Calling all writers. Here is where the Muses come out to play. There will be random contests going on here from time to time. If you're interested in taking part check to see if there's any OPEN contest to take part in.
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I remember the night Tony and two of his buddies vanished. It was Canada Day. We'd all been celebrating with a huge bbq. Friends and families ate, drank and ran around with sparklers in their hands till it was darker than dark.
Tony, Eddie and Reese had taken off on their bikes to seek adventure as twelve-year-old do. I wanted to go with them, ride free with my older brother and his friends but my dad held me back, laughed and told me my little legs would not reach the pedals just yet.
I cried as I watched them ride off.
They never came back home.
We searched for months, everybody did. The boys' faces were plastered on posters and on the news from British Columbia to Newfoundland. No one was ever found, no bikes, no shoes, no bodies of little boys rotting away.
Twenty years passed.
I am now twenty-four. I still live in my parents' old place. They both passed. Both riddled with guilt of never finding Tony and the others. It took me a long time to bury the sorrow brought on by my brother the day he disappeared.
Then one day a knock came at my door. A twelve-year old Tony, missing for twenty years, bolted into the house and slammed the door behind him with such might the windows shook. He looked up at me with feral eyes and I let out a mighty scream.
It was as though time had stood still for him. Where time had touched us it had not him. He fell into my arms, his clothes were ratty, his skin covered in dirt, he smelt like blood and the ground before it rains. Canine teeth protruded, his nails had grown long.
"She's coming, Cameron," he whispered in a voice as gravely and old as a 90 year old smoker's. He grabbed me tight, urgency in his tone. "We need to-" wild eyes darted around the room, "run. Fast. She's coming..."
What I saw terrified me, my brother, once full of life, looked skeletal. Tony looked like some mad, savage Peter Pan, a boy that had not grown up.
His words frightened me more than his ghastly look. Who? I wanted to ask. Who is coming?
He grabbed my face and pulled me close to his till we were inches apart. Dirt was etched in his pores, on the lines on his face, his irises were rimmed red. As if he had heard my thoughts, my brother replied. "The Dark One."
Your task, my darklings, is to write a story around this prompt. Because this is the first prompt you have a longer word limit, you may write from up to 3500 words. Dedicate the story to me and toss the link in the comments.
*EDIT-New due date. Due date is October 2nd/16 (anyone is free to join till that date). By the 4th of October I will post the people who have made it to the next part and I will post the prompt for the next task.
