Orphans
Author's Notes
Morissa lives in an orphanage at edge of the city. She'd been there almost as long as she could remember - she had a few memories of her parents, but mostly their smell, and sometimes little things would come back. A comment, a place, a laugh. But they had both... gone. No one knew where. Morissa had been found by a concerned neighbor playing in the yard. There was an investigation, but her parents are still a mystery as to what happened to them.
The orphanage workers were kind to her; at first she had been afraid of the place, but it had been several years now and she was well adjusted.
But things where about to change.
Often at night, Morissa would lie awake and listen to the train. It was not far from where she had her bedroom with a few other girls. She liked to imagine all sorts of things about the train, and the people on it.
However on one of these nights, something seemed different. Her bed was near a window; she was leaning against it and staring out into the snowy air, waiting for the train to rush by again, when she saw something. Something was moving out there... it looked unfamiliar. It reminded her of stories she'd heard about cryptids. It did not look like a eugene, or like any other animal she knew.
ABOVE TEXT IS WRITTEN BY RAINY-FROG
Morissa 1
Is it just a shadow? She tells herself there’s nothing out there, it’s late and she’s tired. But there it is again, something moving through the snow. There’s a streetlight but the creature is unclear, dark as the night sky. And then the light flickers, and goes out. Whatever is out there does not want to be seen.
She knows better than to investigate, but her imagination and curiosity get the best of her. What if this creature is the thing that took her parents? She doubts it, but it could still be a danger to the orphanage, to the other kids. She is a brave girl and decides to take matters into her own paws instead of informing an adult.
Slipping into her coat she pulls the hood up over her ears and carefully buttons it. Leaving her shoes under the bed to be as silent as possible in her sneaking out, she creeps out of the bedroom and makes her way down the hall. She thinks about the creature and wonders if she should have a weapon.
She recalls the rules. “Guns aren’t for little girls.” The adults would often say, and she can’t steal one, if they catch her sneaking out she’ll be in enough trouble as-is. But there are plenty of people nearby, and she knows the man who works the night shift at the train station. She’s just going to have a little looksie, what’s the worst that can happen?
It is particularly cold tonight and she hugs the coat tightly around her as she steps out into the fresh air. She can see the broken streetlight that was visible from her window and makes her way over to it. There’s nothing there, is the creature gone? Did she miss it?
Her fingers are numb as she fumbles to pull a flashlight out of her pocket, flicking it on she can see her breath making little clouds in the air, and more importantly; footprints. She’s never seen footprints like this before, it’s like someone stuck a post into the ground, they are round, big enough to stick her whole hand into and not touch the sides, and they go through the snow, clear into the dirt beneath.
It’s scary and she wonders if she should turn around and head back inside before anything bad happens. But she’s already out here, and can see which way the footprints head, it doesn’t seem as if it’s in a hurry so surely she can catch up and see what it is, no harm done.
Up in the blackness ahead her flashlight beam catches something shiny, many shiny somethings, round and black. Eyes, dozens of eyes. She screams, a piercing wail that slices through the sky like a knife through butter. The creature does not like that noise, and how best to stop it than to silence the puny creature making it.
It’s running at her and her throat goes dry, fear paralyzing her completely. Her hand goes limp and the flashlight rolls onto the snow.
She can hardly see with the light mostly obscured but this thing is incredibly fast, with over a dozen legs, sharp edges and sharp pointed, like swords. The light goes out and it’s upon her, she doesn’t struggle, she doesn’t move at all, she can’t, every muscle is frozen completely in place.
She’s thrown to the ground and there’s a pain on her face, the blade-like leg slicing her flesh, something wet and sticky; blood drips into her eye as it raises another one of it’s excessive amount of legs to strike her right in the heart, when a bang goes off, the familiar sound of a gunshot. And then she slips unconscious.
When she awakes she’s in the medical ward of the orphanage, still alive, still breathing. And she can’t be that badly wounded if she’s not in a hospital, what a relief. There’s a problem though, she can only see out of one eye. She is stiff and sore but reaches up and feels bandages over her left eye- so it’s simply covered, not blinded.
She knows that she made a mistake, did a stupid thing and must face the consequences of her actions, she’s simply grateful to be alive at all. Hopefully she will be more careful in the future.