One-Shot Stories

The Chosen

You sigh heavily as you step off the ladder, placing the paintbrush into the bucket of paint. It had been six months since you'd inherited this house from your crazy uncle Andrew, and you'd been working as hard as you could to get the place cleaned up, but it never seemed to make a difference. There was just... so much still to do, and there never seemed to be enough time to do it all.

You'd been initially excited about the fact that you'd finally have a place of your own, but once you got to it, you realized that it was a run-down old house in the middle of nowhere, with the nearest town fifteen minutes away. And that it needed a lot of work before it was even going to be livable. AND that it was on the edge of a really dark stretch of forest that the locals avoided like the plague. Supposedly there was a huge beast that lived in there, and the few times that anybody had tried to develop the land or even survey it, they'd met with unfortunate accidents.

Of course, that was insane, and you just brushed it off as small town superstition.

You look up at your handiwork, and feel pretty pleased with the painting you'd done so far. It brightened up the gloomy old house significantly, and you felt a sort of rush of energy to get it finished. A few hours later, and the job was complete, the setting sun making the yellow paint glow brightly against the evening sky.

You grin happily, wiping the sweat from your forehead, and turn to gather up the paint supplies when you suddenly see a pair of eyes glowing in the treeline nearby. You pause a moment, squinting, trying to see what it was in the failing light, but can't make anything out. With a shrug, you turn away and clean up, but you can feel the eyes on you the entire time. Stashing the ladder in the shed, you glance back over toward the shadows beneath the trees just as the sun sinks below the horizon, and the eyes blink twice, then vanish. You shake your head slightly and head inside; you were tired, and there wasn't anything more important than the dinner you still had to cook.

You wake up early the next day, strangely energized and ready to take on the world. A quick breakfast and cup of coffee later, and you're out in the shed, prepping more paint for the trim work today. As you do so, your thoughts wander to the night previous, and you find yourself glancing toward the overgrown treeline.

Taking a small break, you wander toward it, curious about whether you'd be able to determine what animal it was that had visited last night. As you get closer to the forest, however, you begin to feel uneasy; the short shrubs you'd expected to find were actually trees as tall as you were. The shadows beneath the trees were cool, bordering on cold, and you shiver. You see trampled grass, and your blood runs cold.

Enormous imprints had pressed the grass flat to the earth. You hesitantly place your foot in one, and shiver as you see how small your foot was in comparison to them. Shaking yourself, you quickly retreat back into the heat of the sun, glancing back at the darkness beneath the trees.

Maybe it wasn't small town superstition after all.

Needing a distraction, you throw yourself into your work, making quick progress repainting the faded trim on the house. Your concentration is so intense that before you realize it, night is falling and you're done. You do your best to avoid looking toward the forest, cleaning up quickly and swiftly. But somehow, your eyes are drawn to the darkness, and you freeze as you see the eyes shining out of the shadows again.

You stare for a long minute before they blink and vanish once again, just as the sun sets. You walk stiffly toward the house, your senses on high alert for any sound out of the ordinary. You hurry inside and lock the doors, your nerves frayed a bit. You decide that you'd rather have a bath than eat at this point, and head upstairs. You take a few deep breaths, trying to calm yourself down a bit; it was nothing to be afraid of, it was just a big boar or something. It hadn't done anything for you to be concerned about, it was just looking at you because it was curious about all the activity near its home. Somewhat satisfied with your own explanation, you manage to calm down and enjoy your evening.