The Tell Tale Heart - re-imagined -

Th Old Man

THE OLD MAN's POV 

The Darkness that seeps into the very roots of my home does not recede even as day breaks upon the morn —dreadfully nervous I had been and am — constantly peering into the shadows, my senses weaken and dull as fatigue sets in. 

Paranoid I am not, nor has caducity settled into the depths of my mind so banish that thought from your quidnunc mind. 

Damsel greets me once again in an unnerving manner, she was once reserved and cautious now, boldly barges into my chamber enquiring about my time in the void — or what she would perceive as sleep— I believe the malison upon the house has affected the poor girl in this discernible way, perchance she too realises that my expiry swiftly approaches, mayhap she wishes to comfort me and bless me with the comforts of a friend before the larcener of my soul slays my beating heart, bringing me to my untimely death. 

Upon the eighth night the bumper had yet to send me off into the void, I lay in darkness waiting — cautious and nervous, oh so nervous!— the darkness surrounds the chamber blanketing the room in an unnatural chill.

Whispers of the night terrorise me as they batter against the awnings in the roof, the groaning of a man possessed as he struggles to perceive reality from the warped games inside the imagination—Hearken! I can hear the Larcener approaching — Neigh the end draws neigh, I have not yet made my peace. 

“who’s there?” I jump into a sitting position as the scuttle of feet pierce through the blackness, there was no reply, all that I can behold is a sea of darkness battering my senses and rendering me useless in any attempt to prolong my expiry.

I can feel the Larcener gazing into my soul, his beady eyes penetrating under the layers of flesh that encase my life force. 

Grief and torment wrestle in my mind, “it is nothing but the wind in the chimney — it is only a mouse crossing the floor, it is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp” I reassure myself it is only a hallucination that has tricked my fatigued mind — vain! all of my efforts are in vain, he stalks me with a cloak shrouded face that peers through the darkness, all that can be seen is the glint of his scythe, carved by the gods of the infernal region filled with everlasting fire and brimstone, he roams unseen to the human eye surrounded in the shadows, never seen or heard till he reaps your soul and carries it to the underworld—Death! he is death, the larcener of my soul come to collect the very essence of my being. 

A glint seeps through the darkness and surrounds my eye —the damsel!— she has heard my cries and come to save me from the impending doom that is due to be inflicted onto my soul, I stare wide eyed at the small ribbon of light that illuminates the darkness, centred on my eye — the eyes that once looked to me as an old friend now stabs through the dark and peers into the windows of my soul with distain and disgust, she stands stiffly over me like an avenging angel ready to smite all — she is the Larcener the evil at the roots, a fallen angel in the dark.