The End

Here's another amazing short story by my friend Nathalie. Be sure to leave comments about what you think of it. Enjoy =)

The End

I remember spinning. The high green grass practically engulfing my small body. I remember the flowers. They were lavender and I still recall how they fluttered on the wind like miniature ballerinas performing one of Nature’s beautiful plays. They would swirl around me and Dixie would try to catch them in her jaws. Everything was perfect then. The way the sun would kiss my skin and how the grass yellowed was perfect. My family and life were perfect.

Why couldn’t it have stayed that way?


My name is Callie Hevyard. I was born at 13:13, January 13th, 1997. I used to think that having so many 13’s was just a coincidence. It was my favorite number for a while, until I found out it was unlucky. I don’t mean to be superstitious, but no matter how much they would tease me, I just always found that number to be a messenger of misfortune. When my mom was thirteen, her parents died in a fire. On the 13th of every month somehow I would be harmed. No one else ever connected the dates to my cuts, bruises, and high fevers. I would see the shadows in groups of thirteen. Everything in my life seemed connected to that one dreadful number. Even my 13th birthday surprise; having my dad leave.

I never realized how hard it was to die, how long it really takes, how painful it really was, until it actually happened. My killer wasn’t a person or an animal at all. It wasn’t even from this world. It was a shadow. It was one of those that would emerge from the deepest depths of Hell; to come and destroy me. Nothing could save me from its fury, not even my own shadow.

Everybody had one and his or her shadow could protect you from anything. Well…almost. Some shadows weren’t people. They came directly from the fire and brimstone that lay underneath. Those were the ones you had to watch out for. Of course, those were also the ones that followed me. I would hear them whispering to each other about me. How else do you think I figured out that I was gonna be the cause for the end of all life?

I had been walking home from school. As usual, the shadows flocked around me. But there had been two in particular that seemed to hover so closely I could feel their horrible feelings snaking their ways into my mind. Then they had stopped. The silence chilled me, but I kept on walking though the field. Then they started again. I could feel their stares boring into me. After some more mindless mumbling, I heard them say something that caused my heart to stop and my throat to tighten. “He will come for her. When he does, he will crush her bones and he will rip her apart. He will take her soul back with him and torture it. He will make her scream and when she does the light will become darkness and life will become death. The end will arrive and we’ll kill the source of all hope, her,” it terrified me.

That night I lay awake. Night was the only time when I got to be alone and think. I got to think without knowing that I was exposed to these creatures of death. I wanted someone to talk to then, to tell everything to. But, that was just me fantasizing again. There wasn’t anyone else like me. I was cursed and my mother knew it. She said I had always looked haunted, like my eyes were hiding something behind their blue films. Your eyes are the keys to your soul I guess. I never told her what happens to me. I never kept a diary - not one on paper. I thought about how I was going to die, when it would occur, about how it would feel. That’s what I did most nights, think.

It was 13 weeks later, when I had another one of my unlucky impulses. Previous impulses include taking a nap in the middle of an intersection and cutting my arms with a pocketknife. Luckily, this one was more innocent. I wanted to walk through the woods next to the lake. Children giggled and splashed in the cool water. Always close by lay their shadows, as happy and carefree as their owners.

The pine scent felt refreshing in my nostrils, but I wasn’t paying attention to that. My eyes had glazed over and I wasn’t thinking anymore. “Just keep walking. Just keep walking.”My mind kept repeating. More shadows gathered around me. They stayed in the dark patches where the sun could not burn them. These were the weakest kind, only capable of causing you to stumble or cough. I kept walking. The sun had disappeared behind a canopy of leaves. A cold breeze wafted lazily through the forest, causing my golden curls to wrap around the curves of my face. Without thinking, I stopped.

For the first time in my life, all was quiet. No whispers, no wind, no chirping birds. I spoke out, free from my zombie-like state, but no sound escaped my throat. I tried again, yet my lips moved and nothing came out. Open and shut, open and shut. They were everywhere, but I couldn’t see them. I started to shriek but I still couldn’t hear anything. Tears started spilling down my face, but I couldn’t feel their wetness. My shadow appeared in front of me, her face like mine, only less hysteric. There was something about the way she looked; it scared me. She had this glint in her eyes, like she was mocking me. No, no! This isn’t right! No one ever sees his or her own shadow…unless- “You are about to die.” She smiled back at me, gleeful that she was able to complete my sentence, but she hadn’t spoken. The voice was an inhuman, rasp that erected from the throat of a little girl.

