It’s so dark here in this place. So quiet.

The silence muffled my world as surely as the blanket I curled in so snuggly. It had been silent here for some time and often, I often wondered if it wasn’t actually muted but I had simply lost my hearing. Perhaps I had gone deaf at some juncture. Surely nothing natural could be so soundless. Maybe it wasn’t always dark and my sight had failed me as well. How was I to ever know? I knew that I had a self. I existed because there was awareness to be had. I was conscious of thought and the lack of sight and sound. So I existed. Now where exactly was I? Was I anywhere? Was it possible to be aware of yourself but not be anywhere, in a defined space?

I supposed, logically, I had to be somewhere. Maybe a cave since it was so dark and quiet. Even caves had some sound, though, didn’t they? Droplets falling from the ceiling and the low, nearly imperceptible hum of air moving through large shafts and caverns in the ground. All that my sluggish memory could draw up was…the sense of falling. A splash of water, cold and unforgiving. The well. That was right. Seth had pushed me into the well, that stinkbrain! Mrs. Herring was going to be so mad when I told her what he’d done!
Maybe this was the hospital, then. There was a sharp stab of vicious satisfaction at he image of the bully getting what was coming to him at last. My greatest regret was that there would be no way for me to witness his punishment if I was both blind and deaf. Was this going to last forever? I stretched out my remaining senses one by one, trying to identify my surroundings and find any trace of familiarity around me.

I could smell…wood and lime, the kind that Miss Marta used around the trash bins in the summer when the heat got unbearable, cooking and swelling the garbage until we couldn’t even play outside for the smell. There was a sweet smell beneath it too, something that I didn’t care for at all but could not rightly identify. I had a blanket and I was laying on a hard surface. I got the sense that it was once rather uncomfortable but I suppose I had grown accustomed to it, my nerves dulling to the discomfort. I was curled up in the fabric snugly but the softness I once was so fond of was now somewhat scratchy and faded. It would always be my favorite though, no matter how much I wore it out. Beneath me, the blanket was moist and scratchy, as if I had had an accident and it had dried to a tacky substance. The feel of something crinkly was beneath that still. There was something new now that was piercing my world. Something so unusual that I barely recognized what it was at first. Sound.

The creaking of footsteps on old wood and low talking. Well, at least I knew I still had my hearing. It also ruled out a hospital since they were always the sound of beeping and linoleum. The voices were male, two of them from what I could tell and they were approaching me. I couldn’t see them. My world was still black in my blindness, but I could make out a few words here and there.

“…Creepy old place…lots of cool stuff here…”

“Check this out.”

And suddenly there was a rusty creeeeeaaakkkkkk, followed by a light so bright and vivid that I couldn’t make out anything else for some time. I heard the boys startle back and one of them threw up in the corner of the room.

“Oh shit…Oh shit, man.”

“What-?! What is that thing?!”

“I think-” A low whimper, “I think it’s a kid…”

When the light cleared, I wish I could have thrown up too. The light filtered in from a window through a thick sheet of plastic surrounding me. I was wrapped up in my blanket as if I had just laid down to bed. Around it, thick sheets of plastic that had been over the furniture in our playroom where Mr. Herring had been painting. The wetness I was lying in hadn’t been an accident. It hadn’t been a spill.

It had been what was left of me, seeping into the bottom of a large wooden chest that Seth had once told me the boogeyman lived in. The smell of lime was overpowering but they hadn’t used enough. Not nearly enough.

‘Child’s Body Found In Attic of Abandoned Children’s Home’

‘Yesterday, the body of an unidentified child was found in a wooden chest in an Amarillo attic in. Officials on the case say that the building had been abandoned for quite some time but had once functioned as a children’s home for displaced orphans. Amarillo police have determined that the girl, wrapped in a blanket, appears to have been between the ages of seven and ten and had been dead for quite some years. Coroners have yet to determine the cause of death or exactly how long the girl had been there, but officials are asking the public for any help they can in finding any information on the young Jane Doe or the location of the previous matron, Mr. or Mrs. Herring.’

A Word From The Author:

Spooky! I’ve had this piece hanging around for a few years now and, after digging it up for an anthology submission contest, I decided to share it with all of you! I hope you enjoyed it and let me know if you like these little shorts and if you’d like more!

With Peace and Passion.

Ta!