|
Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Gender: Male
Posts: 15
|
The Unknown.
I wrote this story last year.
***
The Unknown can be a scary place.
You fear the dangers that could be lurking ahead. Fed only fragments of information you can find your mind’s eye imagining a world of terror awaiting you. Something as small and insignificant as a sound out of sight can send your mind into overdrive. The unknown is scary because it dwarfs us with its intimidating infinite size. It could surprise us at any turn of the corner, at any time in our lives. The known is more comforting however, for the very reason that it is known. No surprises, no risks, no danger. It is the safety of being able to have a comfort in our surroundings.
Almost everything is unknown to us, it can greatly outweigh the known. For instance our universe is a vast place of seemingly limitless boundaries, we can only predict what is out there from small pieces of information collected. From light, matter falling from space, what we can observe. It can be much the same process as us imagining what lurks in the shadows beyond our reach. We maybe hear a sound or catch a glimpse. From what we already know we use to fuel our imaginations and connect the information we have collected. Often we conjure up a highly exaggerated picture of what is there.
At night my house can seem like a universe, it is dark cold and silent. So the slightest abnormality has the potential to trigger an overwhelming imaginary picture of actual events. My mind given enough fuel and a spark, it’s able to run wild. This one late night in particular enough fuel was supplied, the fuel being a horror movie. It wasn’t a jumpy zombie behind the door movie, the movie left people terrified with ideas. The story was key in setting my mind into an alert state. It imprinted my mind with frightening thoughts. It was enough to keep me awake and provide the fuel for my thirsty imagination. After the movie had finished, it was late, everyone was asleep. Bar me. I couldn’t let one eye wonder, not even for a blink. My eyes were fixed on the door, a slither of space parte the doorframe from the open door. Only blackness could be seen beyond the confides of my room.
I knew that there couldn’t possibly be anything out of place beyond my door, but there was this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that soon engulfed the rest of my waking thoughts. What if there really was something out there? What if it was out to harm me? What if it wanted to harm my unconscious family? These ‘what ifs’ swirled around the alert brain and only escalated with time.
A sound.. quiet but distinctively sharp, in the silence it seemed like a chainsaw. It came from beyond my realm of the known, it come from the unknown. The dark place outside of my minds comfort. It was a creaking noise, it only sounded once. My ground thoughts would have dismissed it, but it was the spark that blistered the fuel into an inferno. It was the very thing that I didn’t want, it was probably nothing but my paranoid state of mind suggested otherwise. I managed to calm myself down only to have my ears tense to a noise that sounded like a wind swirling around in the unknown for a few short seconds. My paranoid mind was convinced that it was a brief moment in which a window had been opened. Nobody I knew would be opening a window outside of his or her room at this late hour. It had to have originated from outside our house. An intruder.
With my teeth clenched and eyes sent into a deep focus I contemplated my next move. I could just wait here and pretend to sleep and become ignorant of the intruder. Inside the room I can be in control of what happens, if he chooses to come I will be ready, I will be safe in my known. But my eyes were adjusting to the darkness of my room. It was glumly illuminated by the moon streaming through the gaps of which the curtain could not cover. Contrary to my room my eyes couldn’t see into the darkness of the unknown. But I had the knowledge of the house, I had the knowledge of the intruder. Perhaps it wasn’t unknown, perhaps the darkness had clouded the once known. I slid my feet from under my covers and floated my feet toward the ground gradually building up weight onto the carpet.
I was up. I had to face up to the situation at hand, frozen stiff in thought I tried to see into the darkness from a different angle. From every angle that I tried the slither of space wasn’t enough to find a clear sight of what was out there. More noises from the unknown creaked and clacked, the intruder was most likely looming in the house waiting to pounce. To confront the unknown I needed to feel safe. I gracefully glided over the junk scattered on my floor without making a sound. I reached for my cricket bat, gripped the shaft in my hands as it poke out of the closet. I drew the cricket bat from the closet, as Arthur drew Excalibur from the stone.
Resting my bat on my should I gently pressed up against the door, with care I sluggishly tapped the door toward me. As the slither slowly became a valley, the unknown blew throughout my room like a cold winter gust.
I tried to adjust me eyes with all of my focus but it seemed to only get darker and more unclear. The crisp shadows became a black haze, squinting to attempt clarity, I stepped across the now ambiguous line that separates my room and the rest of the house. The further I crept the more unclear the unknown became. I silently trickled across the room that seemed unbound by walls. A grey blur man shaped silhouette was in the distance looking busy, knee deep in grey fog. I continued forward in an attempt to immobilize him, but the further I crept, the further away he appeared. His legs were stationary, he was crouched over a low target. I built up the courage to yell, but only trembled out a murmur.
The murmur spidered its way through the black haze and reached the intruder. The grey blurs head swivelled in my direction, sending a jolt up my spine. He swiftly broke the black haze that surrounded him and travelled into the distance.
I pursued to find the intruder at the foot of my parents bed, with the haze now fading. The intruder became clearer, his left arm was raised wielding a gun in his hand. I managed to yell and let out a roar. The intruders arm swayed toward me, I was now staring down the barrel.
A bullet fired thought my chest.
I drifted backwards floating down onto my back.
My head was thumping, slowly pulsing away into a distance sound.
I had joined the unknown.
My fuel had been expended and my imagination ceased. I was still in my bed and my ground mind took back control of my paranoid thoughts.
|
