Ross Thompson

The Flameless

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window." His pulse quickened when he saw the flame. “This cabin shouldn’t exist.”, he thought to himself. The stories he heard as a kid about an abandoned cabin in the woods with a burning candle was just urban legend. He’s lost in the woods with one, and only one, path that leads to this cabin. His perspiration has completely engulfed his shirt. The burning candle flame has a mesmerizing quality to it. Sudddenly, as he concentrates on the flame, he feels himself walking towards the cabin. His mind is thinking two seperate thoughts at once, “What are we doing?!” and “It’s not as scary as I had once imagined.” As he approaches the door, he can feel and energy that is pure fear mixed with dread. As he is concious of putting his hand on the door, he looks at the candle flame in the window. Again, mesmerized by the flame, he opens the creaky door. At this very moment, he feels as if he would rather die than be in this very place at this exact moment. His heart is racing, his veins are pumping boiling hot but ice cold blood and he’s aware his shirt is plastered to his body from sweat. His legs feel like they weigh three hundred pounds and his arms feel like they are moving through a wall of gelatinous goo. What he hears next will haunt him for the rest of his life.