Sand Jar by Dallas (see image gallery)
Artwork by Rachel (see image gallery)
Creative Writing by Aisha
7 years ago…
I trample into the forest, my surroundings a furious blur of charleston green and burgundy. The moonlight guides an eerie path towards the house, giving me ghostbuster vibes. Funny, isn’t it? How things can change so quickly, so unexpected. A root snags at my jeans, but I push through. I can’t stop now. It’s too late.
I can hear them, the sound of their boots pounding against the crisp autumn leaves, the dogs snarling and snapping in my direction, following my trail. Will I ever get back in time? Will I ever get back in time to see my darling wife and precious son? What will happen to me? All these thoughts gush through my mind like an angry swarm of wasps. I try to clear my mind, but I can’t. This moment of sturdiness is the perfect chance for my enemies to seize, and they do, rough hands at my neck, and then I’m falling…
Falling…
Falling…
“Hey. You.” Putrid breath that stings of onions and cacao powder shoots up my nostrils, and I jolt awake, nose to nose with a man poking at me. I’m now sitting upright in a rotting, wooden chair, and I can feel it splintering through my jeans. “Yes?” I say in my ‘politest’ manner. He snorts, but something seems to make him fall silent, and he steps aside, revealing…
I draw in a breath. I can’t help it, but my mouth hangs open, horrified, wanting to be dreaming. “Dad?” I choke on this word. He strides up to me and pokes at my shoe with his walking stick. “Well, well, well… What will we do? Do we kill him, or just leave him here alone, folks?” He looks around at his henchmen, having an ear-splitting smile plastered on his face. “Personally,” he turns back to me, “I’d like a bit of both.” I keep my poker face on, staring intently into his eyes. When I was younger, I always wanted to be like my dad, brave, funny, caring. Now I don’t see that man. Only a sly, cruel man staring straight back at me.
“You’ll be discovered,” I tell him. He laughs, but it’s more like a cough, a deep, rough one. “By whom, may I ask?” He wheezes, and all his other henchmen join. “You’ll see. One day,” I say. Dad stops his horrid laughter, and scowls at me instead. “Get rid of him. I have no use for him any more.” The henchmen gather around me, cracking their knuckles. I sigh. How long will it take this time? Oh, well, at least it’s another person out to get me…
Creative Writing by Thomas
They are there. I know it.
I cannot see, hear, feel, or smell them, and yet I can see, hear, feel and smell them better than they could ever dream of.
They stand on the edge of my water, panting like the animals they call dogs from the long journey here that they just completed.
They chitter amongst one another. I do not understand their tongue, the way they communicate, but I can sense the meaning to their noises.
All three of them. Young, naive mortals that call themselves humans.
They push each other around. Ordering each other to come closer. Daring.
The first, most bold one. Her mind booms and echoes like a roaring sea crashing against the foot of a cliff.
She insults the other two. Using words and noises, trying to force them to come closer with her.
She thinks this makes her strong, but it is obvious that she only does this to further bury her inner turmoil.
Ah, turmoil. Sadness. Anger. Fear. Negative emotions. To me, it is sustenance. Energy. Food, as a human would call it.
I care not what causes it, only that it is there.
But she is too far away, and buries the feelings too deep. She must be closer if I can feed off it.
The second one. His veins contain blood similar to the first one. A sibling.
This one’s mind rolls with fear.
There it is, fear! Vibrant and delicious, but again, still too far away.
The third one. This one is different. Almost familiar.
His emotions seem like a balance between the other two. Not as bold, and not as afraid.
The bones hidden in my walls have long since been sucked dry of any emotion they may have possessed in life, and I am beginning to tire of feeding on the fear of lower lifeforms, such as the ones that humans would call fish, snakes and others.
The more intelligent a creature is, the more vibrant and powerful their negative emotions are.
And these three humans on the edge of my lake are very intelligent, and their fear looks very, very tasty.
I call out to the first one. Her eagerness for adventure is easy to manipulate.
Come. Come closer. Come to me.
She steps into the water, ignoring the protests of her companions, and begins swimming towards me.
Uncertainty radiates out of the third one, the more balanced one, as he struggles to come to a decision.
Come, I call to him. Follow your friend. Don’t be a coward like the other one.
He wades into the water. The fear and disgust that dances around in his mind is enough to feed me for several days.
But I am still hungry.
I call to the third one. He is still on the bank, trying to convince his friends to return. They ignore him.
Come. Prove to your friends that you aren’t a coward. Come.
His mind groaning in protest but his body following my bidding, he walks into the lake and follows his friends.
The first one reaches me and hauls herself up onto my rotting wooden planks.
I have not experienced this much emotion this close to me since the bodies within me were still alive, and it feels different than I remember.
She tries to hide it, but her fear is great, and delicious. I swallow it up, and I barely have time to finish before the second and the third one arrives.
The third one’s fear is the most prominent of them all. A human would describe the taste of his fear as “sweet.”
They creep around, jumping at the slightest shift in my floorboards, or the smallest of creatures hurrying out of their way.
After a while, their presence becomes an irritant.
They themselves, especially the bold one, are hungry too. But hungry for a different emotion than me.
And they are getting it.
The dark, unrecognised corners of their brains, the few shining lights in an otherwise senseless bag of flesh can detect my presence, my feeding off them.
They frantically send their chemical messages to the more commonly used parts of their primitive brains.
But these less complex parts cannot fully process the messages that the dark corners are sending, and misinterpret the fear they send as a new emotion.
I have never encountered it before, and yet memories come flooding back.
It is excitement.
And it tastes disgusting.
I want them OUT.
I close doors and lock them.
I weaken the floorboards below them.
I create shadows on the walls.
I push on their weak little minds.
The other two cower and are swayed by my pushing like kelp in a storm, the first one is curiously resistant to my mental tampering.
She sees something of interest. A door. I can feel her desire, and read her thoughts. She wants to know what is on the other side.
She takes a step back and charges into the door.
BANG!
Anger flashes through me. How dare she? She is in the presence of such a manifestation as me, and she dares to damage the structure of my house?
BANG!
What is this feeling? I’m losing control of the situation in front of me…
BANG!
Again, she smashes into the door. She calls to her friends for assistance. What if she does this to the entire house? Then I will have nowhere to manifest my consciousness.
BANG!
I do not recognise the raw, powerful emotion I feel now at first…
BANG!
But then, just as the humans ram into my door one more time and smash it off its hinges, it comes to me.
BANG!!! CRASH!!
As the broken door crashes to the ground, I realise the emotion I feel is none other than the emotion I have been sucking from the humans.
It is fear.
Fear that they will continue to destroy into my house until no house is left.
Fear that my presence will be fully recognised by their brains.
Fear that I will be driven out of this world and into the next.
Fear of what the next world may hold.
As they continue to walk around and chitter amongst themselves, my fear turns to anger.
I scream in their puny little minds, Get out! Get out! Foul, primitive creatures!
But they are foul, primitive creatures that also possess power. Power enough to destroy me.
Then I learn. Learn as I did when I first faded into existence.
I do not have power over these creatures. I am not omniscient. I can read their thoughts, and yet I could not predict the sudden, rash behaviour of the first one.
I cannot control their actions. Despite my screaming, the humans remain inside my house. Their wants and desires can outshine mine.
I have learned. I have progressed as an entity.
Now they should be fearful.
So very fearful.
And this fearfulness sounds delicious.
