Skeletons in the Closet

The house creaked on its very foundations. Almost having come to a life of its own; it appeared to him that dark blood was now throbbing through the veins of the house. He could hear the house resound with the thump of an old and ravaged heart still pumping it on and on, with a renewed vengeance. The play of shadows, of darkness and of sudden light made the crimson marks on the walls look like wounds on the very being of the house. Still bleeding.

The wooden boards underneath his feet creaked and gave away. There was urgency in the air, something told him to leave. To run. To not look back again.

The house had given him shelter for the last thousand years of his being. From the night he had come running in from the forest, wounded and still human. It had appeared as suddenly in front of him, as it demanded to be left alone today. He had found solace in the room with the ornate golden mirror, the one on the closet door. The figure that stared back at him from the mirror was him in his glory days and not the faint shadow he had become now. It always smiled back at him. This room was his haven. There was an unspoken understanding.

The person in the mirror always stayed the same. The meaning of time was lost on him over his transition to the suspended state of existence he was now in for so many centuries. Now it was back. Now he had to hurry. To gather whatever little belonged to him over the years and to find another safe haven for the night.

He dare not go out into the night. The night was inhospitable to creatures like him. The forest would engulf him in a split second. The others were eaten up centuries ago; he had never found any trace of them despite having looked far and wide. He had survived in this house for until many centuries later. Today it had turned on him.

Mingled with his smell of fear, he could almost smell the presence of the others. Like they were back from the beyond, helping the only one of their kind left, in his frantic struggle for survival.

He ran. The creaking took a vicious note. He ran through the rooms. The house swayed and groaned. The bleeding from the walls was not a mirage anymore. There was blood trickling on the floor. A blood pool formed around his feet. He rushed outside. The well that had been dry for the last thousand years was filled with menacing dark waters, He ran. He saw islands in between those waters. Supposing he hopped on to those? He had to survive. And then crazily, his mind refused the idea. He kept running. The garden merged with the forest. The old banyan tree at the boundary swayed wildly in the wind. He ran.

Twigs snapped in the distance, something snapped inside of him.

He continued running. Only now he was running back to the house. It was almost suicidal; He had an irrepressible urge to go back. To question the insanity that had let him stay, those innumerable years ago. That had treated him as a fortune’s child. He frantically wanted to find the heart of the house and come face to face with the evil that seemed to grip it. He didn't want to let go. He was to die in the house. With it. He had made up his mind.

The mirror. He had to get back to the mirror.

The shadows played again. With him this time. The house melted away. There were no hallways left, the giant paintings of lost glory dripped to the ground. His eye caught a painting of the mirror with the closet door slightly ajar. He hadn’t seen it before. Maybe he overlooked it. Maybe he was imagining it.

The staircase that led to his room was covered with thicket. It looked like it was a part of the forest now. The throbbing sound of the ageing heart no longer came from a distance. It enveloped him, a deafening hum in his ears. A subconscious realization filled him. He was no longer searching for the heart. He was inside it. The house was the heart of the forest. The one that had devoured the others and left no trace. No remembrance for him to mourn them with.

The smell of the others became stronger and nauseated him as he went up the crumbling staircase in a daze, clutching at the foliage and the roots which now replaced the steps and made his way up.

The room was still there, the walls a dark crimson, the throbbing veins clearly visible, originating from where the mirrored closet was, feeding the forest with darkness.

The mirror had cracked. The figure from within smiled at him differently this time. He reached out to open the closet door. He now saw from where the blood came that fed the forest. He now saw what his fate was to be.

The smell of the others filled the room. The skeletons tumbled out.

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~Kiran, 25th January 2009