Spooky Story
1 min
2024 Spooky Short Story Finalist
Ophelia X. (7th grade)
In 1st grade, we were asked what our greatest fear was.
Answers spewed from my classmates' mouths: Spiders, the dark, monsters. Back then, I had a fear of getting dragged from my bed by a ruthless grip of a mysterious entity in the night.
Of course, you later know everything was a lie. There's no humongous spiders trapping you into their webs, no monster hunting you down. It's scary to think about, but we know it's fiction.
Though, this realization doesn't make us feel relieved. Maybe, at first, but we become terrified again. More than how we felt back then as kids.
Not because of these beasts or demons coming after us.
But because of what's real.
Because of what we know is real.
We aren't afraid of the creepy shadows lurking in the dark. We're afraid of the shadow of a stranger smashing the glass of our windows late at night. Because that happens.
We aren't afraid of creatures from the unknown pulling us away from the sheets of our beds.
We're afraid of an unknown hand taking us far away, where nobody else can find us, where nobody can hear our useless cries for help. Because that happens.
We aren't afraid of getting spooked by a monster of terror made up from the books or movies.
We're afraid of the monsters that lie in the very world that we live in. Monsters who strip away their sympathy. Monsters who don't care about your life, or anyone else's. Monsters who don't stop hurting you when you want them to stop. Even though they know it's right to stop.
And that's precisely what scares us.
We are what scares us.
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