Paralysis

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The warm yellow light danced languidly in the air, tingeing the rotting wood in inviting hues of orange.

Silas had trekked this path many times, and was well acquainted with the dilapidated cabin that sat nestled in the woods. He had used it as a trail marker since he was young, first having discovered it when out exploring in his youth. Amongst his friends the desiccated building was a breeding ground for ghost stories and conspiracies, all more disturbing than the last.

Several had stuck with him, clinging to his subconscious like a limpet to a rock. Childhood imaginings of wiry old witches and repugnant monsters, tales of devils plotting to steal your soul. The boundless supernatural conjurings of a child’s mind, and yet they were closer to the truth than they had imagined.

Silas hadn’t found out the real story until he was older, the adults electing it too gruesome for young ears. A child's innocence was too precious to tarnish with the grisly truth of the Mcbard Murders. The gruesome tale of a mother gone mad, slaying her husband and three young children. Reports detailed how they were found bled completely dry, skin ashen and bodies withered into pale husks.

Mrs McBard was found at the scene of the crime, despondent and rocking in the corner, having been relegated into a state of catatonia. She never confessed to the crimes, instead only preaching incoherent ramblings of evil spirits and possesion. Her lawyers pled insanity and that was that.

Mrs McBard was found dead in her cell three days after her sentencing. She too was bled completely dry.

Officials were never able to come up with an explanation. She had no wounds on her and yet was devoid of even a single drop of blood. Shrivelled into a hollow kex.

The cabin too remained hollow, devoid of any life and slowing decaying. Vines began to twist like serpants around its framing, nature constricting around it, reclaiming the site of such abomination. There it sat, slowly being swallowed by the earth, used only now as a nursery for ghost stories and calamitous tales of woe.

Though favoured and alive in the minds of those who saw it, looming like an ominous beast of the shadows, no one dared actually set foot on the putrefied steps of the cabin. It lay untouched by anyone but the winding hands of nature, which is why Silas was so startled to see the inocuous candle burning elegantly in the window.

He stopped in his tracks, the cool breeze catching the sweat that beaded above his brow and chilling his skin. It was dusk, and Silas was on his way back from his long afternoon hike. It was later than it usually was when he got to this point in the trail, due to having gotten a late start. The sky was beginning to bruise and the pleasant warmth of the day was giving way to the stony cold of night.

Silas found himself frozen, staring at the small bloom of light in the old window frame. There was no sign of anyone around. Silas scanned the area, analysing his surrounds for any sign of company, but there was no one. Gooseflesh proliferated across his skin, a sense of unease tickling the back of his neck and causing his hair to stand on end.

Silas wondered how anyone could have even entered the cabin, let alone why they would light a candle and leave it there. Surely the wood had rooted beyond being able to support any weight? The floor boards long since having corroded to the point of instability. They looked as though if any preasure were applied they would simply buckle and snap.

Curiousity tuged in Silas' gut, yet a forboding sense of anxiety ceaslessly prickled along his spine. Torn between the temptation to go and investigate and the animal urge to flee, Silas stood still and considering until he felt a ghostly hand wisp across his cheek.

He jolted at the contact, the blood in his veins turning to ice. Silas' hand sprung up to clasp his cheek as he whipped around, eyes wide and searching. But no was was there.

Silas' breath sped up as his heart pounded painfully in his chest, thumping so hard it was like it was trying to break free from his rib cage to save itself. He swallowed and, still clasping his tingling cheek, called out, "Hello?"

There was no answer apart from the eerie whistling of the evening breeze, rustling menacingly through the autumn leaves. The sun was setting quickly now, hastily disappearing behind the trees, leaving the woods cloaked in shadows.

Heart sinking and stomach roiling, Silas turned back to the track and decided to continue on his way. Yet, as if in the blink of an eye, the world was shrouded in darkness. The sun had disappeared, despite being a shining beacon on the horizon not ten minutes ago. Now, it seemed to be the dead of night. Yet no stars shone in the sky, no moon illuminated the path. The world was devoid of all light except the innocent flickering of a single candle.

