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Dweller, by J.F. McKnight

31/1/2020

 
Upon reaching the foot of eastern mountains, I had come the shadow of the Crawford's house. Or at least that was the name of the last residing individual seen in the eerie abode. The hovel came almost as a surprise as it emerged out from between the light-morning fog and the slow rain that had decided to accompany it. Taking shield from the wet along the side of the house I resided to my notebook and scribbled:

At Crawford’s house; building is heavily ruined - several broken wooden panels on the porch floor, windows boarded. Vision clouded due to slight fog.

The door lay almost welcoming as it gently swung open with little more than a slight push and I entered into the shack with a beacon to whoever may be residing within.
With no response I took the cumbersome torch from my satchel and ventured left into what appeared to be a homely dining room. The feint mist which was dwelling outside moved also swiftly though the house, lightly obscuring the bottom of my trouser legs. After but a few steps forward, I felt a light gust of wind crawling along the ground and the little sunlight that still remained within the room quickly scattered as the scrawny door crawled back into its frame behind me. My torch, lighting up but only a small portion of the room at any given time, was all I had of any use – and yet as I clutched it with both hands, it pierced the dark clouds that encircled me.

Nothing scuttered, nothing moved, at this moment it was as though all the room had somehow elapsed. Slowly, a gentle pat began to emerge from a corner of the room. I insist it is human, but to what extent does its calming plod represent its nature I cannot say. As I grew with tension, my torch flickered and dwindled almost instantly to the blackness which surrounded it. Stepping back against a wall, the creature’s movement against the wooden floor seemed almost everlasting and ever more potent as it progressed towards me. As though with every drop of salt from within me caused this creature to gain its strength. Clutching the warm metal light between my hands I closed my eyes and pointed it out ahead of me.
A soothing flash lit the room as my torch came to life again as the creature in front of me fell on the ground, casting the mist back through the crevasses in the house. I stood up and regained my senses before writing again:

Tall humanoid; pale complexion, appears dead.

For a moment I stood, and doing my job, inspected the creature with my light. Yet the longer I stood with it under my spotlight, the smaller the thing became – almost as though it was carried off by clouds of mist until nothing remained.
I revisited to my notes:

House inspected – empty.

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    Longer
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    Longer Friday Flash Fiction Stories

    Friday Flash Fiction is primarily a site for stories of 100 words or fewer, and our authors are expected to take on that challenge if they possibly can. Most stories of under 150 words can be trimmed and we do not accept submissions of 101-150 words.


    However, in response to demand, the FFF team constructed this forum for significantly longer stories of 151-500 words. Please send submissions for these using the Submissions Page.

    Stories to the 500 word thread will be posted as soon as we can mange.

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    One little further note. Posting and publishing 500-word stories takes a little time if they need to be formatted, too.
    ​Please note that we tend to post longer flash fiction exactly as we find it – wrong spacing, everything.

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