The Dreaming One
A Very Short Story
A short story I submitted to a scary story challenge, where each story could only be 400 words. I placed tenth in the first round and was able to advance to the next, so I thought I’d post my submission on here. The prompts were:
Scare: a full moon
Action: doodling
Character: a reporter
Enjoy <3
The bright, sharp moonlight splayed across the ruins of the old church.
Nina’s breath frosted before her. Her fingers were numb as she checked the camera to make sure it was recording. Are you getting this? The church’s roof had splintered; the cross that once crowned it lay shattered against the cracked stone floors.
From the mouth of the church doorway, the pale, naked bodies were stark in the full moon.
Nausea, bright and simmering, filled Nina’s throat.
She stepped into the church, her boots crushing wooden shards of fallen ceiling. Come on, Nina, you’ve seen worse than this… don’t you need this story before anyone else? Don’t you want to be famous?
The bodies were arranged in a strange, spiraling shape. Deliberate. Nina shivered, staring hard into the camera. Glassy, dead eyes watched her through it. The symbols that had been carved into the bodies were ragged, spiraling along bellies and crowning fingertips. Bone glistened below the dark blood.
But it was the soft, peaceful smiles that brought hard, twisting nausea to Nina’s stomach.
She had been researching the cult – the Dreamers – for months. She thought it would prepare her; that her years as a reporter would have prepared her. But seeing all those dead, smiling bodies, the symbols they had carved into themselves…
In the center of the spiral, four words were painted in blood.
Hail the Dreaming One.
Nina’s arm itched. She scrubbed at it, unable to tear her eyes from the words. The camera wavered.
She dragged her eyes back to the screen, her feet away from the bodies. In the bright, spilling moonlight, she could see more bleeding words staining the walls. Phrases that made her eyes itch, her skin crawl.
Our world is nothing but a dream, the moonlight a gateway to the truth.
May the Dreaming One return.
The itch in your brain is the dreams trying to escape. Free them.
The camera trembled again as Nina rubbed at her eyes, scratched at her scalp.
“Are you getting this?” she whispered to her camera.
She was scrubbing at her arm again. Her nails were sharp against her skin.
She circled the church ruins, searching for other signs of the Dreaming One.
A shard of raw pain tore through her. She glanced down at her forearm, where a strange, spiraling rune had been torn into her skin.
Her thoughts whispered, Hail the Dreaming One.
I love how spooky you managed to make this in so little words!! Amazing work, as always 💞💞
Nice spooky ending