Bewitching Afright

Halloween Spooky Stories👻🎃
Writing Prompt 1#


Just as I get to the most nail-biting part of my favourite netflix series, the lights go out. My body jerks automatically at the click of the switches. As I take a deep breath, it feels as though I'm breathing in fear that rapidly runs from my head to my toes. Suddenly, I hear my kitchen windows burst open with the sound of wind violently gushing in. Hesitantly, I get up from my cosy couch and inch my way to the kitchen. With each step, my senses are on alert. My gaze zooms in on that single opened window while the eerie sound of the wind echoing in could not be any more disturbing. Suddenly, I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I instinctively jump and turn around.

“Jeje, the lights went out.” says my little sister.

“Oh my gosh you scared me!” I exclaimed, but clearly from her shaky voice, Joelene is just as afraid as I am.

As I stretch forth my hand to close the window, a noise catches our attention. A high-pitch cry, a whimper like muffled sobs. Joelene and I exchange perplexed but concerned looks. While nerves run wild in our minds, something in us wants to find out source of that sound. It seems as though it’s coming from outside. For what we know it doesn’t sound like human and we cannot make out what it is.

“Cmon Jeje, we don’t believe in ghosts. Plus, this is this the first time the electricity got cut since we moved here. What’s the worst that could happen?”

So, one thing’s for sure, we decide to go outside to check out what it is. Being the only sibling old enough to have a phone, I look for it to aid our sight in dark outside. Groping in the dark is no easy feat and searching for my phone is harder than I had thought. I could not recall where I last placed it. Finally, I find did to my dismay of its battery level hanging on by 2%. You have got to be kidding me. I thought these technological devices were to suppose to make our lives easier. Joelene successfully finds a miniature hand-held torchlight. Not ideal but a feasible alternative at hand, literally.

We unlock the door hinges and head outside. In the quiet of the night, every jangle of the key and turn of doorknobs sounds as though it could wake up the whole neighbourhood. After all it is past 11pm. As we put on our shoes, one of Joelene’s flashes of the torch on our door catches my eye. Fresh red smear prints, glistening against the illumination. Blood stains. They look as if they were scratches with red smudges on our wooden door. The dark disallowed me from fully discerning my sister’s expression, but we sense the same thing, alarm.

Although short, we make our journey towards the back of our house to check out the spot outside where our kitchen resides. The wind blows strongly, whipping our hair in our faces, cutting our vision into strips. Its cold rush makes our bodies shiver with goosebumps as we press against its direction moving forward. Then we hear soft thunders in the distance followed by streaks of lightning in the clouds as if the whole sky were an electric circuit with a charged-up current. Thick clouds filled the sky with its deep dark grey giving off an ominous effect in the dark of the night.

As we approach the side of our house, our gaze catches a shadow emerging on the wall of our neighbour’s house. Our backs immediately stiffen up. I could feel Joelene drawing herself closer to me, clenching my arm tensely. As it moves nearer and grows bigger, our fright levels escalate to increasing heights. Then to our relief, we see our neighbour.

“Ehyy Sarah & Joelene! Oh, sorry to scare you at this time of the night.” said Asma in reply to our clearly disturbed face expressions.

“My cats weren’t eating just now so I’m accompanying them now. These cats of mine are just over pampered.”

We respond with laughs and giggles, but everything tenses up again upon hearing Asma’s next words.

“By the way, this is gonna sound strange, but I came across blood stains at my door. They looked forcibly scratched with some smears. That’s super weird ‘cause I’ve never seen them before, and they certainly aren’t from my cats.” Shudders run down our spines. Could they be the same blood stains? Asma’s description fits the exact same thing of what we had just seen.

After wishing goodnight, Asma goes back to her business, and we are left alone once again. Who knew making one’s way to the back of your house took such a long time with fierce wind, shivering cold, bolting thunder and neighbour scares? With each step we take, I realize that our torch fuse is strangely, gradually dimming. All of a sudden, a bolt of thunder strikes. We yelp and jerk as an automatic startled response. Its rumble reverberating through our very beings. Now the torchlight’s fuse is completely wiped out. We are left with the gloominess of the cloudy night to guide our sight. It hadn’t start raining yet, but something is brewing.

Now, we stand 3 feet from our kitchen window and start inspecting our surroundings. Then, we hear a thump. A thump. A thump, and another thump faster which each beat. We perk up looking left and right. Our hearts getting up to our throats with each thump. Two bright blue eyes appear staring at us right in our faces. A creature scurries out in front of us, but all we can see is the swift movement of its shadow. We squint our eyes trying to make out what it is and get prepare for flight. Lo and behold it’s a dog!

We chuckle as we look at each other in relief. Bundled nerves of frightful wariness are now turned into relieved laughter. Slowly but surely, we approach it. We squat down, lean forward and stretch out our hands with intentions of patting it, but it pulls away in a distressed yelp.

“Awwww” we express pitifully.

As it stands still in front of us, I notice the fear in its blue eyes. We can only imagine what that fella must’ve been through. We approach the poor doggie it in the calmest manner of our knowledge and whisper reassuring tones of “It’s okay”, “Come here”. Joelene manages to its pat its shoulder and soon its head. After we gain its trust, we bring it into our house.

“Now we gotta find you a place to sleep.” said Joelene. Just at the very end of her statement, the lights come back on. Instant flashes blind our sight for a while, followed by the clicks of electric circuits. We struggle to adjust our visions to the bright change of scene.  

Now we can visibly see the adorable furry creature that caused us much distress. Medium sized, brown coat with short fur, triangular ears hanging from the sides of its head, a sharp snout with a moist little nose and its beaming blue eyes which we saw earlier in the dark’s night. Then we notice how its nails are bleeding. Droplets of blood on our white-tiled floor. He must’ve been scrambling from house-to-house, scratching on doors, trying to seek refuge from an oncoming storm.

Another thunder strikes. With tucked ears and tail, the terrified animal jumps onto the couch. The very spot I was sitting at before the lights went out. Well, looks like this dog knows how to make itself at home. We look at each other, shrug and join the dog on the couch. As we give it pats of affection, its tail wags and beats against the cushioned fabric. Thump, thump, thump! We exchange glances and smile. Sigh what a night!

Written by,
Sarah Loh✨
Head of StudentInk


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