Fish

This is just a short story I felt compelled to write one day while I was studying for my biology test. Please critique!

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The moon rose slowly in the brazen sky, an illustrious orb hung in the dimming sunset. A young girl’s form darkened the doorway of her bedroom. She paid rapt attention to the sight. Nighttime for her was a time of felicity and fear. Revelry and restfulness. Asylum and adventure.

She loved being awake during the darkness, but hated closing her eyes. She did not understand it herself. Night was beloved to her because of the sights and sounds. The gentle purling of the nearby brook reached her bed. She heard the snapping of twigs when the forest animals would come skulking around the house. She tasted the night air, that to her had the light flavor of ambrosia. She left the cover of her quilt-laden bed to pad across the dilapidated wooden floor to the window. There she looked out upon the terraced garden. Two small streams coming from the woods converged into one. Occasionally the fish, victuals of the larger animals would jump out of the water, and flop back in. This delighted her, but irked her childlike mind at the same time. She wished she could leap like the simple fish. She began to jump around her room, feet knocking the floor. Her mother came up the stairs, an opened her daughter’s door that was privy to knocking, slamming, and supporting a child’s handstands. She smiled at her daughter. It was impossible to look upon her with disdain. She wrapped her child in her arms, quietly parleyed with her the importance of sleep, and the wonders it held. The girl listened to her mother, but was restive during the assuaged reprimand. The mother lifted her into her bed, lips grazing her forehead. It was obvious she was not disconcerted with her child’s antics. She knew her daughter had an insatiable imagination, and she would never reign that in. She hated the mere notion. As she sat next to her daughter’s restless body, she stared out into the timbered woods herself, singing quietly. No more than a minute later, she glanced down at a sleeping girl. Her face looked enfeebled in deep sleep. The mother rose slowly, and left the girl to her dreams of valor.

The young girl woke in a world she knew was not her own. The sky was a dark azure, and it’s appearance was guileful. She was tremulous before she mustered enough courage to walk down a path she was standing on. She shivered as a hawk cried. The sound was clarion, and for some reason was incomparably the most frightening sound that ever reached her young ears. Even the familiar sound of a river ebbing from a while a way did not console her. She abhorred her location, and feared the quandary she had been thrust into by some alien force. A pair of tears rolled down her once rosy cheeks. They had since grown pale with angst. She continued her lonely trek down the crumbling trail, eyes wide with fear. The weather began to turn dark, and the strong wind buffeted the small child’s body. She paused when she reached a black pond amidst a glen. She quaked when she noticed the similarities to her own small garden back at home. She gazed at the slight body of water. Large ripples pooled out of the center, reaching the edge where she sat timorous and silent. Suddenly out of the center of the menacing water leapt a great fish, much larger than she. It bared threatening fangs as it soared out of the pool again, coming closer to her. The child was suddenly aware of a horrific screeching sound. It sent chills down the back of her narrow spine until she realize the sound was pouring from her own mouth. She scrambled up from her seated position, backing away from the water’s edge. The fish monster continued to leap and jump, coming closer in her direction. The child had never though of herself as infallible, yet she couldn’t bare the thought of failure. She would not prove to be unsuccessful. She knew contending against the creature would be difficult, but she would forfend herself. The alternative of never going home was unthinkable. She knew she could not fell her grisly opponent, she would just have to escape. She would not respond in deference to his chase. She sprinted as fast as she could through the thick forest, feeling the stinging of the dark evergreen branches hit her face, and sharp stones hitting her ankles and shins. Her mouth dried as she heard the fish flop behind her. He leapt into the air once more. Her head whipped around, and her chin jerked up, watching his grotesque body fall on her. His jaw, opened wide, was only feet from her small form when she tripped, fell, and did not stop falling.

She was aroused by her own crying. Her slender legs and arms were furled in her pastel sheets, her quilt lay long abandoned on the wooden floor. A light sheen of sweat covered her body, making her bedclothes stick to her. She early let out another cry when her mother, her sleep disturbed by her daughters bewailing, entered the room. She murmured quiet word of comfort to her child as she sat down gently on the side of her bed. She brushed away the strands of hair that clung to the little girl’s damp forehead, kissing her nose and smiling. She stroked her daughters face, willing her to calm down and return to sleep. She sang a lullaby for the second time that night, running her fingers through her daughters messy curls. As she sang, she stared out the paned window at the moon, listening to the occasional sound of fish jumping out of the water, only to flop back in.