An original short story in the style of Edgar Allen Poe

‘Twas a night like any other night as I walked my way through the park,and on this night like any other night the moonlight lit my path.

But on this night in the trees and the wind something was beginning to wake, waiting, oh waiting for its prey to arrive, for the scene that was about to be set.

On this night, this fateful night, where dreams and reality collide, I walked those paths, such fateful paths down which I would certainly die. And as I walked through the trees that rustled and whispered and plotted my heart grew faint. And fainter still with each whistle of the wind that sent the end of my journey, my home, further and further away.

“’Tis not far,” said I, in hope and whimsy to still the beat of my heart. “This is merely a park, not some dim mysterious forest where beast and spirits roam.”

But as I uttered those words, such fateful words, I saw a sight to be seen, of things I had feared and had hoped and had dreaded and of things I could barely believe. There in the thicket was a pair of eyes, burning embers of hate and malice and hunger stared at me  with every intent on making me their owner’s next meal.

With no hesitation my feet took flight down the path from which I came, hastening, oh hastening to escape from those eyes, that fiend that the night had become.

But in my haste my feet forgot the path, and the trees became a wood and the wood became a forest and still the beast gave chase, barely losing pace. As I ran through the mist and the leaves, the trees schemed and plotted my fate. They tripped my feet and blinded  my face in their efforts to see me fall.

So I stumbled and fell out of the trees and onto the streets of mud and stone, oh the streets, glorious cobbled streets with their flickering gas lamps and their winding alleys.

I picked myself up and I heard a growl from behind, there below the trees in shadows so deep they swam in shades of black were its eyes, those burning eyes, watching me walk away.

But I had won, I had made it out of the that labyrinth of leaf and twig, and so slowly, reluctantly, those eyes turned from me and back to the wood to roam the night in search of another unfortunate soul out on a moon lit night.

So I sit here, enthroned in a leather arm chair with an empty liquor bottle in my hand, remembering, just remembering that night of nights, and as I stare at the fire, those burned down embers, my heart grows weak in thought of those eyes, eternally burning like the fire in front of me.

And as I stare I see, or at least I think I see, something in that grate stare back at me.