Doubled Horror- Part 1

Hazel, carrying her heavy schoolbag, walked along the mall as her daily routine yet again. She took a look at the showcases, and then she frowned.

Usually she would gawk in awe the colourful decorations and all sorts of goods for quite a while. Today her action was simply bizarre to her friends, they would have asked if she was somehow sick.

But today was different. Every year she avoided going to shopping centres, refused to visit theme parks with her mates, and was desperate to keep her door closed in case her little brother decided to dwell into her room with his terrible fashion statement during the two weeks of late October.

Hazel, keeping her pace quick, tried to keep memories from flooding out. About late October. About Halloween.

She had never believed in ghosts. Not even once. She hated the nonsense of trick-or-treating and masquerades and other whatnots.

She disapproved of the shops pretending to be festive and making an ordinary day so commercialized and silly with all sorts of stupid activities and merchandises.

She resented Halloween for not being a public holiday to give her a break in between her busy life. To her, Halloween’s just an annoying obstacle that bothered her orderly daily routine.

In simpler words, she did not like Halloween.

Hazel finally reached home. Desperate to finish all her heavy homework and revision, she managed to get them all done by 6 pm. Hazel exhaled slowly and smiled. Perhaps she could enjoy something not related to Halloween during this period of time. She headed to the dressing room.

Jogging had been another part of her daily routine for 6 years until she reached F.3. It was such a busy year that she barely had time to relax after being pressured both at school and at home.

After changing into a set of comfortable sport clothes and bringing her iPod, she followed her usual route. She was jogging for ten minutes before…

She shivered. 

Something wasn't right. 

That was true indeed. Thick mist swirled in places where visibility had been excellent. Giant bright orange pumpkins came out from nowhere and blocked her path.

“The mist and pumpkin are just some kind of decorations for a party,” she reassured herself, though she was not sure. No one hold a party during a weekday in the outdoors, especially during this humid and sweltering week.

Sinister voices giggled. Hazel couldn’t help shuddering. It was only the gleeful delighting Mozart in her i-pod that soothed her nerves.

As she jogged, the cold touch on her shoulders seemed to worsen. She had been sprinting. Why would she feel like freezing?

Streetlights dimmed. There was nobody on the road. Fortunately, the ‘Turkish March’ in her i-pod kept her going.

There was a hill on the path she was jogging on.. The hill was almost barren, and short, bushy shrubs scattered all over it. Usually she appreciated the view and the fresh air. The breeze and the nice smell of earth and grass comforted her. However, today the hill was full of tall ancient trees where their roots extended from the ground and grasped the air like calloused hands, with the gray white haze surrounded a strange building. Under the dim light, the structure seemed even more terror-invoking.

She blinked and scrubbed her eyes. She looked for streets signs to prove that she had mistakenly jogged into a different path. However, different evidence proved that she had been in her daily routine, her usual practices.

She could back down, but that would have meant defeat because of some nonsense hallucination. Hazel never backed down from challenge, especially challenges offered by nothing but stupid beliefs about Halloween. The silver full moon was placid and serene. Her i-pod was playing a sweet, gentle Nocturne.

She started her climb.

As she climbed towards its top, she heard distant sounds, wailing and moaning. The air was sickly sweet and ill. Trees were all growing towards the buildings, as if the building became a huge vacuum cleaner. Layers upon layers of mist thickened like disgusting cough syrup as she ascended. Colourful flowers bloomed along the path, but under the thick woven mist and the pale light from the moon, these flowers looked like those pretty female assassins they show on TV programmes.

Her heart pounded when she reached the top due to the steep gradient of the slope, which had been much greater compared to what she observed on the ground, and a completely different level of weirdness struck her.

The bizarre structure was done in medieval style, with the pointed arches, tall towers and everything like a castle. It was easily twice as big as a cathedral, except that It was pitch black, like what people do when they drew comics with ink. Hazel wondered if she was wandering in front of the goddess of Night’s palace. It was magnificent. She would have appreciated it she wasn’t scared to death.

She approached the castle in order to have a better look of it, and she regretted almost immediately.

She heard some sort of high-pitched sound. She saw some shadowy figures above the castle. Eagles? Bats? Vampires? She could not figure them out, and she decided she would not want to imagine what they were.

The violin solo in her i-pod freaked her out. She cursed and took her headphones off. She almost admired the harmonious howls and screeches gave off by thousands of fearsome creatures. Almost.

Giant spiders constructed sticky webs. Their venom and legs made them perfect predators. She wanted to avoid being their prey. That’s when she realized that torn spider webs scattered everywhere, including the spot just above her head. She let out a soft scream.

Too late, she realized her mistake. Someone… no, a lot of them. The Army of Night, she recalled from a book she had read recently. They came out of the castle. Their backs glowed silver, and she knew she was in deep trouble. She wanted to dash away, but her feet stuck the ground. She wanted to scream for help, but her voice just would not work.

“There is no need for you to escape,” said the leading one in a soothing, yet not quite natural voice, “Never shall you explore and trespass on our territory and escape safe and sane, my dear Hazel.”

With that, they raced towards her. That was when she realized that the scene before her were never decorations nor participants of a masquerade. They were real, terror-invoking creatures that no one dared to speak of.

Hazel’s heart beat quicker and quicker. Sweating, she sprinted down the hill in her top speed. Her i-pod, which she was sure that she had switched it off, played a tune of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, which she had never downloaded onto her music player.

Why was the road endless?

She was running slower and slower, her energy depleting as she tripped over a boulder and had her knees scratching on the stone.

Stupid rock.

She made two more mistakes here- a) to glance at her knees only to notice them bleeding with mud covering most of it and causing her to faint, and b) to sneak a look backwards to see the huge Army of Night, though slowly, started gaining on her.

Hazel panicked. She closed her eyes as she imagined her fate, her future growing more darker as the Night itself closed on her, ready to devour her soul…

She raced forwards, only to feel nothing supporting her. She kept her eyes shut, feared of what would be waiting for her. Maybe Death? Or Nyx? Or...

Listening to ‘Wishing you were somehow here again’ of the musical ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, she plummeted down the cliff, giving herself over to the unknown.