WRITING CONTEST:
By: Zycope
TITLE: Under the light of the moon
The night was dark, and the sky lit up by the full moon in my dusty window sill. All alone in my bed I stumble in and out of sleep. Some times dreaming, sometimes not.
I can't remember the last time I didn't wake to the full moon, which felt wrong. The sun just stopped shining all of the sudden, and I knew why but couldn't place it. All alone in my dark room in my pajamas at the top of my tower of a house. I must have been sleeping for so long that every one in the house just left without me. I rose and fell in bed so many times I forgot what day it was. I finally got the strength to stand and felt petrified when I did so, for the the painting that once lie on my wall was ripped through the middle by a knife that was stuck in the corner of it. I got up slowly, scanning for any potential enemies in the night, but there were none. There was no blood, no trace of panic or struggle, but there was a knife in the painting. I was confused, was it a prank by my college friends? If it were they didn't come out of the closet to hug and console me that it was. I stood up from my bed and the pajamas I once wore started falling to pieces as if they were shaken to pieces just by my standing up. Now I was naked, cold and lonely, with no one around to see me so. No cameras, no Joke, nothing. Just nothing. I took a step toward the dresser at the foot of the painting and the floor creaked intensely below my feet, but the house wasn't old, It never creaked like that before. Every thing was off this...night, and something was going on. I decided to get some clothes on and go try to find some one. I opened the top drawer to find my close, covered in something that made them dark like dirt but smelled of death. I checked all other drawers, there was no other clothes. I felt utterly betrayed. Nothing in the closet, or even in the other drawers, just the disgusting pair of clothes in the top drawer. I was tired and decided just to put them on any way, I didn't care any more. After I put them on my gaze went up to the painting on the wall. The knife and cuts were still there on the painting. I was curious about it, so i reached my hand out and yanked the knife out of the painting. The painting shuddered and rippled like water and the knife came out of it like butter. The painting began to ripple like water too and in moments the painting ripped itself apart piece by piece, and the pieces disappeared to ash on the floor before my feet that ate away the floor board like acid. I decided that was good sign that I needed to leave and so I did. Door handle first I left sprinting, shaking the floor with creaks and squeaks as I went. The door handle ripped off from the door as I left, and when I turned my head to look inside the room I saw the floor give way like quick sand. I ran as fast as I could through the hall way that had many ripped paintings on the wall. I went down the many stairs at the end of the hall way and eventually it led to the living room. As I step into the living room I see the edge of moon light touch my feet and reveal that half the room was eaten away, only a small ripped up couch remained. What once had been a door way was now a huge gouge on the side of the house. What the hell happened while I slept? I didn't matter, all that mattered was that I find someone to help me. Outside was worse than inside. The trees were age eaten and the grass refused to grow. The lush country side I used to live in seemed to vanish with time and the moon shone almost as bright as the sun. In the distance I saw what I thought looked like a red robed person. "Hello! Hey! Can you help me?" The figure didn't even turn around. Maybe it wasn't a person. I sighed and kept walking in a general direction towards the red robed figure hoping it would respond. When I got about ten feet away I saw it move its right arm slowly slowly up, and when the hand appeared I was frightened and unprepared to see black wrinkled fingers. With its right hand it pointed to the moon, and with the other it reached in to the front side of its robe and pulled out a knife that had so many curves on its giant blade only a mad man could wield it. When it turned I recognized its face as its jagged jaw and ripped up face it had the eyes of my brother but the face of murder. It lunged toward me, and I couldn't think what to do, but my instincts told me what to do, and under the lighting of the moon I pulled the knife from my pocket and sparred with the dead man. Slash after slash, dodge after dodge we avoided each others strikes and blocked each other for minutes. Finally he threw me to the ground, I got up and ducked a slash and stabbed him. It seemed to throw him off a bit and he stumbled backwards. For a second he looked into my eyes, actually looked into my eyes and I felt a pulse. I felt a pulse of memory surge through me, and I relived what I had long forgotten so many years ago. The paintings, it was all about them, and the moon, the reason I slept for so long. He killed me in the night, under the lighting of the moon he stabbed me with the very knife I stabbed his cursed flesh with, the one he ripped through all my paintings with because he was jealous, because of his remorse. Now he would leave a stain on the earth and fade to ash, while I would whither and fade into the light of the moon's glory.
