Writing Sample:

I stood motionless for a moment looking at the creature standing in front of me. It was not threatening in that moment, however it sent a chill of fear through me. The open space behind it was nothing but black darkness. The closet as it had been, the hanging coats, and the empty shelf were no longer visible, only a blackness that can be witnessed but not described. The creature, however, was plainly visible as the light from the kitchen worked its way around the wall and, unobstructed by the closet door since it was opened inwardly, the bit of light which reached it, reflected off the façade of the creature as if rejected. I slowly moved closer to the couch and found myself sitting down, never taking my eyes off the creature and it never taking its eyes off me as I moved. I don’t know why I sat. Perhaps I was so overwhelmed with the sight that my legs would no longer keep me standing. It wasn’t a relaxed position that I went to. Instead, I sat anxiously on the edge of the couch with my head out over my knees. Both of us did not break our gaze or break the silence we had built between us. The creature was looking with its head cocked to the side almost like an inquisitive bird deciding if it was looking at predator or prey. The creature wore clothes that were human in design. Dark boots covered its feet leading up to dark yet faded blue jean material over its legs. Through the material of the jeans, I was able to discern that the creatures’ knees were backwards, inverted like a hooved animal’s would be. There was a dirty white undershirt, so dirty that it appeared a tan-brown color with a dark brown jacket hanging open in the front. Its hands were covered in hair. It was not normal soft and short human hair that would be on someone’s hand. It was too long and appeared to be stiff like that of a goat. Its neck and head were covered in this same textured hair except that the hair on its head was longer hanging down out of sight behind its shoulders.

However, my gaze was not stuck on the creature’s body form. I found myself unable to stop staring into its face. It had the face of a human child. It was hairless human skin of such a pale grey color that the light reflected back to me off from it. It was a young face in its shape and size but had been clearly aged by time. The skin was wrinkled like that of a person in their golden years but maintained the youthful shape of a young boy. There was no shadow of facial hair, no scars, and neatly groomed, small eyebrows. The creature was clearly aged by time without growth or change in structure. The face gave me the impression that I was looking at a male rather than a female and it looked back at me with a still, calm, inquisitive stare. No words were said by either of us as we both appeared to be assessing the situation that we found ourselves in.

The mysterious box, the possessed stone and the events of the previous few moments had completely been wiped from my mind as I found myself facing this new reality. My attention was then drawn to the creature’s eyes. Its eyes gave the appearance that it had made some sort of decision and its eyes cut into mine with a piercing cold look that I had not seen until that very moment. And in that very same moment of the cold piercing gaze, just as my wife had previously, the creature disappeared in front of my eyes and the darkness took over more of the room. The closet door remained inwardly open and the blackness that had previously taken the place of the coats and shelf had now lightened from inside of what used to be the closet, revealing a small round room barely large enough to stand in with walls of stone and a stone spiral staircase leading downward. The stone was mossy like the rocky hill I had seen in the glass case, but the surface of the stone was not naturally sharp broken edges like the hill had been, these stones had been shaped by someone or something to form the room. It was clear that this entryway was aged and unkept. I was left there in wonder.