Tales To Tell In The Dark

The Beast

In the darkness there dwells a beast. Not just any beast, but one that can consume one's life and soul with such ease that the idea of challenge is merely a philosophy and not a fact for this creature.

We cannot trust this beast, as it is quick to cough us up or pretend it is not there, following you behind your back and mimicking your every move.

The beast often will make you laugh, it will make you cry with tears of joy, it will make you scream with anger and frustration. These are the nuances of this beast.

Some view the beast as a taunter or a demon, others view it as a blessing or an angel. The beast does not comply with whomever it selects. It makes up its mind and takes action quickly without informing anyone before doing so.

One dark night, the beast was following another one of its victims very closely through a suburb when it was briefly distracted by a fluttering in its ear. The beast quickly turned to its left to see what it made the fluttering sensation and was thrown back with awe at the most beautiful human it had ever seen. She was sitting on her front porch, reading a magazine underneath the dim light. But, the beast was still stalking its previous victim and it had to keep moving. It made note of where this human was and went on with its routine.

By the time the victim had made it home, the beast was fatigued. It could not move much further, let alone go inside the house. So, the beast laid down on the grass outside and fell asleep.

The beast woke up in a pool of blood. There were no cuts visible on the beast's body, nor any injuries. The beast scrambled up and quickly ran inside to make sure its victim was safe, no other beast could consume this precious morsel of a human other than the beast. It ran up the stairs and into the bedroom... And the human was sleeping, perfectly fine.

While the human was sleeping, the beast decided it was a good time to go pay a visit to the female human it saw the night before. It walked for about thirty minutes down the street, looking this way and that for the house that belonged to this beautiful human being. Eventually, the beast found the home of the human.

The beast walked inside the door and found the house to be dark. There were no lights, let alone light switches or any source that could make visibility easier. But, the beast, being the beast it was, didn't let this stop it and it began to search the house. There was no furniture in the basement, just a cement floor and some cobwebs. The main floor was filled with a few cardboard boxes of furniture, but none of them had been assembled.

The beast ascended the stairs and found the majority of the furniture to be on the upper floor. The upstairs hallway's wall was covered with various paintings, photos, and portraits. The beast noticed a single room upstairs at the end of the hallway. The door was shut, but there was light seeping through the cracks in the door.

The beast licked its lips and began to savor the human it could consume. It began to approach the door and it stopped. The door had no handle. It could not be opened.

This did not stop the beast, so it merely kicked the door down and forced its way into the room. Upon entering the room, the beast found that there was nothing but a bright ceiling light and a large mirror covering the majority of the back wall.

The beast looked in the mirror and looked back at the doorway. It had not found what it was looking for. But the beast saw its reflection and decided that was enough.

The beast looked at its arm, licked its lips, and bit its arm off. It took awhile to eat the whole arm, slowly savoring each bite, licking its lips of blood. Then it bit the other arm off. The beast did not realize how delicious it was and what flavor it possessed. The beast continued to eat itself until the beast was no more.

The only thing left in the room were two pools of blood, forming two halves of a broken heart.