A Prologue

This is just a prologue I've written as I was planning on beginning a novel. It's only my first draft, so it's probably pretty bad..

It was, yet again, a noise which had roused him. It had not been a rather violent noise, but it had been a noise nonetheless, and he did not like noises. A good, clean sleep was what he liked, most probably due to the fact that he rarely got one. Yes, it had, as always, been a noise which had interrupted his slumber.

He sat up, as he did every night, and let the bed covers fall to his blue and white striped pyjama covered knees (they were rather knobbly beneath the heavy fabric, as occurs to one in old age). He cocked his head, or perhaps it cocked itself, in a natural reaction to an unnatural circumstance. His spine stiffened to clay. Fear had found him again, and was quietly clawing at the edge of his reason. He longed to shush it, although he knew, from experience, that Fear did not take well to being 'shushed'.

Of course, the old man had learned a few lessons over the dreary, yet all too speedy, course of a number of years. He had learned some lessons which other people might not have, and he had learned some lessons which other people might have found rather useful. One lesson, however, of which he was neatly reminded of in the early hours of every lonely morning, was the lesson that Fear never relents.

And so, as the old man leaned his grey-haired head back against the ornate wooden head board of his large, yet empty (as the old man had never approved of marriage) bed, and the shuffling from below him eventually ceased, he cautiously allowed his eyelids to flutter shut once more.

By now, he had come to refrain from half-heartedly attempting to convince himself that the noise which visited him without invitation was just a crowd of restless mice in the pantry, or a sparrow who had mistakenly found his way into the kitchens. In all reality, the man had more than a fair idea of what the familiar, unwelcome noise was.

He never, of course, dared to admit so.