Slender Man. Anonymous

Slender Man

for this land, killed and maimed for it, and he liked to feel connected to it.

The banging came again, long and loud. Stephen paused three yards from the door, beyond the range of any spear that might be thrust through the gap between it and the wall.

“Who goes there?” he shouted.

The reply was instant. “Sarah Cooper, my Lord.”

Stephen grimaced in the darkness. The title still didn’t sit well with him, and he was starting to doubt whether it ever would.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s Mary.”

“Is she hurt?”

“I don’t know, my Lord,” said Sarah. “I can’t find her.”

Stephen frowned. Then he reached out, unbolted the door, and swung it open. Sarah Cooper stood outside, her shawl pulled tightly around herself. It got cold at night in Wrong Side, even in the summer. The wind blew all the way down from the mountain, welcome during the day but capable of slicing you to the bone once the sun had set.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “When did you last see her?”

Sarah shuffled her feet against the cold. “After supper,” she said. “She went out for a walk before the sun went down. Said she had thinking to do. I told her not to be more than a half hour, and she promised me she wouldn’t be. That was getting on for six hours ago.”

Stephen looked past Sarah to the dark silhouettes of the village. The first fingers of dawn were threatening to rise above the eastern horizon, but it would not be light for another hour, at least.

“I should have come sooner,” said Sarah. “I didn’t like to think bad of her, though. I know the Allen boy’s been coming around, and I know they go walking some when she thinks I’m sleeping. She thinks I don’t know, but I know. Ain’t nothing wrong with it.”

“Nothing at all,” said Stephen, because he knew that was what she wanted to hear. But his attention was no longer on the frightened woman standing at his door. He was thinking about the Cooper farm, and the forest that lay just beyond its borders.

Wild things lived amongst the thick tangle of trees, things that could bite and claw. The men of Wrong Side had hunted the wolves that slid silently through the darkness almost to the point of extinction, but their howls could still sometimes be heard on the stillest nights. It was rare for them to emerge from the forest and threaten a human being, but it was not unheard of. When an animal was sick, or starving, Stephen had learnt that there was little they would not do, given the right circumstances.

There were bears in the deep forest, towering brown creatures that reared up on their hind legs and blotted out the sun. There were wildcats, barely larger than dogs but with mouths full of razor-sharp teeth and claws that could disembowel. There were snakes that spat and hissed and spiders that crawled silently over your skin, their shiny abdomens swollen with poison.

And some said there were other things too, things from before the Age of Reason that waited in the deepest dark, patient and hungry. Children told tales of such things around campfires, scaring each other silly while their parents watched on disapprovingly. There were places inside the forest – Stephen had seen them with his own eyes – where the blood in your veins ran cold and the hair on your arms stood up, even though the sun was warm overhead. Old places.

Bad places.

He was getting ahead of himself, he realized. There was more than enough bad and wicked in the world without worrying about monsters and demons. People did terrible things to other people every day, for no better reason than greed, or jealousy, or a short temper. The obvious had to be dealt with first.

“My Lord?” asked Sarah Cooper.

He looked at her. “Wake Simon Hester,” he said. “Tell him I said he’s to ride to the castle right away and fetch the King’s Master at Arms. Tell him I said to take his fastest horse.”

Sarah nodded. Her face, which had been as pale as a ghost’s when Stephen opened his door, now flushed with determined color. He knew, from long experience of commanding soldiers, that people usually felt better when they had something to do, a task to focus on.

“I’ll go right now,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

Stephen gestured at the long night-shirt he was wearing. “I’m going to put some clothes on,” he said. “And then I’m going to talk to Arthur Allen.”

First time showing anyone anything. (self.writing)

submitted 2 hours ago * by breakerbreaker1989

Actually, that’s a lie. I showed this to a friend of mine. But she’s pretty much obliged to be encouraging, so it was only a white lie. Forgive me.

This is the first part of a story I’ve been working on. I’m not sure whether it’s a short, or a novella, or maybe even the opening of something longer. I guess it’s high fantasy with a touch of grimdark (as much as I hate that word) and I would think the influences are going to be pretty clear to anyone who gives it a look – Tolkien, Sanderson, Abercrombie, King, etc.

It’s called The Dawn Always Breaks. 3k words. And I know this is probably a forlorn hope on a reddit sub, but please try to be kind … :)

http://www.dropbox.com/kjuehma7h

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[-] creativewritinggrad 2 points 2 hours ago

Will check this out.