Childhood Horrors

We all had them...

The shadow crept across the window sill, so utterly silent not even the keen ears of the hooting owl outside receptive to its movement. It scanned the darkness of the locale; the dark as bright as daylight to its trained, bloodshot eyes. It was neither man, nor monster, but a miasma of both. An abomination of hell, a creature so vile that even angels wept in its presence. But the heavens were safe tonight, for its stare fixed on an entirely other pure being: the blonde-haired child in the bed.

 

It lowered its head and opened its maw directly above the child’s face " as it has done a hundred times before to others " and sucked in the precious life-force. There were no screams, and no struggle, only terrified blue eyes failing against the red orbs staring down at them. As youth withered away to husk, evil grew in size, satisfied with the fresh essence. It would return to Perdition, content until its hunger would urge it to hunt the innocent once more.

 

With the final remnants of colour leaving the child’s cheeks, the creature stood up and glided out the same way it came in, leaving silence in its wake. No breathing child, no hooting owl, even the very insects ceased their night calls lest they attract evil’s attention. For all life trembled and stopped until the nightstalker returned to its fiery depths...