive. These people fear the unknown. But those who adopt the mindset of a human do not fear the unknown; they embrace it. You must let go of life when your time comes. You must come to terms with this already predetermined fate to be at peace in the future beyond death.

The little boy is running through the city, through the streets in the dimly lit dark. But what he doesn't know is that this is where I thrive. Where Fear thrives. The child thinks he can escape me. Although the truth is, nothing can escape me. Not even partly sentient beings; not even animals. For I am Daspyn, the Fear incarnate. He thuds along the path trying to shake me off. To him, I'm just a blurred shadow in the night, but what he doesn't know is that I intend to follow him until his foreseen demise...

One second Jack was running and the next thing he knows, he's lying face down on the granite path. At this point, his mind is a blur of nonsensical thoughts. He tries to get up, run from whatever's coming for him but he can't. His arms are limp and have legs that feel like lead. However much effort is put into escaping, it is all in vain. I, Daspyn will get the boy. The shadow is approaching fast, so close now that he can see two small, slightly luminous, purple eyes peering at him through the veil of the night. The boy finally has the sense to realise that struggling is pointless and his fate will just be more painful. I levitate Jack up from the ground, back to me. Then jab my hand into his back. The boy feels a pounding and then freezing sensation starts from his chest, spreading to his limbs. The feeling of dread mixed with the feeling of death. Not a nice combination. I feel a strange feeling of calm and acceptance radiating from the boy. What is it... and acceptance of fate? Jack looks down, catching his last glimpse of this Earth; a semi-transparent, purple hand protruding from his cage. No blood, no gore, just a hand. Then darkness.

"This sleep shall be merciful and it shan't be one in which you feel pain," Daspyn vowed to the child. "I send you to my creator with the blessings of Daspyn. Thy fares thee well, child. Fare thou well, Jack."