(Original event posted on Oct 1, 2019, at deviantART)
As soon as you open the door to the Archives, making its bell chime with your arrival, you’re welcomed with the sound of a faint music tone playing somewhere not so far. Is there a gramophone upstairs?
Before you could ponder about it, or the very distinct smell of books and scrolls, the archivist gets up from his desk and gestures your way.
You sit on the nearby armchair, while Alecsander promptly serves you a cup of warm beverage; it’s starting to get cold this time of the year, isn’t it? Sylvan, the Masterlist Keeper, looks at you from the desk where she’s sitting on, and you notice she’s accompanied by an unknown Keeper.
“This Keeper came looking for us, in search of someone to be his partner; Mr. Raven claims to have grown tired of feeling alone. However, he – and we, as well – want the perfect person to stay by his side. A worthy companion! Someone with tastes very similar to his, a sharp mind to share their own thoughtfulness with his!”
Oh, you ask how we’ll be able of telling if you’re the chosen one? That’s already settled as well! It was our honorable guest’s idea, after all.
A writing contest. I have a fondness for dark, scary stories. The one whose story impresses the judges the most will have proven to be worthy of being my partner.
I take from our conversations we do have a lot in common with Mr. Raven… But I’m afraid literature is not our forte, right, Sylvan? So we’ll be here as mere judges.
Regardless, I believe you’re most fit for the judging task, yes. I’ll count on the two of you.
So, do you, our honorable visitor, think you’re up to the task? It’ll be quite hard to scare both me and Sylvan, but I’m quite excited to see what you will come up with~
I’ll be staying until when October the 31st of this year is nevermore. A few acquaintances of mine will be joining the season party later as well, although only I am interested in this particular contest.
I’ll be responsible for holding onto your stories until judging time! So, I ask you to please leave them here.
You may take this as well, if you ever forget the rules.
Writing Contest Rules
- You must be a member of the MemoryKeepers group in order to participate.
- Your story must be a scary, short story, with a minimum of 45 words and a maximum 245 of words.
- Need inspiration? Check this article!
- For your submission to count, you need to submit it to the correct comment.
- Tag a friend in your submission to read your story! This type of story is better off with company.
- We’ll use BRT to define the deadline’s time. The deadline is at 11:59 PM on October the 31st (www.timeanddate.com/time/zones…). You can no longer submit your entry after that.
Thanks for your attention, we look forward to your stories! I can tell this will be a fun season~
RESULTS
Greetings! This is your Masterlist archivist, Alecsander – and Masterlist Keeper Sylvan as well, of course! – coming to you for an official announcement. Judging for Mr. Raven’s case has been closed, as you may be aware, so we’re pleased to share the results with you!
After some pondering and debating over the entries we received, we quickly came to a consensus. Without further ado, the winner is…
The-Shifty-Lion @dA!
🎉Congratulations!
I must say, their entry was rather impressive! Managing to keep the story’s flow while you do rhymes is no easy task. The story is not only great but also sonorous, so it surely picked our attention. The idea of the looping nightmare sounds simple, but once you think about it, it’s indeed unsettling to be stuck like that.
Sylvan will fill in Mr. Raven’s profile registry shortly to attribute your name to his ownership, and as an additional prize, you get 5 
Memory Fragments as well.
As for runners-up, we have considered those whose story best followed the prompt we had given, so we thought about rewarding them something for entertaining us with their submissions!
They are…
WhiteManju @dA
RoseAnneSun @dA
patbh @dA
You all receive 2 Memory Fragments; it’s not much but a little something for your efforts! Your stories were really nice.
I’ve promptly let our warehouse Keeper Izrail know about the incoming Memory Fragments. He’ll bank them as soon as possible!
Now, then… It’s time to depart, Mr. Raven. *wipes away a tear* It was really nice to meet you! Are you satisfied with this outcome?
Why, yes. I’m quite pleased with the turn of events. The winner has great potential if I can say so myself; I’ll personally see to it.
