Young Writers Society

Endless road.

I walk down the road every day, each time getting a little further only to be called back to the house for some reason or another. The old church that stands at the end looks lost among the leafless trees and no smoke ever rises above it so I cannot tell what is down there.

I have always been told never to go down the road.

Then one morning I got up out of bed and looked out of my window down the road. Nothing had changed since the night before, yet something wasn’t right.

I got dressed and wandered down to the kitchen. Taking a piece of toast I made my way out of the door onto the road. I had no shoes on but my thick socks offered a little protection against the cold, cold ground.

For once nothing else seemed as important to me. I felt I had to find out what lay at the end of the road.

I began to walk. One step at a time until I reached the furthest point that I had got to before. From now on it was all new. The cold of the bitumen began to bothered me as my socks got wet and the icy cold of the morning seeped in but the road looked more welcoming that ever. I found it intriguing, what was down there. Every time I got a bit further I felt more at home, safer, warmer than I ever had done before.

I kept going and the further I went the wilder it became the thin woodland became dense and forbidding. The different colours of the trees stood out to me like never before.

Suddenly I found myself under the church of which I had only ever seen the tip of the spire. The spire reached up into the sky as if forever and ravens watched the stranger on their territory from unseen heights above.

I kept going but as I went the feeling of home and warmth was leaving me. I thought of going back but it was too late.

I began to recall every time I had been told not to go down the road.

I went back to the church and found a small alcove to curl up in. Satting for hours listening to the howling wind. For the first time in years I felt the comings of fear. As darkness fell an unseen shadow was cast over me. The small pocket of fear that had been building up over the past few hours suddenly burst and I lay sobbing and screaming at intervals until a bang pulled me from my small world of encapulated terror. I watched a tall silhouette glide into the church with the glowing moon dancing behind him.

I let out a small sob and it attracted the thing. It came over and appeared to looked at me, curled over myself, back hunched and tears drying on my face.

We watched each other for what seemed an eternity before it bent down and took me by the hand.

I have always been taught never to trust strangers, but then I had also been taught not to stay out late.

Or go down the road.

I grasped the things hand and looked at its face. A ghost.

Fear no longer held me and the thightening in my chest dissapeared.

What was at the end of the road?

Nothing.

It goes on forever.