Dark Terror

• Aaron Learey, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2008

Dark Terror

Run. Don’t think! Just run, must not slow down, must get away. to anywhere. Anywhere but here.
His thoughts continued, in a mad circle of terror and fear. As he ran, his black hair slick with sweat and blue eyes were moving in an ever constant attempt to find a place to hide. His foot was caught by one of the dark, gnarled, burnt and twisted trees that were in this nightmare land. He let out a cry of pain as his upper arms and knees met the sharp and cutting stones beneath his already bleeding feet.

His cry was sure to alert them. His eyes and head moving franticly as he tried to see if they were coming. He took in everything, the pools and mires of burning sulphuric acid, the line of trees ahead that swayed in a burning hot breeze and the sky. Oh the sky, it was the colour of fire and with clouds that hung like drops of blood. As his eyes gazed back to earth he saw the line of trees, but they were not trees, it was them.

He ran heedlessly with his arms cast up in font of his face and his hands wrapped over his ears. Trying to block the sound of his pursuers gut wrenching cries and summons to the kill.

Behind him rose an entity, conceived purely of evil thought and malice. With dark claws outstretched, it plucked him from the ground. Its talons digging into flesh and mind. This dark being’s will crushed the same in the boy. A boy who had thought, who had a mind, was now just terror; a soul filled with nothing but the raw emotion to flee.

From his lips came a whisper of breath. Barely perceivable and barely audible “Help me.” He said with all the will he could summon, in a hopeless and futile attempt at rescue or mercy.

Light - bright piercing light. A light that reveals all. A light that pierces the darkness.
Through the sky the shaft of light glared mercilessly at all that it shone upon. He fell to the ground and buried his face in his arms. In the sky above soared his cruel tormentor. Determined to make the kill. Determined to relish the moment as his life-blood seeps into the dirt beneath him. Determined to see the boy before him gasp in the feeble attempt to cling to his life. But that fate was not to come.

The light seared into its body, tearing though limbs and tendons wrought only of mans evil thought.
Destroying a creature that should not exist outside of the darkest nightmares of the depths of the human mind.

The last emotion he could possibly conceive of in a place such as this entered him. Surround him and comfort him. There was love coming from above. The light lifting his broken body from the ground. Cleansing his wounds. Healing his mind and purging his memory –he was at peace.