Moth

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

The light out of place drew the curious traveler in. If not for the faint glow, the man in the weathered boots would have passed by the forgotten shelter entirely unwitting. But the pulsing flame turned the man into a moth.

“Hello?” He spoke foolishly. Crickets and owls answered his call, the wind rustled the branches with solidarity, but no answer came from the cabin.

Turn back… A warning sounded from deep inside of him, filling his mind. He hesitated at the internal siren: turn back…you know not what lies ahead.

But the man in the weathered boots was taught to be brave, to strengthen in the face of danger — so he stepped forward once more, crossing the threshold onto the rickety porch whose disjointed slats jutted out like crooked teeth.

Creeeeeeeeaaaakkk.

The sound chilled his bones and the man in the weathered boots hesitated again. He looked to the picture window with the fractured glass only to find the flame growing smaller — retreating.

“Wait!” He called out, voice carried away by the wind.

A resounding groan snapped his attention as the door on a tilt opened, scraping against the floor until it grew still again. Darkness bled from the belly of the cabin. The man in the weathered boots accepted its silent invitation and into the cabin he went.

Indiscernible shadows forced his imagination to fill in the blanks as he navigated through remnants of a home forsaken.

“I mean no harm…” The man in the weathered boots spoke again.

The delicate glow crossed the room, the flame wavering in midair as if suspended by invisible string plucked by a puppeteer.

“Please…”

CRACK!

The man in the weathered boots turned to see the door, once open in weary welcome, closed; the last shreds of moonlight snuffed out. Darkness overcame. He reached out his hands in desperation, his eyes straining to find comfort in focus.

“Hello?” came like an echo from the past.

With the sound of his heart pounding, the man in the weathered boots was unsure if he’d really heard anything at all… but the patterned creak of the floorboards above hastened the bellow of the drum beat in his chest.

He moved with caution to discover the staircase which sat at a terribly sharp angle, a spinal column of battered carpentry. Each step up was accompanied by a dreadful orchestra which fell in rhythm to the thump of his heart.

CREAK

CREEEAAAK

CREEEEAAAKK

“I mean no harm…”

The floating light captured his attention. It drew closer, illuminating the hallway decomposed. With a breath that hitched, the man in the weathered boots finally encountered the force which produced the inviting flame.

The soft illumination was fractured by the slats of an exposed ribcage. The ambient light revealed a decaying skull with a crooked jaw. Where there were once eyes was an abyss of black darker than the unlit corners of the hopeless cabin in the woods.

“Ahhh—!” The man in the weathered boots cried out a strangled yell as ragged skeletal fingers reached for him through the air thick with terror. He stepped back in a great sweep of his weathered boots as fear took dominion over his mind and body.

“Please…” A grim ministration of what once was a tongue thrashed against a jaw disfigured by rot.

The man in the weathered boots could not scream, for no sound would shake his voice. With another step back, he wavered; there was no blighted wood to catch him at the crown of the stairs; so he fell...

Before descent would claim him whole, his eyes seized the full shape of the grisly specter that masqueraded in a human silhouette, manifested as an omen of death. Before the man in the weathered boots fell into the belly of oblivion, he discerned one terrible truth:

Below the the gnarled bones and splintered knees were feet perversely twisted —

rooted in weathered boots.