Gothic Short Story

I didn't indulge myself with many possessions; my bedroom was furnished with basic pine, a small table beside the stained bed, a thin, tall wardrobe opposite the bed. Then just a single window, brown frame and poorly constructed. It wasn't much, and I didn't need it to be, everything I had was ripped from me in days past.

The night came rolling in, I just waited for it. Softly the inky blackness shrouded my quite insignificant house. I lit several candles and placed them by my bedside, in an attempt at keeping the shadows from entering my dreams. My only sanctuary was my unconsciousness. Not long after drifting into a nervous slumber, a chilling wind entered my room blowing out the candles I lit. I must have left the window open. My stiffened bones cracked as I sat up in bed. I rolled out and stood with a shallow stance to then orientate myself. I slowly paced toward the window to realise it wasn't open; I must have had a peculiar dream and imagined the wind.

Sleeping wasn't an option for me, my aching mind was pining for a touch of the past, and at the same time yearning to omit. The events preying on my mind were preserving my misery and were the cause for my insomnia. I mulled over what had happened, trying to understand. The woman I had hoped to spend forever's days with stole away my innocent boy; I only wish I'd seen her turmoil sooner. I can only blame myself; now I slowly destroy myself with an internal struggle. I was in desperate need to cease my quaking mind and so I drowsily changed from my nightwear to warmer clothes and boots suitable for wet earth and stone walks.

I set out with no true ambition, drunk with fatigue, I was gaunt and drawn. I kept going though, step after step, became heavier and heavier, almost every morsel of life I had was no more, my emotions were extinct. The night seemed so faithful to me, always there to take me in, even in this state. My body was merely a vessel for the mind I once believed to be my own. I was in an indisposition of terrible exhaustion. Ere I perished something caught my view, off, just across the fields hidden in the mists, it stood, something unknown, it hadn't been there before, or at least I hadn't noticed it in my time here. I decided it was an awful idea to go on to inspect, but I felt compelled by my natural instinct and in turn, I found my way to it. I had to cross the deep grass and over splintering styles to get closer, I was untrusting of the grounds as the rains caused a dangerous unevenness to them especially in the darkness that cloaked the land like the shadows which roll over the city before the heavens open and pour down. Moments passed. It's unclear how I finally reached what I had seen but I was there, it was just a church and seemed nothing more. I could hear bells like that of a wedding, soothing almost, I thought it was my torn mind playing games but they grew louder, they kept ringing, such a bellowing sound now, this noise took me to my knees as I begged them to stop but they kept on ringing. With such power, I was incapacitated. I was a child without authority. I was a useless frozen mess of a man.

Quickly my state of dismay was replaced with a powerful scorn, my stupor had dissipated, my mind raced with a mechanical precision, a figure I knew was standing in a familiar way against the walls of this now dilapidated church, hiding in the shadows enough so that I could not be sure of whom it really was. The pale light of the moon illuminated her face and immediately it filled me with great agonies, she was the reason for my loss of prospects and happiness. She was the dark cancer that ate away my mind, it was her, the canker of my dreams. Herself was now moribund and decaying and flung in white, long and laced, stained in blood so dark and red it was a taunting reminder which bore at my heart. How ghastly. How ominous it was, what an ungainly sight, what an unmerciful hate she must have had for me.