That was when everything lost its color. The trees, the water, the sky, all became a shade of gray that appeared to be melting. I spun around and around, feeling as though I was going insane. The ground began to boil and I felt like I was going to melt along with everything else. My shadow materialized again, walking around me in circles, attempting to save me, but her power was like a spark compared to the roaring wildfire that the demon held. I felt myself collapse into a heap on the hot ground. The evil shadow took the chance and he seeped inside of me. It hurt, oh how it hurt. Like I was burning from the inside out. I could feel pressure and then the snap of my arms. It seemed as though it was pounding my bone into a pulp. Then I could feel the creature moving. His poisonous soul was now down in my legs. Crack, snap. And gone were my legs. I cried out in pain, but I couldn’t open my mouth. My jaw locked and wouldn’t move. One arm still twitched. I used it to touch the other. I could not sense the pain in the lame arm, but could feel the bones sloshing around. I watched as it emerged from my body and came closer to me. This one had no features, it was only a silhouette. Its cold hand came over my mouth and nose, blocking the air. I was trying to suck in the air, that’s all I wanted, air. But it wouldn’t come.

It would never come. The blackness faded in and out like a bad radio signal. My eyes would loll upward and close, then open again. Finally my lunges burst and my heart slowed and finally stopped. The last thing I thought before it took its final beat was “Why?”

For a while I just watched. I knew I was dead. But at the moment, I was my shadow. I watched as he tore my limbs apart and scattered them across the woods. Then he turned his blank face towards me and glided over silently. He grasped my hand with a grip so hard that it would have crunched the bone, had I any. Those eight seconds were the most terrifying in all my life. I saw things that should never be seen by a human. I saw and heard people as they were put in torture devices. I watched as bodies were dismembered, like mine had been. My face had a look upon it that was of pure fear and disgust. The shadow enjoying it all. Then he let go. I was slammed into the flames. Though dead, they still burned me. He asked me to sit down in the chair closest to the fire. I knew not to disobey him.

As I settled into the hard metal chair, shackles closed themselves tightly around my wrists. They were so tight, it seemed as though if I moved, they would tear my skin open. He showed me things, things I never wanted to see. Things that scared me more than anything else. That was almost impossible by human standards. He talked to me, and through all my hysteria, I managed to ask him why.

“Why? Because there has to be someone out there who is meant to end it all. Because hope and love and goodness cannot reign supreme forever. Every good king must die. Every thriving empire must fall. You humans think that you will live forever, but none of you want to accept the truth. Someday, it’s all going to end. No one wants to be the person that has to do it, that has to destroy his or her family and lives, but someone has to do it. There is always an end, and now the end is here,” with that he stepped towards me.
I screamed.

The ground caved in, the oceans flooded as the sky fell and fire roared. People ran. I could hear their shriek, a mother’s yell for her child. Then I recognized it as my own mother. More tears streamed down my face as I heard her drown. She sputtered my name one last time before she sunk to the bottom of the ocean. As me anger grew, I lunged at the shadow. My eyes flared with hatred for a moment and volcanoes erupted, spilling lava. I struck him hard and as he threw me to the ground, the earth started to split. I twisted my head to look at the fire, wishing for it to be water The streaks of fire became waves that pounded him to the ground along with me. Tsunamis occurred at every point where water met land. We were at eye level now. With a single slip of my hand, the chair turned to dust. I turned over until I had him pinned to the ground. Facial features appeared on his face. I stopped dead in my tracks.

This thing that was meant to destroy me was my own father. We locked eyes for a moment. He started talking to me through our minds. I spoke to him in a crackly voice, “If you had really loved me, you would have never left. You would have told me about all of this. You would have prevented it. You wouldn’t have done this to me. I looked at him again, but this time I only saw a villain. I looked back at him, “I hate you,” and that was all it took. Everything froze and he disappeared. I blinked.

My eyes opened again. I was alone in the middle of the street. No one else was here. No shadows, no souls, no life at all. Everything was muted. There was no sound other than the wind. It was dark now. There was no one else and never would there be. This was the end.



I was the end.