Dark Horse Arts and Sciences

There is a thunderstorm approaching as I can smell from the fragrance of the air around me thickening with the scent of muddy rain, the air in my vicinity bringing in some cool breeze along with it. I can hear wolves howling from the dark woods behind my house. The sheer rumbling of the leaves of the trees catches the drum of my ears as I prepare myself for another night of complete blackout. My house, situated in an extreme remote area, is neighbor to a haunting damp forest, a forest that never sleeps, a forest that never rests neither lets its bystanders or neighbors slumber in peace.

The winds rustle through the thickness of fauna, inducing an atmosphere that would send chills down your spine. The thunderstorm has finally landed and I can hear the loud thuds and see the fast splashes of light beams penetrating through the leaves and kissing the walls of my house, sometimes even my skin. It is as terrifying a scene as one would certainly imagine to be seeing in a horror flick as the light creates an image of some being as the trees obstruct it. The being is nothing but the shadow, yet for that one tiny moment, your heart skips a beat and the figments of your imagination leads you to some dark speculative world which you could only have seen in your nightmares. It goes on for quite some time, the game of light and shadow, yet as the thunderstorm got louder and louder, I begin to feel something, which I wouldn’t insist, to be of any good nature. The air seems to have thickened and the fragrance of my surroundings seems to have moldered into some damp odor, like something which hasn’t been dried for a long time. First thing, I check all my door locks, and fortunately they all appear to be well-locked and protected. Yet my sixth sense seems to have smelt the presence of some dark aura around me, something that is hiding in plain sight. I know it is lurking around me, yet I hold my breath and try to remain calm. It must be a figment of my imagination, I convince myself. Then suddenly, I hear a sudden loud thud at the back of my house. I rush through the rooms and go and check. And what I witness, is out of the world and something that I would never have imagined across my zillion dreams. There in front of me stands a tall, dark figure with a hoodie on, with a giant knife in his hands, ready to pounce on me. Even through the darkness, I can see a sense of a grim on his face, a sort of grim one sees on a murderer’s face before he goes for his kill-spree. For some seconds, I can’t even comprehend what I would do. Then suddenly out of nowhere, another loud thud came from my back. I see and there stood a woman, holding a giant knife. There is no way for me to run. Then what happened would have eventually happened. Both of them engage in an immensely blood-soaked fight and the hoodie man dies, on the spot. The woman wins the battle and sighs in relief. The man who broke into her house, my house, died. She breaks into tears as the memories of the exact same incident a year ago start dancing around her consciousness, the day I passed away defending her in this same house at the same place, and maybe the same man, the hoodie man. I love visiting her in these damp thunderstorm nights. These thunderstorms have something that pulls me into this house amidst this haunting, howling woods. And thunderstorms are not the only reason I visit here often.

Written by: Som Abhisek.