In her dimly lit room, Diana sat down to write. After a few minutes, she tore the paper she was writing on, crumpled it in her fingers and tossed it into the fireplace, adding to the dozens of crumpled papers littering the floor.
She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes and wrinkled her nose in obvious displeasure. Of all the topics that could have been given, why did the director pick a horror story? This writing project was supposed to qualify her to start fieldwork. The days sitting behind that miserable desk, shuffling papers and writing reports upon reports were to be over, which was why when the stuffy little director said the final test to qualify her for field duty was a story, she’d jumped at it.
If only she had known. Of course, the director would pick a horror story as the genre, knowing fully well she had never seen a horror film or even read a spooky book all her life. She avoided them like a plague. Lifting her eyes heavenward, Diana muttered yet another curse at the crafty little man.
She refused to give up, however. She had never known herself to be a quitter and if her blood-sucking, dream-crushing director of hers wanted a spooky story, that’s exactly what he was going to get. Cracking her knuckles, she muttered a quick prayer and picked up the weird-looking fountain pen the director had given her and started writing.
Maya sighed as she laid on her bed, the fatigue she had been feeling all morning slowly dissipating. She had spent the whole day hitchhiking in the woods, exploring the place that would soon be her home. It was only when she heard the hoot of owls and the distant cry of wolves that she decided to cut her exploration short and go to her dingy little cabin situated right there in the woods.
She woke up with a start, the fireplace had been blown cold by the wind. Standing up, she went to close the windows she must have forgotten to shut before sleeping. To her surprise, the windows were shut.
“That’s strange.” She said out loud. Where was the wind coming from then? She shook off the ominous feeling she had begun to feel and climbed back on the bed. There was no time to start any silly wonderings and before she knew it, she dozed off.
She woke with a start for the second time and refused to stand up. She felt an itch at the back of her neck, and that eerie feeling that she was being watched crept on her. Very slowly, she turned her head and met a pair of the yellowest eyes she had ever seen. She couldn’t even make out if it was a person, but that grin, like that of a Cheshire cat, sent an awful chill down her spine. Just as she was about to shout, it leapt on her.....
Diana dropped her pen, shivering. This was why she didn’t write horror stories. She got too immersed in the things she wrote and felt everything her characters felt. The wind blew and she went to shut the windows and with a sudden stillness, she realized her windows were closed.
You’ve got to be kidding me, she thought, laughing to herself. There was no way in hell, she was living her own story. Her mind was playing tricks on her. She walked back to her writing table and sat down, refusing to think of anything as she pushed the book containing the offending story aside. She started hearing sounds, the hoot of owls, the cry of wolves.....
The cry of wolves???!!!
She was in the freaking suburbs. There were no wolves. The sounds persisted though, gnawing at her mind and clawing at her senses. She wrinkled her nose and closed her eyes, sighing to herself. This was all a mistake. Fieldwork be damned. She was going crazy, writing spooky stories with the weird pen and...
The pen.
Why was it suddenly glowing, and what was that sound she was hearing like someone was clapping behind her? Her eyes nearly popping out of her sockets, Diana turned around and in that single second, she wished she hadn’t turned. For she was staring into the largest pair of yellow eyes she has ever seen and the Cheshire cat grin she had thought of.
“So....” Began that apparition with a sickening smile. “You called me.”