Growing increasingly panicked, Silas resisted the urge to head towards the inviting glow of the candle. The tiny flame continued it's langurous roll, pulsing ochre and permeating the darkness with inviting shades of warmth.

Silas felt an almost physical tug in his chest, drawing him towards the candle, the only beacon of light amongst the inky black of night. His body began to move of it's own accord, the dried leaves crunching under his feet with each step towards the cabin. The wind picked up, propelling him forwards, the moth approaching the flame.

The world was a dark blanket of ebony, broken only by the soft firey hues of the candle. As he approached the cabin, the fetid stench of decay began to perferate his nostrils, burning the sensitive flesh inside.

Adrenaline spiked in his system, the smell setting off instinctive alarm bells in his brain. Something deep in his core was telling him to run, yet his feet carried on regardless of his resisting mind. In a sense of trance-like paralysis, Silas lumbered towards the cabin with movements akin to a zombie.

The foul smell burgeoned with every step forwards. At this point Silas felt as though he was a prisoner in his own body, sequested away in his own chest, grasping his ribs and rattling his cage. His heart thumped rebeliously, adrenaline pumping fruitlessly through his veins. His internal screams did nothing to deter his body from continueing its tortourous journey towards the infernal candle and it's rotting shell.

Silas felt the same ghostly caress tickle across his skin as before, except now he could not jolt or flinch away, instead he could only seize in terror on the inside while his body continued its sedated crawl towards certain doom.

The pungent miasma of rot penetrated the air, sour in the back of Silas' throat. He had a desperate thought that surely old wood shouldn't smell that horrible, before his feet began to scale the creaking stairs of the condemned cabin.

The door swung open entirely of it's own volition, the screech of it's rusting hinges piercing through the air like a knife and ringing in Silas' ears. His body seized up, suddenly rigid as if he had entered the frist stages of rigor mortis.

Silas' stomach lurched and his heart skipped, his eyes widening in error as they drank in the sight of the shrivelled corpses piled up inside the cabin. He choked on the scream that crawled up his throat, feeling as though thousands of bullet ants were scuttling across his skin.

The smell was abhorrent, effusing the air with the poisonous tang of death. Silas' eyes began to water, stining with the fetour drenching the air. Senses cloyed by panic and malodour, Silas began to tremble and quake. Terror gripped his heart and squeezed, petrified screams clawing up his osphogeous.

The flickering image of a woman warped before his eyes, her skin pale and clammy. Her ebony hair hung limp and matted around her shoulders, as lifeless as her eyes. She held no sense of mortality in her, only exuding a transcendental sense of peril.

Locked inside a prison of his own flesh, Silas stood helpless as she slowly traveled towards him, reaching out with her spindly fingers to touch his face in a perfect echo of the ghostly caress he had felt earlier.

Her blood shot eyes met his, before she smiled manically, chapped lips splitting to reveal rotting teeth and bloody gums. She gripped his throat. Suddenly, like a strike of lightning, sensation returned to his body and Silas began to writhe desperatley, seized by an animalistic sense of terror.

But it was no use.

The woman's frigid grasp held fast, her grip like iron as she lifted him up into the air. Blood vessels began to burst beneath Silas' skin as her bruising clutch grew tighter. The red of her eyes bled into black, her place skin warping and stretching, her jaw cracking and popping as it unhinged to reveal a gaping maw of rot and blood.

Petrified, Silas thrashed, kicking and clawing at her grip, but it was like blunt nails on thick ice. She was uneffected. He didn't even have the opportunity to beg for his life, to plead for the sake of his children and wife. The suction of her inhale felt as though it was ripping the very essence of life from his bones, boiling his soul until it evaporating into thin air.

Unassaliable, the woman continued her onslaught, a supernatural screech escaping her. Silas skin started to leak it's pigment, his flesh beginning to shrivel and dessicate. His blood disappeared from his body, leaving his veins hollow and cold.

When she was done she threw him onto the pile of rotting corpses in the corner, rendered to a lifeless husk. Nothing but a drained cadiver, the last thing Silas saw was the flickering flame of a singluar candle, burning innocently in the window.