Haunting Vigil (A Foxtales Entry)
I saw her again last night, leaning out the open window. The same hollow look in her eyes, her glazed stare locked into nothingness, her chin pressed against her stacked fists. The moonlight had cast its flickering shadows over her face, her hair had been caught in that endless ripple of rising air. She never sees me looking back, her gaze passes right through me. A stray cloud wandering alone had brought darkness to the neglected house and in the moments of it’s passage, she'd slipped away.
No one lived there, no one had in years, yet I saw her gazing out night after night. At first I hardly noticed her, staring straight through me, that empty, absent expression washed down her cheeks. Each time she returned, the ghost in the empty house, she drew me in further; the intrigue of her fleeting apparitions, the blank, vacant look etched over her face. I started to watch for her, sitting up later each night. She wasn’t haunting me, but that look was.
No bewitching face peers out from the crumbling sill of that empty house tonight. Yet the swollen door, creaking on it’s hinges, has crept open - a waiting invitation.
I have to know.
Written and posted this the same day as not sure i'll have time to make the deadline tomorrow, very much hope it works with all the tenses in there. I had so many ideas for this one, but there was something so haunting about the look on this woman's face this one got me, and its the only other one I think I will manage before the deadline.
This is my second entry to this endlessly enticing contest, #foxtales run by @vermillionfox - find the latest round here these run every week, and you can enter up to 3 stories, each under 300 words. There's one day left so head over and give it a go!
Photo Credit - artwork provided by @vermillionfox - she has such a talent for these intriguing images that feel like they have a story behind them <3
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Pure magic! I love beautiful yet haunting tales like this.
What a beautifully crafted story as always, mój Ukochany!~
As I shall reverberate from our DMs and into the first entry, yah done an aristry of words as always. The first sentences always striking at something being done, for which the first sentence gets constantly repainted even to the end. Especially since the end is italicized and makes us wonder how long time really had passed for then the end to make sense; setting up a temporality that is based upon material events but allowing mental follies to scream about the length of time in between.
Yah did also a fanciful job to look at the prompt drawing and capture that essence with none a fear. The usage of Italics to mediate the passage of the story as it directly opens a field to pear into the mind of the inquisitive wonderer. Which I love how the gender of the wonderer remains unknown but allows a self-insert of us into it; not because you thought it cheeky but you caught our unconsciousness at work at those moments. From the fact we can stare into the painting but be ignored to the fact that we do want to know more but are trapped by the ending to not know what really is there and are lost to the fields of imagination and determination.
And how can I forget the usage of words to help paint us the scenes that give a taste of memories interspersed by time as the words keep going. Also to paint the ghost, “real or imagined,” as the vehicle of the story, a vestige-limb, for the inquistive wonderer’s wished for knowledge is nice. Especially as her and the house are “Réal” as they remain undifferentiable except for the apparition for which they can want to grasp, but the relationship between the two makes them want to know the house as well.
A glisp that’s not chilling for the ghost and abandoned house, but the lack of knowledge about them that mystifies their presence. Where the scariest thing to happen if they do follow up on it is not the interaction betwixt them and the Thing, but that the interaction won’t happen and Horror slowly crumples up the inquistive wonderer - thinking they drawn the spirit out instead of being banished from the mansion.
❤️❤️❤️
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