The contest was really fun, too! We might turn it into an annual event for Halloween stories. There’s yet one to come that really knocks our socks off, the scary way!
You’re not wearing any socks, though.
*nods solemnly* Farewell then, my good man and good Keeper. I thank you for the help in my endeavors.
Alecsander and Sylvan both wave The Northern Raven goodbye, as he makes his way to his new home.
Darkness hovers over me as i sit, watching. Shadows hover around me, cast ever darker in the new night. I hear them, the demons –watching me. Their cursed hearts beat around me, the sound digging it’s way into my brain. Thump, thump, thump, the rhythm compels me to act on black desires, sinful actions. Their evil cackling raises the hair on my neck, driving me into the corner in terror. They urge me on, voices dripping with mischief and malice. I shake, frozen to my place and yet ever more falling into the need to listen. How can i deny such beautiful sounds, evil though they are? They call to me and i am called upon to listen
Unable to fight the compulsion any more, my feet move without me. They follow the demons’ voices, still urging me to follow their ghoulish instructions. I can no longer think. Their words are my thought, their instructions my reason for existence. What has become of me? I am vaguely aware of the thing in my hand, though i am not sure what it is. I dont care. The demons tell me how to use it. I act. I shall never need to disobey.
Wet…my hands are wet. How did they get wet? I stare, blinking rather slowly as i watch the liquid drip between my fingers. It’s red, why red? “What are you doing?!” She howls. I wake to her scream, it’s ketchup between my fingers.
One day one of my friends suggest that I start to bring some of my famous chocolate cookies to my shift at the hospital to share with some of the staff and the people in the waiting room. And since I loved her idea I make sure to left a large batch of cookies ready the night before the next day shift.
In the morning, I noticed some crumbs on the kitchen floor and some cookies clearing missing. Of course, my first thought was that my sister just went to the kitchen and snatch some cookies for herself. When I talked to her, she looked at me with a confused expression and said that she didn’t eat the cookies. My sister never lied to me before, so I make a blind eye for her obvious lie.
On the same night, after I went to bed, a creaking noise coming from the kitchen woke me up. I thought it was my little sis taking the cookies again, and then I decided to scare her as payback for her lie.
But the last thing that I expected when I turned the kitchen light on was to see some of the floorboard missing and a pale skinny kid munching on some cookies while holding what looked like a human skull.
“These cookies are delicious miss, reminds me of the ones my mom usually did for me, before she went to sleep one day and never wake up again.”
There she is … she just stands there … standing …
I keep lying in my bed … listening … listening to her and the others … it feels like she’s crying, I hear her sobs.
She’s there … outside my bedroom window … looks like she’ll be in here any minute … I hear the window latch being forced.
I hear footsteps in my room, but they’re not hers … she’s still out there sobbing … “They’re coming …” that’s what I hear her say.
But she shouldn’t be there … outside the window … I live on the 17th floor and I don’t have a balcony … I shouldn’t be listening to footsteps in my room because I live alone …
“They are coming … they are here!”
It’s hot, so hot. You can feel like sticky sweat forming a layer over your skin. The hard ground is underneath you. You cannot see anything but you know that it is bright, horribly so, and even with the protection of your eyelids the sheer luminocity of it sends pains through your head. Everything is dull, almost as if your senses aren’t truely yours. You feel a tug at your chest, then a tear as your flesh rips. You can’t move, Your senses, now you realize, robbed from you. You become aware of your back, seeming to pulsate and wiggle on it’s own. You now feel small teeth tunneling through you, squirming and burrowing deeper with each passing moment. Another tear, and your urge to scream rises yet your throat doesn’t even clench up. Your stuck.
