Deeper and deeper they descended into those dark woods. The soft winds that welcomed them turned to whipping winds that would have sent any undetermined man right back. Lamplight swayed within the boys’ grasp, turning frayed rope into budding ivy and dull iron to broken stone. As promised, neither Darcy nor Bucky let go of the others’ hand. Beams of bright moonlight wishing to guide them were halted by the canopy of dense leaves hanging onto their branches, in hopes of lasting until the end of the season. A cacophony of crunches and snaps from dried twigs echoed loudly underfoot, joined by the squawks of black birds.
When the two children found the leaves beneath them to be turning into the soft tickle of wet grass- they were met with the moon, full and shining before them.
It was a wondrously wide clearing that overlooked a gently rolling sea, mists of the night rising over the rocks that dotted the water like bubbles from the breaking of the waves foaming around them. They lapped at the stone walls of the cliffs as the moon posed- a brilliant pearl rising from the ocean. It casted long shadows from the debris that scattered across the clearing. However, beyond the abandoned rubble of broken porcelain, glass, and mossy wood panels sat a figure of a most odd outline.
Neither child could tell where it began, and where the figure ended, as the bright moonlight wrapped it in dark shadow.
No movement was made; the boys were unable to tell what the strange shape was in such lighting. Only once a short breadth past did Darcy softly say, ‘Why, it must simply be nothing more than a boulder. Nothing to be afraid of!’ His fair company only trembled.
‘Oh, please, we must be going now!’ Bucky pleaded quietly as the older child stepped forward towards the curious rock. With their hands closed around one another the boys pulled back and forth between them, ‘We have seen the moon, now let us head back for bed as we had planned!’
The poor little lantern swayed with their squabbling until it could bear it no longer. The iron handle slipped out from Darcys’ hand, and the light died with the sudden shatter of glass and the clear twinge of clattering metal. The children stopped, and dared not move anymore.
In the white moonlight the shape stretched, and unraveled itself into a massive creature. Its silhouette was long, with the tail of a whale and a fin on its back as if in a mocking recreation of the animal; two wide eyes reflected the light of the night, as it slowly moved its head in the direction of the sound. When the beast began to stalk towards the boys they wasted not a second before scrambling away, back to where they came.
Thump, thump, thumping of the creature bounding after them frightened the poor children so much so, that they let go of one another as they fled frantically back through the Deep Wood. Neither Bucky nor Darcy noticed that they had scrambled in different directions, running through the muck of dead leaves that slowed them down terribly. With nothing but darkness swallowing them they ran through bushes and over stumps as they fled from the large beast.
Bucky, poor Bucky, dared to look back when a horrible cry shook the birds from the trees and the heart in his chest. He turned expecting to find his Darcy to be in suite- but instead, the cold eyes of the creature met him.
And then he fell, as he was not looking where he had been going, tripping over ivy rope into the waiting jaws of iron stone. Attempting to crawl away across the floor of the forest, he pulled himself forward but the stinging pain digging into his leg kept him in place. Bucky cried for his friend, his mother, for anyone or anything to help him…And the only response he received was the wind whistling in return.
Shy rays of light began to dim in disgust of the scene before them, leaving Bucky in complete darkness. Only the two terrible eyes of the approaching beast remained clear before they, too, went black with the rest of the night.