The Fyrn

A visit in the night

Anything could have woken me up. I bet even the sound of a spider moving on the ceiling could've had me opening my eyes, that's how light my sleep was. But it wasn't just anything that woke me up, no that would be too simple, wouldn't it?
"Alex? Are you there?" Nora's calm voice came from the radio. I looked outside and saw only pitchblack. Thinking it couldn't be urgent, I took my time to get up and to my desk. 3 minutes at least. No need to rush when she was obviously calm, right? I sat down and started fidgeting with the box of matches again. It'd become a sort of a habit for when I sat here.

"Miss me already? I'm not even gone yet." My voice was deep, way deeper than usual. That's normal, of course, and it'd seemed cool as a teenager but now it was just plain annoying. "Look outside. Do you see that fire too?" Her demeanor stayed calm, which I assumed meant it was only a small one and that she was still very tired. I said I'd check it out. Putting the matches into my back pocket, I grabbed my binoculars and walked onto the observation deck. The night air was stale and cold, it clung to my unkempt beard and eyelashes and made my lips numb. It wasn't thick like the air around the shrine, but sharp and it stung my nostrils. Walking around the deck, I looked in every direction but never saw any heat signatures. The woods were a sea of dark blue with no orange in sight. I didn't feel the slightest bit safe either, which didn't help. Just before I was going to go back into the cabin and tell Nora she was about as funny as a stand-up routine at a child's funeral, I saw it. A small smudge of blue, darker than any other, indicating that that patch at the corner of my tower was somehow colder than the freezing air around it. That couldn't be.

My heart caught in my throat, feeling like it wanted to leap out of my mouth and run with its non-existent legs. My face grew pale and the hair on the back of my neck, arms and legs stood on end. I didn't dare look without my binoculars and yet I had to. What I saw then will never leave me, it will haunt my nightmares until the end of my days.
It just stood there. It just fucking stood there.
I say it, not she, because even though it had the form, body and complexion of the hiker that I'd gotten to safety mere hours ago, this wasn't a woman. I looked through my binoculars again and, just as I feared, it was colder than the night air around her. It was the darkest blue imaginable, nearly pitchblack, and it just stood there looking up at me. Watching me with those bright green eyes.

In a panic, I rushed back to the cabin and dropped the binoculars to the floor of the observation deck. I entered the cozy cabin, its familiar warmth greeting me like an old friend. As I slammed the door shut, the ceiling creaked and croaked but I had no time to worry about damaging the cabin.
"Nora! Get the fuck over here with the jeep! It's an emergency!" I screamed into the microphone. Her reply was almost instant, though I didn't hear a word she said. Just as soon as she started speaking, the radio died and the only noise in the cabin was the ceiling creaking. But that didn't make sense. There was no wind, and it shouldn't still be creaking half a minute after I slammed the door. More than that, the creaking hadn't been coming from one place or the entire ceiling. The sound had followed me and it stopped right behind me. My blood ran cold and I dared not turn around for I feared what I would see. However, I knew that I had to face it. There was simply no way I could squeeze out of this situation now. My eyes darted around my desk quickly, and I saw my bottle of way too strong liquor standing just where I'd planned to leave it behind for good. For the last time, I picked up a bottle of alcohol and swung myself around so that I was now facing my bed.

There was nothing there, nor was there anything or anyone standing outside of any of my windows. Just when I started to calm down, my breathing slowing along with my heart rate, I finally looked where my eyes had failed to scan before. There, on the ceiling, was a creature unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It remained partially shrouded in shadow, but what I could see were two great green orbs, shining amidst the darkness of the ceiling. Moss and vines clung to its wiry frame, drooping down and covering the things' grotesque body. Its arms were long and spindly, decaying gray-ish skin with a sickly green hue clung onto its thin bones. The arms ended in what you could call hands, but the fingers were more akin to long, sharp talons that were easily twice as long as normal human fingers. Its legs were equally as skeletal, yet bent backwards somehow. The creature's knees faced the opposite direction that ours do; towards its rear rather than its front. Its legs, too, ended in sharp talons, with which it clung onto the ceiling. Its body was contorted in such a way that it looked like it would simply pop half the joints in its body out of their sockets. But, of course, that didn't happen. Its face, if you can call it that, seemed to be in a constant state of decay. The flesh on its head had the same putrid green hue as the rest of its body, it had no mouth with which to speak, nor did it have hair, ears or a nose. What it did have were two shining emerald eyes without pupils. Just two shining eyes, calling to me like a siren's song.