The Night of The Asylum

Shadows

Salem stood, his hands trembling as he reached for the tree branch ahead of him. Tomorrow was Halloween. Salem was in the tree when he spotted it. The shadow had been stalking him since he'd spent the night at the old campgrounds. He was scared. What did this thing want? It could sense his presence. Salem looked around, searching for the shadow. He turned around in a haste when he felt the cold paw of the shadow.

Salem fell out of the tree and collided with the brush with a dull thump. Salem's foot was broken. He couldn't walk. He looked around at the shadow in front of him, and grabbed the dagger he had hidden in his sweater. Salem jerked out the dagger and stabbed the shadow as it came into form. The creature, seeming half wolf and half human, very, very pale, bloody human, recoiled instantly and climbed back into the tree. "Come here, Wolfie! Here! C'mon!" Salem yelled as he held his dagger in front of him. 

The creature lunged, enraged by what the boy had called it. Salem got up shakily using the tree behind him and leaned against it while he swung the dagger. "Okay, okay. Not Wolfie. That's fine." Salem retorted, smirking at the creature, which was now in shade form, floating in front of him. He stared, his dark green eyes bore into the created as it moved, green daggers into its soul. The darkness flooded around the asylum patient and chilled him to the bone. 

The shade lunged, pinning Salem beneath its cold, dark hands. He struggled to run, but his legs did not work. His arms were pinned. The creature pressed down on his wrist and he dropped his dagger. Salem coughed, thinking he would die then and there as he stopped his struggling. The creature then did the unexpected. He got off, as if it did not want an unfair battle. Salem fell to his knees, his ankle dragging in the dirt behind him. The crisp air surrounded him once more as the creature lowered and fell into its solid form, ready for a fight. By all means, Salem couldn't fight he was too weak, too helpless. No. That pity is what got him at the horrid asylum he had called, 'home' for the past nine years. He had run. That was no home to him now. If he had to live in a hole, so be it. He would never go back there unless to bring back Ringo.

Ringo was the only one who ever cared. She may have been jumpy and skittish, but that was because of the torture of the asylum. He wanted to take her away, live alone in the woods, maybe even start a place for the other escapees? Eh... No. That was too risky. Salem shooed the thought away. He would forever be insane, hurt, broken. Although he burned the written documents of the bondage to the asylum, it still hurt. He couldn't shake a reputation. He'd would never be able to show his face. He was not like they said but they thought he was. That was enough to imprison him.

Salem winced as the shade engulfed him and he blacked out, hitting his head on a nearby rock. He yowled and the world became red and black. His ankle fell to the side and he ragdolled, letting the shade carry him away.