The Introvert

The cabin in the woods has been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

The space I am in is silent. It is never changing. Time ceases to exist around me but the shadows of it are always keeping me aware that there is a world outside of this vast void of constant darkness. This darkness I speak of is my own hell I crafted for myself.

I run like I always have whenever life catches up to me after letting down my guard. What’s different this time is the fact that life just happens to come in the form of a giant ass creature that I have never seen before. I had two choices in this beginning.

I chose right.

All I know is to keep running.

I am pushing my legs past their breaking point to keep moving. I do not know how long I have been running because the burning sensation in my legs has become a feeling that I’ve grown accustomed to. My pulse is at a rate I can no longer control. My body and limbs have grown weary, but my mind remains focused on the one word I heard from somewhere, sometime ago. ‘Run’.

Sweat is drenching every crevice of my body. My hair is soaked and sticking to my face. My clothes are weighed down from the constant sweat seeping out of my body. I imagine if someone were to see me they’d assume I had just come from a swim in the lake. I wish that were the case. I am so tired, but I cannot slow down or I will die.

‘Die’ is the word that makes me faulter in my pace because, why keep running? Who will miss me? What is there to live for in this fucked up world? Why continue to fight? WHAT am I even fighting for?

I can smell the grime and left-over dinners on the monsters breath. Before I can comprehend how close it is behind me, I feel its teeth and claws ripping into my back and behind my legs. Blood oozes out and falls onto the ground beneath me in a small trickle. I feel myself stumbling and I flail out my arms on instinct to grab onto something that will help catch me and stop my fall.

My hope vanishes because a moment later I’m pinned face down to the earth. I can taste the dirt and my own blood that has spilled from the open wounds on my back. Even with the amount of blood loss my body has sustained, I know nothing and no one is there to help. That is, until I look up and see an abandoned cottage with a single light shining through the window. That flame is all it takes to spark what little bit of interest I have left to live.

My brain is filled with adrenaline and it is because of this that I know what is happening when I sense my body begin to fall closer and closer to the never ending chasms of death. Instead of screaming out in terror or fear, I surprise myself by releasing a sigh of relief. A sigh that says goodbye to the life I once knew. A goodbye that says farewell to those who knew me as a happy and untroubled person. A sigh that just says goodbye.

In a panicked yell, I scream and shout out to the figure picking up my mutilated body, “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING PUT ME DOWN! I DON’T WANT TO GO! I WANT TO STAY! I WANT TO LIVE!” I shout those words over and over and over again until I can suddenly feel again.

With a final surge of adrenaline, my eyes open and I see that the abandoned cabin in the woods before me now has not just one candle, but two. Upon that realization, my body drowns one last time into darkness. Its different this time because I now know that I am not alone.