Adaptation

The Haunted house

 

It was a stormy night, windy and rainy. As sheets of rain battered the ground with fierceness of a lost soul claiming its revenge, darkness crept closer and closer to everything that shed light, – the moon hidden behind the clouds, the trees trembling beneath the tyrannous wind.  As the wind blew and hit the wall of the house, solitary in its state the sound of running could be heard in the hallways.

A door opens there, patter of small feet hitting the wooden flooring. "Where is he?".  Another door, three others and then finally the noise comes to a standstill. Just the faint noise of a dress disturbed by the wind.

 "There he is!", she giggled. Peeping in through the hallway she looked at him with a mix of anger and love. 

 

He woke up scared, sweat covered his frame. As he sat up straight unmoving, paralyzed, almost in a hypnotic state, sweat dripped off his brow making a hasty descent for his blanket, much as he wanted to do. Instead he sat still, fixed upon the vision he saw that made bile rise up at the back of his throat. Too scared to even make a sound, to even breathe, he listened, listened for that noise he knew. The slight scrape of fabric against wood, the sound of light footsteps creeping into his room, the quiet malevolent giggle. There! He heard it, the fear settled at the back of his mind made its way to his throat. Choking on his scream he looked back and there was nothing, just the pitch black mask his room put on under the shadow of the night.

What is she looking for? What does she want? Sleep trickles in and dreams take over him again.

"Why doesn't he wake up?  We're going to be late, he promised he' take me to the recital. Now they' be angry."

An invisible hand tries to wake him, tries to shake him out of stupor. "Wake up!", she says almost crying. "He promised", cheeks stained by tears, she walked out of the room slowly.

He woke up, startled, "Wait come back! Who are you looking for?"