Old Monster

Date: 4/2/2022

I was probably about 6 or 7 years old, and I was running in terror across a field. Behind me, an angry man stomped after me. In an act of desperation I leaped into a shallow and narrow stretch of a river, attempting to cross. I was too slow though, and the man was too close. I found a big concrete block with some wood sticking up off it; remains of a demolished building. I ducked behind the rubble as I heard the man splash into the water behind me. Rattled with fear, I peaked out from behind my cover to see the monster that pursued me. This was no ordinary man. His arms and legs were about twice as long as they should be, making him a tall and skinny man with an insect-like appearance. He was old, with a wild grey beard and leathery skin. His clothing was tattered as if he hadn’t taken them off for a year. His eyes sunken into his skull and teeth rotten to the gums. Around his right arm, he had a long, 20 foot whip. He cracked it swiftly across the surface of the water, narrowly missing my face. I was crying in sheer terror. I heard another person flailing through the water toward me. It was another man from the group I had been with before this all started. He was trying to get to me. It was no use though. The old monster swung his left arm, revealing an even worse weapon: a heavy chain wrapped with barbed wire, attached to a cinder block at the end. The cinder block quickly snagged the man, wrapping him in the barbed wire. The concrete hit him hard in the ribs, knocking the wind out of him and sending him briefly into the water, only to be yanked back out, 20 feet into the air as the old monster flailed his arm around. This was it, I thought. I’m next. I woke up, breathing heavily.