The youth

There was only one rule: don’t open the door.

We were just children. So, the rules of our absent parents held as much authority as superstitious threats from the homeless crone across the street. The door didn't seem remarkable in any way, nothing about it warranted the constant flickering glances from my fundamentalist father. He would yell profanities at us for even going near it. My younger brother and I would joke that perhaps he caught the devil from that old crone in the park, keeping it locked up.

He started it. He took a green marble and with a cheeky smirk flicked it across the unfinished floorboards toward the door. We remained dead silent as it took a slow chaotic path along the gritty wooden grain, stopping a few centimeters from the gap beneath it. "I bet you can't get closer" He dared. Looking at him with raised eyebrows, I reached into the bag and flicked a dark red marble across the floor toward the door. The game however was cut short.

With a crash of lightning, the door swung open and standing there, eyes glowing, was the crone. A sudden lump formed in my throat; my heart raced. For behind her pulsated a tumorous lump of rippling flesh. Before I could react, the woman snatched my brother and threw him on to the lump. The moment he landed his body began to drift apart as it dissolved. Dry retching at the sight, I Mindlessly lunged to pull him out. My hand sunk into the loose mound and instantly my body began to soften and decay until all that remained was a puddle of organs and eyeballs.

The last thing I saw before endless darkness was the crone wearing the young flesh of countless others. And my father's boot.