Grief's Tomb

Author's note
So this story was a story I wrote when we had a gothic short story unite in english class last year. For those who don't know gothic is a type of literature that is similar to modern day horror. They were written by People like Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. We studied this in class and then our assignment was to come up with our own. So this was the result. So if your not comfortable with gore and other creepy things don't read it! (It gets a little intense towards the middle) I hope you guys like this!

I woke with a start at the clap of thunder Booming in the distance. I heard a howling as well, high pitched and quite a screech. There it is again! It was long and pained, coming closer to the house, becoming louder and louder. Then it just stopped. I was relieved at first, but soon after the thunder stopped leaving a thick silence behind.

"What do you suppose that was?" I said to the doll my mother had made me a long time ago.
"I don't know Alice." the doll told me, " Maybe it's the storm, or a wolf...."
"Oh, ok."

I picked up the doll and stared in to her face. Her dark marble eyes stared back at me. No light glinted in them tonight. Her smile seamed cruel and malevolent, while curling around her face. I dropped her to the floor and heard the muffled thump of fallen clothing before moving quickly to the door.

The air in my room became unbearable. It stuck in my throat instead of flowing down into my chest. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I reached my hand slowly to the latch. It shook as I thought about the noises I had heard out side in the night. Finally I lifted the latch and slipped out into the pitch night.

"The storm has past. It's alright, Alice," my father said. He was sitting on the stone steps that lead to our victorian mansion with something, black and furry he was stroking in his lap. I rushed over to see what it was.

It was a small Black kitten soaked so that you could see his bones through his fur and it looked starved of any kind of nourishment.

"Can I keep Him?' I asked as innocently as I could possibly muster, with my hands shaking uncontrollably behind my back.

"He's yours to keep," He said, handing me the kitten. I held him tight as I stepped inside.

He mewed pathetically. The sound clawed at my insides. I could tell that food was a foreign object to him that he did not really know what to really do with. His mother Must have died sometime before this, without teaching him how to survive out in the woods. I knew that he was going to live though. I wasn't going to let this little ball of fur die any time soon.

A few years have passed since that time, and during those years he had grown large and strong. I had grown quite fond of him. I had named him Cheshire on a childish whim, but it ended up suiting him. The bond between us, he as my pet and I as is master, could never be broken, until one night.

I awoke the next morning to a depressing day ahead of me. It was cloudy and cold. the wind was so bitter, it stung and left tiny red bumps all over my arms even though the were covered with a jacket over my white silk dress. The dress went down to my ankles but it did little to keep me warm. It was Frilly but at the same time plain. my little black shoes clicked on the cobble stone road as i walked next to my sister, a tall beauty. She had all the young men asking her for her hand, but father wouldn't accept any of them. They couldn't meet his expectations is what I thought.

Father stood next to her. He was rough, dark, and secretive. My father was scared from the many battles he fought internally and externally. Many people feared even his name, and would cringe when they would hear it, but he was actually gentle and kind. He kept many things about his past tucked a way in a wooden box. I remember vaguely of him telling stories to my brothers of his child hood in boarding schools where they trained young boys from age twelve to 20 to be soldiers for the British army. He would tell them how good they have it to be born into my mother's noble family. They wouldn't have the risk of being shipped off to war like my father did.