Perhaps it was simply a dream; a fleeting moment where the trees reaching branches bloomed into the crimson moon above. You cannot deny the presence you felt, the sheer amount of dominance the darkness held at your throat as you lie before the tall window. Music chants into your eardrums, the steady hum of war drums crescendo into a deafening roar of madness as a scene of true grotesque unfolds in the treeline within your sight. Bathing in the red light of the moon, twitching limbs, hundreds of eyes, starving mouths begin to form on what you can only describe as a pulsating dark blob of dark matter. It sits silently in the darkness, seemingly lifeless before it finally finds its target, you; every eye twitches to lock onto your location, claws reaching out while the mouths salivate endlessly. This eldritch horror has finally found its host, you.
Violently I thrashed awake, slightly dazed and confused by my dreams before. Having regained my senses something was amiss. It was like I had awoken surrounded by abyss. Glowing eyes stared from the darkness eerie. They made me feel weak and weary and distilled a deep fear within me. Trying to move, I found that I was trapped. Seemingly tied down whilst I had napped. Slowly he was coming near and every step filled me further with fear. Surely this was just a nightmare; this beastly being wasn’t really there. He looked like a wolf but also something more. He was a demon of that I was absolutely sure. Grasping me with his large paw, I felt the slicing of his claws and the clenching of his jaws. Shredding me to and fro, he consumed my blood flow as I felt my life let my body go.
Awoken by the mornings light, I sat up with a fright. Scared of what I shall see. I look around me. Nothing is out of place, yet my mind can retrace the memories I wish to erase. They feel like they are so real. Surely though it was just a nightmare? But the scars on my body are there. This has happened for months now, like he has a hold on me somehow. Every night against the dark are his fiery eyes like the moon glowing in the night sky.
I worked hard in life to reach my goals. Smiles of my loved ones filled me with warmth. After so long, I had made it. I opened the door to my classroom. I began to teach students. It was a fulfilling experience to watch them learn.
One day, I taught a student who didn’t seem right. They were intelligent, charismatic, and determined. A shadow of myself. Something in me ached. This student went on to achieve my dreams, but excelled. My throat was dry at their graduation. I watched them receive praises from others.
Soon they got a classroom next to mine. Students begun to buzz about them and their success. My brain felt like a sponge that soaked up too much water and my body felt heavy. They taught higher level students. The feelings inside me got worse.
Tonight, I was getting ready to leave when they entered my classroom. They asked me how I was doing since they were once my student. I asked them to sit down to talk. My feelings burned. I hesitated, but told them everything was good and I was… happy, they found so much success in life. They smiled and told me about it.
While they spoke, I choked the last words out of them. I used the strength powered by my emotions. Once they stopped struggling, I let go. The feelings in my body washed away. I left and locked the door behind me.
It was over.
“Mister!” a girl with purple hair pipes up, “Tell me a story!”
Red looks up from his novel, a startled look on his face before his lips formed a little smile.
“Three children sneaked away from their orphanage at dusk. They played around in the neighboring village ’til midnight when they went back to where their orphanage was.”
The vagabond takes a long sip of his hot chocolate.
“What happened, mister?” the girl asks, eyes boring directly into Red.
His smile widens into a mischievous smirk and turns to face her. “They burned right along with the building,” he leans in and whispers to the ghost. “We were there, remember?”
6- The hunter bags his kills, bodies strewn around the forest.
7- He’s on the road.
8- He’s prepping the meat for stew. A spasm in the muscles of a haunch in the light gives him pause, but he attributes it to tired eyes.
9- Walking through his unlit home, moonlight illuminates his path, sending shadows across the walls as they hit mounted heads, antlers, and pelts. It feels as if the dull glass eyes sparkle and follow him as he walks by…
10- Dinner is finished, and the house creaks in the wind. The hunter entertains himself listening to the whistles, but a faint hiss of the wind unnerves him… ‘greeeed…’ it sounded so clearly like a voice that it sent shivers down his spine, but he forces himself to calm, chides himself and tucks in for the night.
11- The hunter awakens from restless dreams by the sound of the back door slamming. He jumps into action, drenched in sweat and hands trembling, now fearful of the dark. Memories of his dreams are fading, replaced by adrenaline. Upon searching his home, he finds no threat. It was only the screen door slamming in the wind.