gloomy night - a gothic short novel

A Gothic novel

As she opened her eyes, Carol found herself walking in the large corridor of a gothic cathedral. It was cold, the atmosphere was almost dank. The heels of her shoes tapped on the floor as she made her way, God knew where. That's when she realized it. She couldn't control her movements. It wasn't the reality, it was only a really strange dream. After a five minutes long walk in those hallways, she arrived in the great Hall. It was stunning. She could see the beautiful stained glass windows, that brought a blue and green hue in the room. But most importantly, when she looked at the ground, ten meters from where she was standing, she saw someone, lying on the floor. She approached the man, and when she looked at him, she recognized him. It was Henry, her husband. She tried to call him, but it seems like she was mute. No sound would nor could come out of her mouth.

And so she just sat, next to him, and watched him sleeping peacefully. It was nice, really, just hanging around in the beautiful building and looking at her sleeping husband, who seemed more relaxed than he'd been those past weeks, but she felt that something was wrong in all this. Something, had fallen his her hands, as if it has been dropped by magic. She looked down to see what it was and discovered, terrified that it was a long knife, like the kitchen one she used to cook in Saturdays . What was she doing with a knife in her hands? Suddenly, the candles in the hall were blown out by the wind, and smoke, grey-blue smoke, appeared and took the appearance of a man. He seemed pretty young and handsome, probably aged around twenty years or so, and he had some kind of devilish smile on his lips. He approached Carol, who was now turned back to her husband, and whispered in her ear: "What are you waiting for? Kill him." And so, without being able to control her movements in any form, she did as he said. She stabbed Henry right in his chest.

Carol woke up, screaming as loudly as she could. This has been by far, the worst nightmare of her life. She still had chills in her spine when she thought again about those words the strange ghostly man had said to her. Afraid it might have been some kind of bad foreshadowing dream, she turned over in her bed, searching for her husband's arm, so he could comfort her, and tell her it was only a bad dream.

And as she didn't find him, panic struck her. What if it wasn't just an awful nightmare? What if something had actually happened to him? Quickly, she stood up and left her bed, to put on her shoes and her coat, as fast as she could, determined to go outside to search for him.

Now, she was more frightened than she had been in the past hour. She ran over to her neighbour's house, to find Margot, a brilliant girl and one of her closest friends, and together they rushed to the cathedral, Carol hoping deep down really hard that she had just a scary and perfectly normal bad dream, and that nothing bad had actually happened to her husband.

After a ten minute long run, they made it to the large construction. Even thought she was exhausted, Carol almost jumped to the wooden door, opened it, and then rushed inside, into the nave, where she had killed Henry in her nightmare.

There was a body, lying maybe fifteen feet away in front of her. She ran to it, tears falling down her cheeks as she prayed harder and harder that this corpse wasn't her husband's. But when she turned over the body, and saw its face, there was no doubt left : it definetly was Mr Carey, dead, lying in a pool of blood. She cried, her heart beating in her chest, aching, as she held Henry's head in her hands, imploring him to wake up, even though she knew her supplications were vain.

Margot came in not so long after, finally catching up with the young woman who barely addressed three words to her before rushing outside, ordering the detective to follow her as if it was some life or death situation. And when she entered the cathedral, she realized that she was right. There had been a life at stake, for Carol to storm in her house in the middle of the night like that, but they unfortunately were too late.

She saw Carol holding her husband, and the sorrow and pain her closest friend was enduring right now broke her heart. She had never seen her so hurt before, and she just wished she had a way to help Mrs Carey going through her grief.

"I don't know if you have the mind to think about it at the moment", she said softly, joining the widow, "But I'm right here, to open an investigation, if you're interested. It obviously can't bring back Henry, but it might help you feel a bit better, help you mourn."

She sat next to Carol, pressing her hand on her shoulder, and the young woman turned to her her face, red because of her cries, with her eyes filled with tears, but in which a little light, that looked like the last hope of a desperate person, was glowing. The widow didn't find the strength to make a whole sentence, however she managed to answered one little word to her friend.

"Please", she said with a breaking and creaking voice.