Was it just me or were the pictures watching me?

It was my first time in these deserted halls alone.

Watchmen Alley as we called it.

When we were younger, the orphans before us would whisper stories about the Watchmen. The unfortunate spirits of unloved orphan children before us who’d  died here, alone and forgotten, and who were now forever trapped in the pictures of their paintings, to live on forever and torture the new orphans who came.

As a child, I thought them creepy tales to keep me up at night. As I grew older however, I believed them nothing more than stories to pass the time.

Only at night, when I was forced to walk the empty hallways to my bedchambers alone, did I believe again.

Tonight the wind was restless, banging against the tattered house and shaking it, stirring my heart faster each time a tree branch stroked a window. My skin prickled with sweat and trepidation crawled down my spine.

Stupid stories.

The smell of cinnamon lingered in the back of my throat and I kept my eyes forward so as not to stray to an empty photograph.

Something darted past my peripheral.

I shivered.

Something moved again.

I closed my eyes.

“Amberrrrrr,” a voice wailed softly, like ghosts on wind, hungry, orphan ghosts, with pale, lifeless fingers.

I ran.

Flying down the hallway like my life was at its end, heart in my throat, eyes burning with fear, blood pumping so loudly that I didn’t catch the soft giggles of laughter down the hall.

I ran, and I didn’t stop running until the door to my room was slammed safely behind me, and I was buried under the nest of my covers.

I was never walking that hallway alone again.

 

– Short Story written by Jae Lei Nyght

©2012 Jae Lei Nyght