Day 53 Writing Short Stories

Hunted

Spaces are made of matter and the absence of it. Spaces occupy everything. Rob away that, and there is nothing but a collapsing reality that will destroy every light, every particle it gets its hands on. You always thought spaces were secure; that the ground you stood on was tangible. You trusted your senses. Berry was a berry because it felt and tasted so. The sweet nectar dripping on your tongue with just a single bite would forever happen. Then all that was taken away from you.

You thought you were following a lead on a stolen car—a simple case marked top priority because of the owner. You cursed your boss and his sentimentality towards rich people, yet you complied. You knew it would open doors for you, especially if you got it right and fast. But that was a mistake on your part.

A twenty-something girl took the car. You found her through the street cameras. You found her face as she was stupid enough to stop at the grocery store to buy milk and bread. But what was missing was a name. She was not on the database. You rewired the video of her driving away from the inner city, watching as the image jumped and twisted strangely: her hands turning into long, boneless ones, and her face fading into obscurity, as if all the features were melting away. That should have been your first clue that something wasn’t right. Yet, you put it down to technology.

You shouldn’t have. The house around you moaned. You had found the car. It was just outside the abandoned four-story country house in the middle of nowhere. You took a step, testing every floorboard you stepped on. They were made of hard, solid wood, but the couple of steps you had taken had made your right foot plunge through them. You had barely been able to yank them out, watching as the wood parched itself back together. That was the least creepy part of the house. It moaned as if it were alive. You felt something watching you. You pushed past the discomfort, blaming imagination and fear. But the sense of pressure was still there. You felt as if the woman were monitoring you, as you had done with her. You felt as if she had guided you here; that if you rushed back outside, there would be no luxury BMW parked outside.

The wallpaper dripped off the walls, as if heat had swept over them.

You tested your next step. The board gave way underneath you, and you fell through the floor.

—

I would have loved to finish this, but I need to hurry to work now. What I got today was a lyrical mystery, a story of overcoming a monster, and a second-person point of view. I didn’t get to the part where I could reveal the monster and what was going on, but I had a clear view of what it could be. T. Kingfisher’s The Hollow Places, a portal fantasy horror-lite book, partly inspired this. I finished reading it yesterday. I didn’t quite like the beginning. It got better as the mystery grew stronger and stranger. What I didn’t quite like were the characters. They didn’t feel real enough. More like token participants to tick boxes. The premise was nice, and so was the Museum of Wonders. I usually like Kingfisher’s books more than this. I feel this was hollow and rushed.

Anyway, I have to go now.

Thank you for reading! Have a wonderfully strange day ❤